George C. Marshall High School

George C. Marshall High School
File:Marshallhs.jpg
Address
7731 Leesburg Pike Falls Church , Virginia 22043
Information
School type	Public high school
Founded	1963
School district	Fairfax County Public Schools
Principal	Jay Pearson
Staff	approximately 180
Grades	9–12
Enrollment	1,370 (2006)
Language	English
Campus	Suburban
Color(s)	Red, blue, and white ███
Mascot	Statesmen
Feeder schools	Kilmer Middle School
Rival schools	Madison High School McLean High School
Athletic conferences	Liberty District Northern Region
Website	http://www.fcps.edu/MarshallHS

George C. Marshall High School is a public school in Falls Church, Virginia and part of Fairfax County Public Schools. It is one of only two schools in the world with a high school program named after former secretary of state George C. Marshall. The other, located in Ankara, Turkey, is the George C. Marshall School, which is part of the Department of Defense Dependents Schools system and offers a first through twelfth grade curriculum. Newsweek ranked Marshall 198th in its 2006 list of the top U.S. high schools.

Academics

Marshall High School is a fully accredited high school based on the Standards of Learning tests in Virginia. The average SAT score in 2006 for Marshall was 1,613 (534 in Critical Reading, 552 in Math, and 527 in Writing). Marshall High School has a Business Academy offering specialized classes and also offers courses through the International Baccalaureate Program.

Athletics

Marshall's teams are nicknamed the Statesmen, their mascot is the griffin, and their teams play in the AAA Liberty District and Northern Region of the Virginia High School League. Marshall's enrollment however is at the AA level, but chooses to petition to play in AAA to the VHSL to maintain rivalries with local schools. If Marshall plays in Group AA in the future, they would probably be in the AA Dulles District.

In the 2005-2006 school year, the field hockey team and the boys basketball teams advanced to the AAA tournaments.

Marshall girls basketball won the Liberty District tournament back to back in 2006 and 2007.

George C Marshall High School's new school motto "Small School Big Heart" was started during what is called the Cinderella season on the 05-06 Varsity Men's Basketball who advanced to the semi finals of the state tournament.

Band

The Marshall Band program has won prestigious awards. The band as a whole is divided into two subgroups: Concert Band and Wind Ensemble. Marshall's "Marching Statesmen" have come in 1st place at multiple competitions.

Theater

Marshall High School is also home to an award-winning theater program. Under the direction of Mark Krikstan, they have won the District level competition nine years running, have advanced to the AAA State Finals of the Virginia High School League One-Act Festival eight out of the past nine years, and have won the championship five times (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007), which is the record for most wins among all Virginia high schools. There are only two other schools in the state that have won the Championship more than once, each winning it twice.

Mark Krikstan left Marshall at the end of the 2006-2007 school year and was succeeded by Valerie Karasek, who took over in autumn 2007.

Notable Alumni

• Nick Sorensen - Played safety for the St. Louis Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL
• Michael McCrary - Played defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks and Baltimore Ravens in the NFL
• Pete Schourek - MLB pitcher from 1991-1999
• Keith Lyle - Played safety for the L.A. and St. Louis Rams, Washington redskins, and San Diego Chargers in the NFL from 1994-2002

Remember the Titans

In the movie Remember the Titans (2000), the climax of the movie comes at the end of the 1971 AAA state championship football game between T.C. Williams High School and Marshall High School. The movie was dramatized from a true story about race relations in the high school football fishbowl of 1971, as the Hollywood-underdog T.C. Williams Titans took on the powerful Marshall Statesmen (coached by Ed Henry). The most notable dramatic license taken in the movie was to convert what was actually a regular-season matchup between Marshall and TC Williams into a made-for-Hollywood state championship. In reality, the Marshall game was the toughest game TC Williams played all year and the actual state championship (against Andrew Lewis High School of the Roanoke Valley) was a 27-0 blowout. The Titans actually did win the Marshall game on a fourth down play--coming from behind at the very end of the game. In addition to the added drama of the Marshall game, there were apparently some legal issues concerning the use of Andrew Lewis High School's name in the movie. The legendary Ed Henry was the head coach at Marshall for six seasons, from 1969-74, and is portrayed in the movie. In 1997, Coach Henry was inducted into the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame.