It’s not a stretch to say that Ty Byrd was born to play basketball at Savannah Christian.
His father, Robbie Byrd, a 1990 graduate, played basketball at SCPS. Ty’s older sisters, Sarah and Maggie, were multisport student-athletes for the Raiders, including hoops, before graduating in 2021 and 2023, respectively.
Toy Byrd was a longtime and highly successful coach of the girls' basketball team who gave birth to Ty Byrd in February of the 2007-08 season.
“My sisters’ (first words) were 'Mom' and ‘Dad’; mine was ‘ball.’ That’s what my mom told me,” said Ty Byrd, who started going to the Savannah Christian campus when he was just weeks old for daycare and continued from pre-K to kindergarten to now 12th grade.
As he approaches his 18th birthday, Ty Byrd is exactly where destiny meant him to be. The 6-foot-5, 185-pound senior is a standout in his fourth season on the varsity basketball team.
Each season, including his promotion from junior varsity to varsity as a freshman, Byrd has gotten better, as the Raiders have improved in each year under head coach Zach Darling.
“Ty Byrd has been with me all four years that I’ve been at Savannah Christian,” Darling said. “He is the heartbeat of our team. He leads us in scoring, but what makes him special on the court is how complete his game is — he can hurt you inside, step out and make plays on the perimeter, and he always makes the right basketball decision.
“More importantly, he’s an extension of our coaching staff on the floor,” Darling continued. “He holds guys accountable, pours into our younger players and sets the standard every day with his work ethic and character. He’s an unbelievable teammate and an even better young man.”
Byrd is averaging 15.2 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.4 steals, and 1.6 blocks while shooting 55.4% on two-point attempts and 34.6% from 3-point range in 17 games this season.
He increased his averages in scoring from 3.4 points as a freshman, 7.0 as a sophomore, and 13.6 as a junior. His rebounding improved from a 1.5 clip in 2022-23 to 6.0 and 8.7 over the next two seasons.
Byrd’s shooting accuracy also improved from 26% from the field as a 6-2, maybe 140-pound freshman to 26.5%, then 41.9% and 47.6% this season.
“He came in as a skinny freshman that liked to hang around the 3 (point line) and shoot outside,” Darling said. “He’s really developed into being a presence at the rim, both offensively and defensively, scoring on the offensive end and blocking shots and defending really well for us on the defensive end.
“He can still shoot it, and that’s something we love for him to do because he’s a great shooter,” the coach added. “He's definitely developed his game to have more of an inside-out presence and not just be limited to the perimeter.”
The Raiders play what Darling calls position-less basketball with players in constant motion. So Byrd can shoot and pass from all over the offensive end, down low on the block, or from the perimeter.
“… I’m like a stretch post, so I can stretch out to the wing whenever I need to,” Byrd said.
When the going gets tough
Being the tallest SCPS player, Byrd routinely finds himself matched up with the opponent’s big man. He has trained and hit the weights to put on pounds the right way, knowing that, as the son of parents each over 6-foot, he was going to be tall and have battles in the low post.
“My parents raised me to be tough and work hard doing that. Don’t care about the size of the people,” he said.
The Raiders also looked at developing and sustaining the program over the years, with Byrd recalling that players had to buy into what Darling said as a new head coach four seasons ago and trust the process.
Savannah Christian was 5-21 in 2022-23, then got better at 11-16, then 13-13 last season with an appearance in the GHSA Class A Private playoffs, to 15-3 so far this season.
“That’s our team now,” Byrd said. “When he was here my freshman year, we had to build a foundation for the coming years. We’ve gotten progressively better.”
Byrd was an eighth-grader when Darling, a former assistant coach at Westminster in Atlanta, was hired in the spring and visited the Savannah Christian campus to get to know the team. Byrd saw that the coach had “the drive to be better and make us better as players.”
Facing expectations
Byrd, who has a goal to play basketball in college, also finds plenty of motivation from his family. His mother, who now teaches mathematics at Savannah Tech, is a Camilla native who played basketball at Georgia Southern.
In addition to Ty’s older sisters, their stepsiblings, Peyton and Hallie Cromwell, are also recent graduates from SCPS who played sports.
The numbers and achievements add up to a legacy at Savannah Christian, with Ty Byrd the youngest and last in the current generation.
“Most everybody knows me, especially the older teachers who were here with my mom, with my dad,” Ty Byrd said. “They know all my siblings. Most of the teachers here taught all of my siblings, even my stepsiblings. So they all know me. They know where I come from, my family and how it is. It’s be respectful and work hard. That’s how people see my family.”
There’s an expectation and, thus, pressure to excel, both as an athlete and a student, acknowledged Ty, whose favorite subject is math. After middle school, he turned his athletic focus to one sport, which is his love. In addition to the school team, Byrd plays for an AAU club, the Richmond Hill Hurricanes.
When he was a freshman, Byrd knew he had time to develop his game. He also saw his sister, Maggie, then a senior, close out a stellar prep career that included basketball, all-state in volleyball, and two state individual championships as a high jumper on the track and field team. Maggie Byrd is now a junior on the volleyball team at Kennesaw State.
“Seeing her do that, everyone telling her how good she is, it’s always made me want to be better,” Ty Byrd said. “I’m competitive naturally. Even though it’s my sister, I want to be better than her.”
All the better channeling healthy competition between siblings into positive energy for him and the Raiders -- opposing teams beware.
“She’s in college now,” Ty said. “I don’t have any siblings that go to this school anymore, and I still have that feeling of ‘be better. Be the best Byrd to come out of this school."
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Photo Credit: Courtesy Savannah Christian Preparatory School Athletics Department
Follow the Prep Sports Report on X @PrepSav and Instagram @savannahsportsreport.
To share scores, stories, or corrections, email kdemasi@prepsportsreport.com or text 912-507-9158.
