Thanks PoolDoc, I was an engineer years ago but in I.T. now. That experience definitely came in handy the last few years as we designed and built our home.

This pic alone should lay it out:

At the shallow end of the pool the retaining wall will be about 9' tall.

We did have an initial consult with an engineer who has been doing commercial and residential pool design work around Atl for many years. He definitely seemed knowledgeable and recommended 1' thick wall with heavily supplemented rebar. That seems like a good design but was curious to hear if anyone had worked it out a different way successfully. I was even wondering about drilling into the wall footing and joining the pool wall concrete to it with rebar.

Thanks for the advice, I may try the other forum as well.