Gilbert Ferrell enjoyed a stellar 38-year career as a teacher, coach, and athletic administrator. Born in Wilson, he was a graduate of Charles Coon High School there and then graduated from Atlantic Christian College. He spent the bulk of his career in Wilson County, including 20 years as head baseball coach at Wilson Fike, during…
Bradley Faircloth is one of the top officials that North Carolina has ever produced. A graduate of Greensboro Senior (now Grimsley) High School and Duke University, for almost 20 years Faircloth worked as the coordinator of football officials and chief financial officer for the Atlantic Coast Conference. But he also enjoyed an outstanding career as…
Carolyn Rogers has spent the majority of her outstanding teaching and coaching career at Perquimans High School. After graduating from Western Carolina University, she eventually wound up at Perquimans and coached there from 1972 to 2009, including 21 years as volleyball coach but also coaching cheerleading, track and field, and basketball. Her volleyball teams won…
The late Joe Hunt put together an outstanding record as a head football coach in western North Carolina. Born in Wilkes County, Hunt graduated from the old North Wilkesboro High School in 1942. Then after World War II, Joe graduated from Western Carolina in 1950 and then embarked on a highly successful career in coaching,…
Bob Catapano has made significant contributions to high school athletics in a couple of different ways, including as one of the state's best soccer coaches ever as well as serving as an outstanding athletic director. His career in North Carolina was entirely at Raleigh's Sanderson High School after he earned four varsity letters in soccer…
Tom Brown is one of the state's most successful football coaches at the high school level. A native of Pennsylvania, Brown came South to attend Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, where he earned all-conference honors in both football and baseball, and basically never left the area. He compiled a brilliant record as a head football coach,…
Alton "Tunney" Brooks compiled an impressive record as a coach in several sports, serving at Edenton Holmes and Lumberton. A graduate of Wilson's Charles Coon High and a two-sport captain at Wake Forest, Brooks coached at Holmes from 1953 to '57 and then went to Lumberton as head baseball and basketball coach and assistant football…
Harvey Brooks earned a reputation as a coaching legend in North Carolina. A graduate of Boyden High in Salisbury and then a 1959 graduate of Pfeiffer, Brooks was a head coach in a variety of sports, including football, basketball, baseball and track, over more than 40 years. His coaching stops included Norwood, South Stanly, Warrenton…
Legendary sports television anchor Tom Suiter enjoyed a tremendous career at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, and high school athletics was an integral part of it. Suiter, a native of Rocky Mount, attended Christ School in Arden and then went to Erskine College in Due West, S.C. Upon graduation from Erskine in 1971, he joined at WRAL…
The late John Morris was an outstanding coach and athletic administrator prior to his death at the age of 48. Morris graduated from Perquimans High School and then from Duke University in 1958, where he had played football and baseball. He coached football and baseball at Roxboro, posting a record in football there of 62-18-4,…
