Local barbershop to host watch party for Duke’s ‘inspirational’ Isaiah Evans in Final Four
Once upon a time, Charlotte barber Brian Mack used to cut Isaiah Evans’ hair.
This was long before Evans became one of the best high school basketball players from Charlotte, or a freshman on Duke’s current Final Four team.
And it was years before Mack bought his own shop, paid for with NIL money from his son, BJ, who played on South Carolina’s 2024 NCAA Tournament team.
Mack has turned that shop, just down the street from Charlotte Douglas International Airport, into a shrine of Charlotte high school hoops, and on Saturday night, when Duke plays Houston in the national semifinals, Mack will host a watch party there, with TVs and food inside and a projector also showing the game outside.
The event — to celebrate Evans and Cabarrus County’s Caleb Foster, another Duke player — is free and open to the public.
“We want to celebrate one of our own,” said Mack, 54. “Just to be able to have a local kid (playing) that kids can relate to and show that we’re here in the community to support them and be a part of their dreams. It’s important.”
Once upon a time, Mack, a 6-foot-6 forward, had his own basketball dreams.
He might’ve been a starter on Garinger High School’s 1989 state championship team, likely headed to play Division I college basketball himself, but he was suspended academically for first semester of his senior season.
He would’ve joined the team in January of 1989 but was arrested for gun possession and drug charges just a few weeks before he would’ve started playing.
So instead of perhaps a starring role on the best basketball team in Garinger’s school history, Mack spent five years in prison.
When he got out, he tried to walk on at N.C. Central. But he was a 24-year-old freshman and felt like a fish out of water.
“I went to my mom,” Mack said, “and she asked me what I wanted to do. I told her I was thinking about cutting hair. She came and picked me up from school.”
Mack graduated barber school in 1994. He’s been cutting hair ever since, and he thinks about what he missed out on often, which is part of the reason he’s stayed close to the high school game — as a involved parent, coach or community supporter — for more than 30 years.
“It haunted me for awhile,” Mack said, “but I used it as motivation. When I was blessed to have BJ, I said I’d never let him make the same mistakes I did, to have all the these opportunities in front of you, to be amongst a great group of guys and you squander it?”
With help from his son, Mack was able to open his shop in June of 2024. He redesigned the entire place, adding a mini-jumbotron with multiple TVs in the ceiling, giving you a little bit of a feeling of being in an arena.
The walls are decorated with pictures of Charlotte high school basketball legends, from the 1980s to today. Mack said the conversations about past high school games and players flow freely — as well as the arguments about who was the best.
“We have kids from West Meck, Berry, Harding, West Charlotte, we get them all,” Mack said. “It’s always an argument about who’s best. Kids know Isaiah but we can turn to other legends like (former South Meck star) Johnny Edwards. Forty years later, his name is still being mentioned as one of the greatest ever from Charlotte, or Chris Robinson, who averaged 50 points per game in middle school. It gives kids (more) respect for a guy they see walking down the street.”
Like Evans, Mack also used to cut Duke’s Caleb Foster’s hair. When BJ Mack, the barber’s son, was playing for national high school power Oak Hill in Virginia, he would go up and cut all the Warriors’ players hair, too. Through his profession and his passion for the high school game, Mack has built many relationships and knows more NBA and college players and coaches than you’d expect.
“This is a wonderful game,” Mack said. “And this weekend we just want to celebrate our own. It just adds to the legend (of Evans) and lets a kid know that somebody from their neighborhood, somebody that was tangible to them, the heights they can reach.
“It’s inspiring to them.”
Want to go?
The Duke/Isaiah Evans watch party begins Saturday at 6 p.m. at the House of Hoops Barbershop, 2504 Little Rock Road. The event is free and food will be available. Fans are asked to bring lawn chairs for overflow outdoor seating.
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
