Weddington’s double threat: Why Shipley brothers strike fear in area football rivals

In the 2017 high school football season, Charlotte Catholic had to play Weddington twice en route to winning the state title. The teams played once in the regular season and again in the third round of the N.C. 3A playoffs.

After beating Weddington 20-0 last month, Cougars coach Mike Brodowicz said he hoped history didn’t repeat itself in this season’s playoffs. Brodowicz said Weddington - ranked No. 10 in the Sweet 16 and No. 6 in the statewide 3A poll - is a talented and dangerous team.

More specifically, he says Weddington’s Will and James Shipley are talented and dangerous players. They’re also brothers.

“They play football the way it’s supposed to be played,” Brodowicz said. “They don’t trash talk. They help you up off the field, then they line up and come right back at you all over again.”

James Shipley, 17, is a two-time lacrosse state champion who committed to play in college at Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. A 5-foot-11, 180-pound senior receiver, James was a member of Weddington’s 2016 N.C. 3AA state championship football team.

This season, he has 30 catches for 366 yards and five scores. He’s averaging 31 yards on punt returns and 41 yards on kick returns. He has four touchdown returns.

Will Shipley, 16, is a 5-11, 192-pound running back who ran a 40-yard dash time of 4.4 seconds at college football camps last summer. He has scholarship offers from Arkansas, Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia, South Carolina, Wake Forest and West Virginia.

Will has 90 carries for 607 yards and eight touchdowns this season. He’s averaging 30 yards on kick returns.

“Before we played them,” Catholic’s Brodowicz said, “a coach from Tennessee visited our school and he said, ‘That No. 9 kid at Weddington (Will Shipley), he’s really good.’ And he has a great future. Two more years of playing him is going to be a chore.

“We were just trying to contain him and his brother this year. Shutting down is not a word you use with either one of them. You use ‘contain.’”

Weddington (7-1, 3-1 Southern Carolinas) plays rival Marvin Ridge (6-2, 3-1) in a big home game Friday. Both teams trail Catholic (7-1, 4-0) for first place.

James Shipley said it’s been “amazing” to play on such a good team with his brother, when both are playing leading roles.

“But I’m really proud of Will and everything he’s done,” James Shipley said. “Like most of the players here, he’s really bought into this program and we’re all fighting to be successful as a team.”

The brothers started playing together when James was in fourth grade and second-grader Will came to play on the same team. James said that Will “has always been good.”

Will said his big brother “is an absolute stud.”

“It’s been easy for me because (James has) had to go through everything before I have,” Will Shipley said. “He’s always been the leader in the brotherhood and I appreciate that.”

First-year Weddington coach Andy Capone said both brothers are “game-changers.” Both play offense and defense. They each have 24 tackles this season.

“James kinds of sets our defense in the secondary,” Capone said. “He does a great job of getting people where they need to be in coverage. Will’s a game-changer, too. He’s just a dynamic, big-time type playmaker. Everytime you get him the ball, he’s got a chance to (score). To have his size and speed at that age is pretty special.”

The Shipley’s use that same word, special, to describe this last high school football season together.

And neither wants it to end.

“Ever since we were able to recognize we’d be best friends, we’ve been best friends,” James Shipley said. “It’s cool to look across the field and see my brother on the other side and know he’s got my back and I’ve got his.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2018 at 6:27 PM.