Charlotte Kickoff Night moves to new site, brings familiar, powerhouse teams

When Butler, Hough, Charlotte Christian and Sun Valley kick off the high school football season in August, the teams will look drastically different than they did a year ago.

The four are part of the seventh annual Charlotte Kickoff Classic on Thursday, Aug. 22. The event, the night before most teams start the season, is moving from Memorial Stadium in uptown Charlotte to the 4,100-seat Matthews SportsPlex.

Christian and Sun Valley will kick off the doubleheader at 5 p.m., followed by Hough and Butler at 8 p.m.

“This is the best thing in the world for us,” Butler coach Brian Hales said. “It gives us something to focus on, and the kids know they’re going to have a big match-up in front of a lot of people with a lot of eyes on them. That will focus them to step up or get passed by.”

As with the other teams, Butler will be working in a new quarterback. Senior Christian Peters has graduated. Ditto at Hough, Christian and Sun Valley, which are losing the best quarterbacks each school has had.

Hough QB Kennique Bonner-Steward was the I-MECK 4A offensive player of the year last season. He’s now at Temple. Charlotte Christian’s Garrett Shrader was a two-time CISAA player of the year. He’s now at Mississippi State. And Sun Valley’s Sam Howell was named N.C. Gatorade player of the year. He’s now at North Carolina.

Howell was part of a big senior class. Spartans coach Tad Baucom said he’ll return six starters.

“We’re starting from the ground up,” Baucom said.

At Charlotte Christian, coach Jason Estep thinks his program — which has won three state titles in the past five seasons — is in a pretty good place.

“I look at the landscape of private school football now and I feel pretty confident that in the city, even though we have to replace a lot, that we’ll be really competitive ... If we’ve done one thing well in our program, we’ve changed the culture that (a state title) is the expectation. It’s not the goal.”

At Hough, Jenkins starts his third year in August. He’s won a combined 22 games in his first two, overseeing a program that’s hunting a eighth straight winning season. Jenkins said there’s no better way to start a year that than to play a quality opponent like Butler, which has won three state crowns in the past 10 years.

“It lets you know right where you’re at,” Jenkins said. “We’re excited about the opportunity. They have talent up and down the board.”

This story was originally published May 13, 2019 at 1:42 PM.