‘Football coach’ Aubrey Hollifield leads Shelby boys basketball to the 2AA state final

Aubrey Hollifield coaches boys basketball at Shelby High, but his college sport was football. He lettered four years as a Wake Forest linebacker for Bill Dooley from 1988 to 1991.

His older son, Dax Hollifield, played basketball for him, but now he is a Virginia Tech linebacker. The 6-1, 232-pound junior has made 19 consecutive starts for the Hokies since he broke into the starting lineup midway through his freshman season in 2018.

His younger son, Jack Hollifield, a junior starting forward on Shelby’s basketball team, is following in his father’s and brothers’ footsteps. The 6-3, 230-pound linebacker has offers throughout the ACC, including North Carolina and N.C. State, as well as Michigan of the Big Ten, South Carolina and Tennessee of the SEC and Stanford of the Pac-12.

Another basketball starter, Isaiah Bess (6-4, 185), was Shelby’s quarterback and is committed to play the fall sport at Charleston Southern. Shelby’s point guard, JaHari Mitchell (6-0, 165), is committed to Mars Hill University as a wide receiver.

But that’s not all.

Shelby’s basketball roster is packed with 10 football players who helped the Golden Lions win the N.C. High School Athletic Association 2A West Region title, earning a state final berth. Shelby (26-3) faces 2A East champion Farmville Central (29-2) at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Smith Center on the North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.

Shouldn’t Aubrey Hollifield be a football coach?

Hollifield chuckles at the memory of how the patriarch of a football family ended up a basketball coach.

“I was tricked into it,” he said earlier this week while appearing at the NCHSAA basketball championship news conference.

Upon graduation, he returned home to his high school alma mater, Kings Mountain, for his first job as a physical education teacher and assistant football coach. As basketball season came around, the JV basketball coach asked Hollifield to help him with the team.

“I think he knew he was going to get out,” Hollifield said. “He left halfway through the season. Even though that first game for me went 90 miles per hour, I loved it. I stuck with it.”

He explained basketball was always his first love, even though he recognized football was his college future — same as his sons.

“They played basketball like the old man,” he said. “They’re decent high school basketball players and really good football players. They love basketball, even though they were built for football.”

Hollifield later moved on from Kings Mountain to A.L. Brown in Kannapolis before he landed at Shelby. But throughout his coaching career, including track and field, he has emphasized to his athletes value of playing multi-sports despite this age of specialization.

“I always tell our football players you can’t get better offseason footwork or conditioning than you can get playing basketball,” he said.

But that doesn’t mean Shelby has been plowing through the basketball season like football bulls in a china shop.

“Our kids are very skilled and also very tough,” said Hollifield, who was an assistant on Shelby’s 2019 state football champion. “They don’t quit. I imagine they fancied themselves as basketball players first, but they realized later their football future.”

There also has been enough depth to overcome the loss to injury of a starting guard, junior Elijah Borders (5-6, 125).

The other starters are senior guard Deshaun Chrisopther (6-1, 165) and junior guard Tyler Arrington (5-10, 155). They went for 23 and 20 points in the regional final, respectively.

Farmville Central has a size advantage on Shelby, even though the Jaguars are a guard-oriented offense.

Junior Leontae Moye (6-7, 195) contributed 15 points and 10 rebounds in the Jaguars’ East Regional final. Senior guard Samage Teel (6-2, 175) scored 19 points with five assists, senior point guard Justin Wright (6-1, 195) added 15 points and junior guard Terquavion Smith (6-3, 160) contributed 11.

“We’re not as big as them,” Hollifield said, “but we’re not runts.”

Runts don’t advance to a state final.