Wertz: Coach K in Chapel Hill? Country Day hiring former rival is nearly same thing
On Friday morning, Charlotte Country Day announced David Carrier as its new boys basketball head coach, and down in South Carolina, Edward Addie had to chuckle.
Addie has known Carrier for years, since Carrier coached at Providence Day, winning back-to-back state championships in the late ‘90s. One of the teams his Chargers used to regularly beat? Charlotte Country Day.
“Charlotte Country Day hiring David Carrier,” said Addie, head coach at Rock Hill’s Westminster Catawba School, “would remind me of if Carolina hired a Duke coach. Country Day and Providence Day are fierce rivals. They’re in the same conference. They’re hated rivals, really.”
And the coach at Providence Day now, Brian Field, once played for Carrier when Field was in middle school.
Field was also an assistant under Carrier before taking over the head job at Providence Day 14 years ago when Carrier left for Kerr-Vance Academy in Henderson, N.C.
“I smiled when it happened,” Addie said of the Country Day hire. “It’s unusual. But I know David Carrier is a good coach, so I can understand why.”
Charlotte Country Day is one of the state’s oldest and proudest private high schools. The school has won 136 state championships, according to its website, including 15 in football. But the boys basketball team, probably the second-most important sport on campus, has never won one.
Last season, the Bucs basketball team didn’t win a game in the Charlotte Independent Schools Athletic Association, which to the teams and fans and parents of the league is as every bit as serious as ACC basketball is to its followers.
In the major sports, I don’t think there’s a conference in North Carolina with as passionate a following as the CISAA schools. It’s certainly rare in Charlotte to see alumni from decades past attend games with no kids on the team. You see that in this league. Winning matters, and beating your rivals matters more.
And that’s part of the reason Country Day tapped Carrier, picking him from nearly 100 candidates and eight finalists. Country Day is tired of losing. In the past 15 years, the Bucs have had three winning seasons.
Carrier, on the other hand, has coached 25 years. Only one of his teams has finished with a losing record. He has won 434 games and consistently has displayed a knack for getting teams to perform better than you think they would.
Country Day swung for the fences with this one.
And it didn’t strike out.
“Everything takes time,” Carrier said of making the Bucs a consistent winner, “but I’m excited to come over there and be a part of something bigger than me. Country Day is so tradition-rich. But the only weird thing is that I was at Providence Day so long, and what would my players think?”
Carrier started calling some of his former players Thursday night. He heard plenty of shock. He heard some silence.
“Most of all,” he said, “the players told me they can’t cheer for Country Day, but they said blood is thicker than water. So I said, ‘Can you cheer for Country Day except two nights a year (when the Bucs play Providence Day)?’ They said, ‘Boom, it’s done.’ ”
So just like that, Coach K was coming to wear baby blue in Chapel Hill or Bear Bryant was going to coach at Auburn. That’s all Addie can really compare it to on the high school level.
“It’s just plain unusual,” Addie said. “But it sure will be fun to watch.”
Now, the CISAA conference that Country Day plays in has four coaches with state championships — Carrier at Country Day, Field at Providence Day, Che’ Roth at Cannon and Shonn Brown at Charlotte Christian. Charlotte Latin’s Chris Berger, generally regarded as one of the best young coaches in North Carolina, coached in the state final last season. And Covenant Day’s Marty Parrish — like Carrier, a former assistant under Greensboro Day legend Freddy Johnson — helped Covenant Day improve from three wins in 2017-18 to 17 last season.
In the past five years, the CISAA has produced a McDonald’s All-American, an NBA first-round draft pick, multiple major college recruits and multiple nationally ranked teams. There are not too many conferences in the Carolinas that have the player talent and coaching strength that this one does.
And by hiring a former rival, Country Day is ready to make a move up.
“You put our league up with anybody in the state,” Field said. “Night in, night out, you’ve got to be on your A game to compete against this level of talent and high level of coaching. Dave just adds to that.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 7:38 PM.
