Langston’s mailbag: Community donations help Vance High girls get state title rings
When Vance High School lost in the state high school football championship game in December 2018, Cougars athletic director Carlos Richardson felt some small sense of relief.
He was not happy that his team lost 9-7 to Wake Forest in the snow at Duke University. But being really close to winning the school’s first football state title made Richardson think about one thing: the cost of the championship rings.
“That was my biggest issue,” he said. “I knew we would win, sooner or later. We’d been knocking on the door for five or six years, so I knew it was coming. But after we lost in the finals that first time, I realized if we won, I wasn’t prepared. I’m not saying I’m glad we lost, but I just didn’t know where I’d get this money.”
Before the 2019 season, Richardson spoke to athletic directors at schools that had won state titles, like Mallard Creek, to get suggestions on how to pay for rings that can easily cost $300 or more.
“This year,” Richardson said, “we were better prepared.”
And that’s a good thing. Vance won state championships in football and girls basketball in the 2019-20 school year. Before that happened, Richardson started every preseason parent meeting with the same message: “If you win a state championship, the rings are not a school expense.”
The football rings, he said, were more than $40,000. Half of that came from community donations.
The girls rings were more than $11,000, or about $350 each for the whole team. The players fundraised and collected about $5,000. University City Partners, the Vance booster club and a big Cougars fan, Curtis Hayes — who also helped out the football team — also made donations, Richardson said.
The school was still short, however, as it neared a payment deadline Friday.
The Charlotte Panthers Track Club, a local youth organization, stepped forward with a final donation of $2,000 to get the Cougars past the finish line after hearing about the need. The Cougars’ players will get their rings in a drive-by pick up ceremony Saturday at 1 p.m.
Each player and coach will get a ring, two championship T-shirts, a hoodie and a personalized ring box made out cherry wood.
“It’s worrisome,” Richardson said of paying for the hardware, “and we’re so thankful to our community. Parents don’t think about the cost. They say, ‘You can’t do it? The district doesn’t pick it up?’ No, they don’t.”
Q. Langston, will “Riding With Recruits,” return? Jacob P.
I’m glad you enjoy the series. I enjoy doing them. If you didn’t know, Riding With Recruits is a video series where we take out a high school recruit in the car and have more of a chat than an interview. And to answer your question, yes, Riding will come back, hopefully later in this school year. We just can’t do it during the pandemic, or at least at this point in it.
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Q. Can sports come back, like now? — Jake S.
Jake, I share your desire. As a sportswriter and lover of (most) sports, I miss it dearly. I want to go to practice and games and write about athletes and share their stories. Good news? We’ve got some pro sports back and more on the way. College football appears to be ready to begin.
Private school sports will kick off early next month, and the public schools return in November. So we’re going to get the high school sports we want, just a little later. Meantime, let’s wear our masks and social distance and keep the virus trends going in the right direction.
Q. What can I do to get recruited in a pandemic — Taekwon P.
There are few coaches in the area who are better in recruiting than former Ardrey Kell and Providence Day coach Adam Hastings. Hastings is now at Indian Land High in South Carolina, but he’s still full of advice, so I asked him your question.
“These circumstances are totally different than, well, forever,” Hastings said. “Some (colleges are) playing football, some schools aren’t. I would find schools not playing, those are schools being the most active recruiting in the fall. Reach out to them. If I was a high school player in North Carolina not playing, the best thing you can do is find different ways to film yourself doing things you would do at a college camp or combine. Film those and put that on Hudl and send directly to the colleges.
“I believe in light harassment: email and call often, and understand they can’t respond back to you. And the one thing I always tell our guys is if you had a (college) coach reach out to you, let your coach know, so he can work through that college coach. It’s about finding creative ways to help promote guys.”
Q. Best way to get exposure in high school — Nicolas C.
Back to Hastings here.
“No one likes to recruit a guy who is not a leader on their team,” he said. “So many schools I talk to go, ‘Is he a leader? Is he a captain?’ They know if he’s not, in the college locker room, he’ll get exposed. And you’ve got to be able to show you can play more than one position. (Penn State coach) James Franklin told me that (Giants running back) Saquon Barkley was recruited to play defensive end, outside linebacker or running back. They had no idea what he would best at.
“So play multiple positions, and you have to really work with your high school coach to make sure they’re constantly reaching out to college coaches for you. Camps and combines are good, but your film has to speak. I’ve been in (Duke coach David) Cutcliffe’s office and I’ve seen him talk about a player and say, ‘We can’t recruit this kid’ because of who he likes or follows on social media. They scour the social media. There’s companies that colleges use that use metrics to look at a kid’s social media. What is this kid favoring or liking or writing that we need to be concerned about? So market yourself on social media like you’re trying to get a TV or a shoe contract. Your Twitter needs to be about marketing you or your team.”
Q. High school is becoming the same as NCAA basketball with recruiting. Kids who love the game and work their whole lives wanting to play high school and represent their school get cast aside by players who change schools more than they change their underwear. How about entertaining the idea of making transfers sit out a year and develop some “school spirit?” Then, we can look into holding coaches accountable and not allow them to stack the deck at the expense of hard-working kids. — Jason C.
This has long been an issue, particularly at private schools, where some of the kids that are lifers and start in elementary school and play junior ball and middle school ball, get to high school and sometimes sit when more talented players transfer in. I think there is recruiting going on but I think just as often, if not more, parents are seeking out the best opportunities for their child. If you’re a high school coach and LeBron transfers in, you’re going to play him.
The transfer rule is in place for kids who transfer into NCHSAA non-boarding parochial schools like Charlotte Catholic, but to apply it more broadly, public and private schools would have to vote for it. I don’t see that happening, however.
Q. Will the “Serve For The Cure” volleyball tournament be held this year? Ellen K.
The 19th annual event, which raises money for breast cancer research, is scheduled for Oct. 3 at Sports Connection in Ballantyne. Organizers had received sanctioning from the NCHSAA and were planning a competitive team tournament with public and private school teams. There was going to be pool play and a tournament champion for the first time.
COVID-19 ruined those plans. NCHSAA teams won’t start practice until Nov. 4. So this year’s event will be a 4-on-4 tournament which will have indoor and beach divisions, still on Oct. 3.
▪ Tournament founder Suzie Pignetti will be inducted into the Charlotte Latin Athletic Hall of Fame. The ceremony will be held next spring.
Q. How will CMS determine who can attend games if full capacity is not allowed this fall? Has the district considered this? David K.
CMS athletic director Sue Doran: “Not a lot yet, because I think we’re going to have to wait to see what those (virus) numbers might be, because in our minds we might hope it’s this (many) people, but that (many) is not going to fit within the boundaries of what the state allows us to let into our facilities. We’re going to wait and see where those numbers land, and then I want to work with our athletic directors at the school to get their thoughts on who are the most important people that need to be in that gym, first and foremost. But until we know what that number is, it’s hard to plan for that.”
