Head football coach Adam Hastings has a lot to offer. And so does Indian Land.
Adam Hastings once coached the youngest football player to ever enroll at Notre Dame.
“Funny story about Romeo,” Hastings said, smiling under his mask on a windy afternoon last week during a football practice. The head coach, who’s beginning his first season at Indian Land on Friday, went on to tell a story about a time he forgot how young Romeo Okwara was in 2012, back when Okwara was merely a 6-foot-4, 230-pound senior defensive lineman at Ardrey Kell High School.
“When he was a senior, we were about to go to a camp, and I told Romeo just to drive to my house, and I’ll take him, and we’ll leave,” Hastings said. “And he said, ‘Coach, well, I don’t have my license yet.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Coach, I’m 15.’ ”
Okwara now plays for the Detroit Lions. His younger brother, Julian, was also coached by Hastings. Julian also went to Notre Dame and also landed on the Lions’ roster. The brothers are two of four Hastings players to play for the Fighting Irish — and two of many more Hastings kids to play FBS football.
“I’ve been blessed with guys in the NFL, but not just that, good people,” Hastings told The Herald. “It just warms my heart to think about the players I’ve had the chance to (coach), and to be a part of their story.”
It’s clear that Hastings brings a lot to Indian Land: He has a winning reputation, one cultivated over the past decade in the Charlotte area. He spent five years at the head coaching helm of Providence Day, where his team won an NCISSA Division II state championship this past season and finished runner-up for a NCISSA Division I state title in 2017. Before that, he was at Ardrey Kell for five years and put together three winning seasons.
He also has deep college football connections. Just this past season, he sent two Providence Day defensive linemen to Power 5 schools. Jacolbe Cowen is at Ohio State, and Kedrick Bingley-Jones is at UNC.
“As long as you want to play college football, he’ll get you to wherever you want to go,” Indian Land junior linebacker Dumkele Idehen said. “If you want to play, you’re going to play, whether that’s D2, D3, D1. If you want to play college football, he’ll get you there.”
For as much as Hastings brings, though, he also acknowledges that taking up the mantle at Indian Land High — a school with new sports facilities on the way, and one that’s surrounded by an emerging destination just south of the Carolinas border — has given him more than just another coaching position.
It’s given him a compelling opportunity.
“To be honest with you, the school reminded me a lot of Ardrey Kell when I first got there, just with the growth,” Hastings said. “You know, Ardrey Kell grew and you had people who grew up in the Ballantyne, South Charlotte area, and then you had people moving in across the United States. And that was such a fun experience for me.
“I look at that, and I see how much US-521 is growing … Those kinds of things for me as a coach make me realize that there’s a really bright future in Indian Land.”
Indian Land High School’s recent growth
Census data show that there were an estimated 28,886 Indian Land residents in 2018. This figure marked a 63% population increase from the 2010 census, and it identified Indian Land as the second-largest municipality among those in York County, Chester County and Lancaster County (behind Rock Hill).
This uptick in growth over the years has affected the area’s high school: In 2016, voters approved a bond that kick-started construction on a new Indian Land High School campus, one that included a two-story main building, a two-story career center and a 17,500-square-foot athletic fieldhouse. (The project was supposed to be completed this summer, but complications caused by COVID-19 and bad weather delayed construction. The Lancaster County School District said in a statement to The Lancaster News four months ago that it “believe(s) the class of 2021 will graduate from the new high school but will not begin in the new high school for the upcoming school year.”)
Also, of course, the growth impacted the area’s high school football team.
In 2010, Indian Land competed in the South Carolina High School League’s 2A. The Warriors went 9-2 that year, competing against teams like Buford and Blacksburg, Whitmire and McBee.
In 2016, the program moved up to 3A. In 2020, it moved up to 4A.
And before the pandemic impacted this year’s fall sports schedule, the Indian Land football team was slated to play four consecutive 5A opponents.
It’s only natural to think that Indian Land’s plans for a new school and a new football stadium boosted Hastings’ desire to come to Lancaster County. But it didn’t at all, the coach said.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t really know about the new school until quite a bit into the actual process of myself and them talking,” Hastings said. “That was very much a big surprise for me. And just seeing where the facilities are and what they’re going to look like, it’s exciting. I know it’s going to be exciting for our kids to be able to dress and practice and play (there).”
Indian Land football before Hastings
Indian Land hasn’t put together a winning football season since 2015, when the team went 7-4. From 2000 to 2016, the Warriors were led by longtime coach Michael Mayer, who resigned before the 2017 season. He was then succeeded by his defensive coordinator, Horatio Blades.
Blades, a former standout at the University of Pittsburgh who spent five years in the NFL, coached Indian Land from 2017-20, leading the program to no winning seasons but three state playoff berths and a second-round appearance in 2018. He resigned at the end of last season to pursue master’s and doctorate degrees in special education while remaining a teacher at the high school.
In Blades’ last season, the Warriors hung tough with some of the better teams in the area. Injuries against Nation Ford forced them to resort to their third-string quarterback before eventually losing late last September. And the Warriors were a final-play field-goal kick away from a win over Chester, but the kick was blocked and the game thus ended in a 51-50 loss.
“It proves that once we want to win, we can win,” Idehen said. “Once we put our mind to winning the game, we can get after it. We just gotta come together as a team.”
A month after Blades resigned, Hastings was hired. The Citadel alum visited with the team in February and hosted a few lifting sessions before the coronavirus pandemic shut in-person school activities down in the spring, Idehen said.
And then the team was his.
Indian Land football to return key pieces
The 2020 Warriors are led by an experienced coaching staff — a panel of over a dozen coaches that includes two former Charlotte-area head coaches, Nick Mata (West Meck) and Rocky White (South Meck).
On offense, the team will be led by returning quarterback Blake Goode. The junior, despite missing several games due to an injury, proved his worth last season. In his breakout performance against Chester, he went 29-of-46 passing for 560 yards and six touchdowns.
Goode will be protected by three offensive linemen with starting experience at Indian Land — Reid Hayden, Jack Beachum and Michael Csuhta — and will have plenty of talent around him with senior running back TJ Thomas and receivers Miegwel Lewis, Jeremiah Strickland, Sean McCray and others.
On defense, Hastings said he will expect a lot from his linebacking corps: Some of the older guys of this group include Idehen, Anthony Rodriguez, Jon Vaschak and Foster Lambert. Some seniors on the defensive line include Chris Cruz, Desmond Ivey, Jonah Jupiter and Mauricio Moreno, and the defensive backfield is likely also going to be deep for the Warriors. (During Friday’s scrimmage against Nation Ford, safety Drew Hardin was the first Warrior to wear the “Big Play Chain” after he forced an interception, per Twitter, and defensive back Caleb Gleason also got a chance to don it after he intercepted a pass of his own. Freshman running back Jaden Singletary got to wear it, too, after cranking out a 70-yard touchdown run.)
Come Friday, those players will kick off the 2020 season — and Hastings will begin his tenure at his new home.
“It’s not about the brick, or the type of grass, or the field — it’s about the people around,” Hastings said. “And that’s what I’ve always valued. We had really good kids at PD (Providence Day), and I’ve been really excited and blessed to be around these kids here. It’s such a blessing.”
2020 Indian Land football schedule
Sept. 25: York (away)
Oct. 2: Mid-Carolina (away)
Oct. 9: South Pointe (home)
Oct. 16: Catawba Ridge (home)
Oct. 23: Lancaster (away)
Oct. 30: Marlboro County (away)
Nov. 6: Andrew Jackson (home)
Editor’s note: This story is one of 15 high school football previews The Herald will run prior to the first game of the regular season on Sept. 25. Look out for the next one to appear at heraldonline.com later this week.
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 8:02 AM with the headline "Head football coach Adam Hastings has a lot to offer. And so does Indian Land.."
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