New CMS athletic director on losing her child, caring for yours and high school recruiting
First-year Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools athletic director Ericia Turner says there is a reason why she takes her job so seriously.
She knows what it’s like to a be parent and to place her child’s well-being into someone else’s hands.
“My child died in daycare,” Turner said, “so that means my child died in someone else’s care. Every day there’s hundreds of thousands of people’s children in my care and literally every decision I make can be life or death.”
Last August, Turner was named as the third consecutive female system athletic director for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the first African American. Her first full year ended earlier this month.
Turner replaced Sue Doran, who retired. Doran followed longtime athletic director Vicki Hamilton.
Prior to her new role, Turner had been principal at Rocky River High since 2016. In her career, she’s also been a school system athletic director in Burlington; she’s been an assistant principal and single school athletic director. She coached basketball at Mallard Creek and played at North Carolina and N.C. A&T after emerging as one of the state’s top recruits out of Bandys High School.
“I’ve worn a lot of hats,” Turner said.
Now, she has put on perhaps the biggest hat of her career, running athletics in one of the nation’s biggest school systems. The Charlotte district has long faced accusations of players in school out of their geographic zones and too much oversight, among other issues.
Under her watch, three Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have had to forfeit their football seasons due to ineligible players and a star football player is facing a ruling that would force him to miss his senior season.
“I told Ericia that she would be perfect for the job,” former Garinger athletic director Tony Huggins said. “She laughed at me. She said, ‘Why?’ She checks all the boxes. She’s been a coach. She’s even coached high school football. She’s been an athletic director, a principal. And Ericia’s integrity will not allow her to overlook things and turn her back on something she knows is not right for kids.
“The hardest part of her doing her job is that it’s killing her because she knows she is hurting kids because adults are putting kids in situations of this cheating, and for her to do the right thing, it’s hurting kids. For kids to have to sit out 365 (days) is killing her. She’s hoping adults will do the right thing.”
Turner is notoriously media-shy, but agreed to sit down with The Observer for an extended interview. Some responses are edited for clarity and brevity.
Langston Wertz Jr.: In your first year on the job, you’ve been very visible around town at games and following teams to state playoffs and state championships. Why is that so important to you?
Ericia Turner: It’s important so people know who I am. I try to hit two games per day. I try to stay to halftime so people will see me and have access. When it comes to dealing with other people’s children, it’s important for people to know I’m available to you, because every decision I make impacts the life of a child.
LW: You lost one of your sons when he was very young. What happened?
ET: The daycare provider had to call me to let me know my son wasn’t breathing. I don’t want to make that call to a parent, that somebody’s child is hurt under my watch. I want to create that culture of caring because I know what it’s like to have to have your child in somebody’s else care. Three weeks after he passed, his twin had to go back into that same daycare. I have to say (the daycare provider) didn’t do anything wrong. He died in his sleep of (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). I had to (send his twin brother back), not only for me, but for her to know, ‘I trust you.’ And so, these parents do that for us every day, they trust us, and that’s something I do not take lightly.
LW: When your child passed away in May 2000, did you think of leaving teaching and coaching?
ET: When I lost my son, I was at Parkland (High, in Winston-Salem) and I was coaching basketball. It was May 2 and I wasn’t going back to work. How could I go back and teach other people’s children and in my mind I couldn’t take care of my own child, even though it wasn’t my fault? As a mother, you start questioning. I was grieving. That was my thought process.
I received a letter from one of my basketball players. This lady was a sophomore at the time. She was class of 2002. That kept me going. It let me know I was making a difference, and when I first became principal at Rocky River in 2016, she emailed me and she was a third-grade teacher in CMS and she talked about the impact that I had in her life. I remember that.
LW: How did that make you feel then, and now?
ET: So I get to thinking about student-athletes that I did coach, that it wasn’t about wins and losses. They’re doctors, dentists, physical therapists. It makes me feel great because I feel like I had a little bit to do (with it). When you’re planting seeds, you don’t really see them come to fruition all the time, but now I’m seeing it in real life.
LW: You talk about accountability a lot. Tell us your philosophy behind that.
ET: Two words that I told the (CMS school) ADs when I had my first meeting that I wanted them to think about: Image and integrity. Image is what people think you are. Integrity is what you really are. And the third word of that is accountability. It takes courage to hold people accountable. And if you’re in a leadership position, it’s my job to hold people accountable to do the right thing. It’s important that I make sure expectations are known, and it’s important that I follow through on what I say I’m going to do.
LW: Let’s talk about recruiting. Like most counties in North Carolina, Mecklenburg gets its fair share of accusations and this year, several teams and players have paid a steep price.
ET: The problem now is we’re all trying to circumvent the system to make it fit our needs. That’s not everybody’s needs. This is high school. This is not college. It’s so much bigger than wins and losses. We get stuck on the wins and losses, but there are so many things we’re trying to teach our kids outside the competition, right?
If it wasn’t for athletics, I wouldn’t be sitting with you today, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with wins and losses. And I’ll tell my story. When I played in high school, I won two state championships. I was at Bandys High School and we had 700-800 students and every young lady on that team lived in the Bandys’ attendance zone. We didn’t have to move. (North) Carolina (Tar Heels) found me in Sherrills Ford. If you’re good, they’re gonna find talent.
LW: What do you think it’ll take to get the eligibility issues under control here?
ET: All it takes is one. When you find out, or when it becomes known, or I catch somebody or I get proof you have done that, and your child has to sit 365 (days), that’s going to start a trickle-down effect, right? I know when I moved into this position, it already started a conversation.
LW: Coaches and ADs have long complained about too much ‘red tape’ from CMS downtown. What’s your feeling about that?
ET: This is what I tell people: People don’t want to be micromanaged until they want to be micromanaged. Accountability is hard. What I’ve experienced is people want to make their own decisions until they don’t want to be held accountable for something, and then they want the district to make the decision. It doesn’t work like that. You can’t pick and choose when you want to make decisions.
LW: And what is your management style?
ET: I’m not a micromanager because there are too many moving parts in this office and this district is too big. If you have some issues or concerns, or if you don’t know how to make that decision, I am coming to your school and we’re going to sit down and we’re going to process it together. The good thing is, I’ve had experience as a principal, so I can help the principal. I’ve had experience as an assistant principal. I’ve been a coach. I’ve been a teacher. I check all the boxes. So I can come and process that with you and you don’t have to be afraid to make a decision.
At this job, I have athletics, graduation, health, PE and driver’s ed. It’s important that I do my job well and nothing falls through the cracks. This is a calling in my life and in my other life I’m a minister so my faith is very important and I believe that leading well is a spiritual act of worship. It’s a calling and I don’t take that lightly (Turner is a third-year associate minister at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Hickory).
LW: Switching up, tell us about when you coached football and what effect that had on your career and philosophy.
ET: When I put my resume in front of people, that’s what stands out. Parkland beat Crest for the state championship that year I coached and I remember after the game, little girls running up asking for my autograph. It’s kind of funny to me. But then to know people are watching me. Girls and ladies that look like me are watching. So they know if she can do it, a small country girl from Sherrill Ford, NC, they can do it, too.
At Rocky River, I got principal of the year last year and I would get random emails from females across the district, saying, ‘Hey I’ve been watching you from afar.’ That’s scary in one aspect because, I’m like, ‘What did you see?’ It also keeps me humble and keeps me professional and keeps me grounded when I’m out in public because somebody’s watching. Somebody knows who I am. I don’t always know who everybody else is. That’s good and bad.
LW: How long do you see yourself in this job?
ET: I always equate it to the opening pitcher and the closing pitcher in baseball. I will set that foundation, but once I get to the point that I’ve done all I can do and it’s time for me to do something different, it’s time for the closing pitcher to come in. That’s the story of my life. I’ll leave it better than I found it.
I want people to know I put kids first and I did what’s best for kids. I’m not a politically correct person. I kind of say stuff sometimes, but I know what I’m called to do and certain things will not deter me from that.
LW: Last question, do you feel you’re misunderstood?
ET: People have their stereotypes. I think when they see a strong black woman, it’s ‘She’s aggressive. She’s forceful.’ And maybe they do misunderstand me, but that’s not my problem. I’m not going to change who I am. I’m passionate and I’m real about what I do. I don’t hide from anything. You’re going to make up your mind about me either way. I am passionate about anything that has to do with kids, and accountability is big for me, but I start with myself first, holding myself to do what’s right — because I gotta sleep well at night.
This story was originally published June 27, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
