West Charlotte’s Sam Greiner is The Observer’s boys’ coach of the year

Sam Greiner grew up a suburban kid.

Motorists might remember seeing a horse in the pasture in front of a ranch home on Idlewild Road several years ago.

That was the Greiners’ residence.

He played football at Butler High.

So how did this suburban kid wind up the architect of state championship football teams at two of Charlotte’s inner-city schools?

“It just works for my personality,” said Greiner, who coached West Charlotte to the 3A state football championship last season — eight years after doing the same thing at Harding University High.

Greiner, who has revived the football program at historic West Charlotte, is The Charlotte Observer’s boys’ coach of the year for 2024-25.

3 things to know

Three things about Greiner.

He’s a faith-filled person, he’s patient, and he believes family is most important.

Oh, and he said he was gifted with the ability to get a good read on teen boys.

“There’s one gift that God gave me,” Greiner said. “It’s discernment. I can see what a kid has.”

“So,” he added, “my job is to find what a kid has – and bring that out of him.”

He said the starting point for him and the other West Charlotte coaches is finding student-athletes’ gifts.

“Then it’s a matter of bringing it out in each of them,” he said.

Sometimes, the job takes a little time.

More often than not over the past 30 years, West Charlotte was an athletic power. The Lions were highly successful in the 1990s under head coach Tommy Knotts and again in the early 2000’s with Maurice Flowers at the helm.

Then the West Charlotte community, which has produced some of Charlotte’s leading citizens over the years, suffered through a cold spell, compiling a 31-77 record over 10 seasons.

The Lions turned to Greiner in 2021, but the initial results weren’t so good. West Charlotte finished 0-11.

“But I knew we could change things,” he said. “The prestige of West Charlotte is different. We worked, and things changed.”

His 2022 team went 7-5, then 9-4 in 2023 before last fall’s 13-2 season that ended with a 14-7 victory over Fayetteville’s Seventy-First in the 3A championship contest.

“There are always challenges with this job,” Greiner said. “A lot of things have to come together to win.”

“But,” he added, “we finally became a team down the stretch. The players developed a vision of what it would take to win it all.”

Greiner is competitive. He and his wife Connie were among top finishers in the first few legs of CBS-TV’s “Amazing Race” before the 2020 season was curtailed by COVID. When filming of the show resumed, Connie was pregnant with Elijah, and the Greiners couldn’t finish the event.

A ‘true’ foundation

But above all, he deeply values family ties.

“Our foundation is true,” he said of his family, which also includes Braheem, 25, Charli Belles, 12, Journi Faith, 10, and Elijah Rock, 3.

He and his wife adopted Braheem in 2016, while Sam was coach at Harding. Braheem became a standout on the team, but Greiner is most proud of what happened afterwards.

“He graduated from West Point and is working as an engineer now,” Greiner said. “That is what really makes us proud.”

He tries to involve his children in as much of the coaching activities as possible but said the long hours that he and Connie (who works in retail) work puts pressure on Gigi.

Gigi would be his mother, Kitty.

“Mom might be my biggest supporter,” he said. “She always has been.”

Kitty Greiner said her son loves what he is doing.

“He really enjoys having a role in young people’s lives,” she said. “He wants to see them all succeed.”

Greiner said he and his wife make time for some family nights.

“Whenever possible, we enjoy our evenings together,” he said. “We love each other. Our lives are busy, but we support one another through everything.”

Greiner said his faith and family are what ground him.

“If I didn’t have that foundation, I wouldn’t be able to get through all the clutter,” he said.