Why I became fascinated by Garinger’s football team, which hadn’t won in 6 years

Note: A documentary on Garinger High School’s season is available above and on YouTube.

When I started working as a multimedia journalist for The Charlotte Observer in 2024, among other things, I was excited to contribute to our local prep sports coverage — to revisit some of the high schools where my childhood friends and I played sports.

What surprised me, though, was where my assignments kept taking me.

I was interviewing all-American football player David Sanders at Providence Day. Speaking with the son of former NBA and UNC star Antawn Jamison, who is forging his own basketball legacy at Myers Park, and helping with the Observer’s Christmas tradition of honoring high school football players of the year. It was always some huge success story. “Will we ever go to West Mecklenburg?” I finally asked, referring to my high school alma mater.

The reality is, with so many schools, we generally focus on those with a recent record of major achievements. It’s tough to predict when a major upset is going to happen.

I flashed back to walking into those nationally ranked schools, their halls crammed with trophies. Parents from the opposing team would arrive, sure of a win, with flowers, balloons, and cupcakes for their star players — though anyone could feel like a star against a team as uncompetitive as ours. Even their benchwarmers would get plenty of playing time against us. Once, seeing trash thrown from the stands — a banana peel, plastic box, dirty napkins — I felt shocked and humiliated.

I’m not sure who was more unfortunate: us, getting mercy-ruled, losing 9-0 by halftime, or the kids who had nothing better to do than to make fun of us after school. So often, I felt that we had lost the game before the whistle even blew.

This is how I decided to do this multimedia project on the Garinger High School football team.

The Wildcats had become a punchline in Charlotte. Six years without a single win. For players, coaches, parents and alumni at the games, it was just Friday night after Friday night of looking at the scoreboard only to see the team trailing, again, of heading home afterward with heads hung low, again.

On our first day of shooting in April, we asked then-junior and soon-to-be-captain Robert Shealey, “In and around the city, what do they say about Garinger?” He replied, “They say we’re trash.” I could almost immediately feel tears welling up in my eyes. I know what that feels like, I thought to myself. I know what being on a high school team with a long history of failure can do to a young person’s self-esteem.

During the last football practice of the preseason, Garinger athletic trainer Yanis Torres explained how the negative perception of the football team had affected these kids in particular, on the field. She used to be a Garinger student herself, and recalled that it’d been a while since anyone was excited for a Wildcat game. Yet she beamed when she told me the boys hadn’t complained much at all in the preseason. This year, she could tell, the young men wanted to be tough. To show up and show out for their coach, Jupiter Wilson, a part-time Southern preacher who referred to each young man as a miracle, a wonder, and proof of God’s infinite power.

And on Aug. 22, Garinger finally did it.

By some miracle, perhaps. But absolutely with toughness — and with authority, scoring almost more points in the first half of its game against Winston-Salem Prep Academy than it had managed to rack up during the entire previous season, to snap their 48-game losing streak.

This project, to me, has lots to say about courage, perseverance, commitment, and dignity. But above all else, I hope it makes you think differently about what it means to be a winner and a loser.

This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 5:15 AM.