Commitment fuels Harding High athletes’ 4 a.m. start and grueling daily commute
Every morning, Harding High School football players Bralen Banks and Lebron Alford wake up about 4 a.m. to begin their day.
Because they aren’t in Harding’s geographic zone, they have to find ways to get to school, which usually means a long commute on a city bus — something most Charlotte teenagers are not doing.
Banks, a senior offensive and defensive lineman, is assigned to Garinger; Alford, a junior defensive back and special teams ace, to South Mecklenburg.
But instead of going to their home schools and hopping on one of those big yellow buses, the teenagers are up early — for pre-school workouts, bag packing and breakfast — and then ride up to three different city buses to go to school at Harding.
“They’re making a huge sacrifice,” said second-year Rams football coach Terence Cunningham Jr. “And if anybody is here every day, it’s those two. They never missed a day in the spring or the summertime. We would have 8 o’clock workouts in the summer and they’re riding the (city) bus and when I’m driving in, I see them walking down the street and I’ll pick them up and bring them here.”
Cunningham was asked if a teenage version of himself would have done the same — wake up at 4 a.m. and not get home a lot of days until after 10 p.m.
He drops his head to think about the question, then looks up and smiles.
I probably would go to a closer school, to be honest.
The Harding dilemma
Last Friday, Harding played its archrival, Berry High’s Cardinals, in what’s called “The Battle of Alleghany.” The two schools sit about a block apart and share a street, not far from Uptown Charlotte, off Freedom Drive.
Harding had a four-game losing streak and Berry hadn’t won all season. But the Cardinals were up 7-0 with four minutes to go.
But after a penalty extended a drive, Daniel Carter III caught a pass from Landon Stewart to get Harding into scoring range. Jamarcus Hairston eventually scored. His two-point conversion gave Harding an 8-7 lead.
Next, the Rams stopped Berry, got the ball back and Hairston scored again. The 16-7 win ended the losing streak and was a rare feelgood moment on the field for a school that hasn’t had many.
Since 1990, Harding has had 17 head coaches and four winning seasons. The last one, in 2017 under current West Charlotte head coach Sam Greiner, delivered a state championship so improbable that CNN came to town to cover the victory celebration.
Since the 2017 state championship season, however, the Rams have struggled. The 2019 team was 6-5 under Van Smith, but there have two seasons with no wins and four different coaches.
“It’s a fight over here,” Cunningham said. “But we’re fighting. We have had some ups and downs. We just haven’t played a complete game yet. I think that’s the main thing I try to get the boys to understand. They have a lot of talent and nobody has really played at their full potential.
“We’re just trying to get to that point.”
Knowing my ‘why’
Banks and Alford are well acquainted with Harding’s athletic past, but say this is where they want to be.
Alford, who is 5-foot-7 and 145 pounds, has gone to Harding for three years, and he’s ridden that city bus for three years, too.
“It started the summer before my freshman year,” he said. “My mom works a lot and I had to find a way to get myself (to school) on time. My mom said, ‘You have to be a man.’”
Sometimes, he said he’s able to take an Uber to South Meck, his home school, and get CMS transportation to Harding, but more often than not, he’s on the city bus.
And to get to Harding, he has to go to the transportation center uptown.
“It can get rough sometimes,” he said. “I see people get arrested and I see fights go down, but most times, it’s chill. I do worry. I’m a small guy, so I see everything and I try to stay isolated.”
By the end of his day — after the wee-hour wake-up and grabbing lunch whenever he can — Alford said he’s pretty hungry by the time he gets to dinner, sometimes as late as 11 p.m.
“I do eat a little in between,” he said, “but I’m definitely hungry by the end of the day. I run a lot and exert a lot of energy. But if I’m hungry, I push through and keep fighting.”
Alford said he knows exactly why he does it, though.
“It takes genuine heart, man,” he said. “I know I’m undersized and I feel like I’ve got to work 10 times harder to get where I’m at. But it’s worth it, 100 percent, because I can help my teammates out and help the coaches. It’s worth it every single time I come here.
“I love this place.”
‘I’m a Harding man’
Banks takes two buses to get to Harding.
“I’ve been at Harding for a long time and I haven’t left,” he said. “And I don’t plan on leaving.”
Banks is 5-10, 220 pounds and doesn’t look like a typical high school lineman.
Like Alford, he’s one of approximately 9,000 teens — or about 20 percent of CMS’ 45,000 total 9-12 students — enrolled in High School Choice programs, which can accept students from anywhere inside the county.
Harding’s Law and Social Justice program is part of the School Choice initiative.
“Coming out of middle school, it was hard to ride that city bus, but it’s a part of my everyday life,” Banks said.
He said it’s still a struggle sometimes, though — mainly the food part.
After lunch, players don’t have much time after school other than to get ready for practice and hit the field.
After practice, Banks often has that long bus ride home, with a transfer in the middle. His teammates have showered, eaten and relaxed by the time he gets to his final stop and walks home in the dark.
“I get pretty hungry sometimes,” he said with a laugh. “You can ask my mom. Sometimes I come home kind of mad because I haven’t eaten and been out all day, since 4 in the morning. Yeah, it’s a lot.”
So why do it? Why not just go to Garinger, which is so much closer?
“I committed to Harding,” Banks said, “and that’s a lot to say for a school people don’t talk good about. And it’s hard to look at Harding as a positive place to be. Just being a student here, there’s been some downs but there have also been some ups. It’s good, and Harding is changing. It’s been changing me and I’ve been growing as a person here, and I’m happy to say I’m a Harding man.”
What’s tomorrow look like?
For Alford, he’s got one more year and wants to continue to get better, to hopefully get a college scholarship.
Banks is considering joining the Marines after graduation.
Their commitment has certainly left an impression on Cunningham, their coach.
After a young woman was brutally attacked and killed on Charlotte’s light rail recently, he began to arrange rides for the boys after late-night games and practices. Cunningham said assistant coach Darandis Lewis has taken over with helping get that done.
“I do worry, especially after what happened on the light rail,” Cunningham said. “But they’re good kids, man. They’re very resilient and just the way they handle getting on the bus and having a schedule, it shows a lot about their personality and character.
“I think of all of this says a lot about their commitment to the school and to me personally. They could’ve gone somewhere else, especially Bralen, this being his last year. It would’ve been easier on him and his family. So it means a lot for them to stay committed to this program and their teammates.
“It would’ve been very easy not to.”
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
