Beau Maye, Drake’s brother, returns to Hough as youngest basketball coach in area
At 24, new Hough High boys’ basketball coach Beau Maye is one of the youngest head coaches in the state.
But Beau Maye looks at it his return to his high school alma mater as a chance to build a top program.
“I’m blessed,” said Beau Maye, a 2020 Hough graduate who comes to his alma mater after playing basketball and getting undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina. “It’s like I told our parents at our ‘parent meeting.’ I’m fresh out of college, I’m 24 and I’m back home where I grew up and coaching at the school that I went to and being around a sport that I love.’
“It’s as storybook as it gets if you ask me.”
Beau Maye thanked current principal David Farley and former athletic director Lori DeMarcus for giving him the opportunity to coach at Hough.
Now on the job, Beau Maye will seek to return the Huskies to their previous basketball glories — or when the school made eight postseason appearances in nine years from 2013 to 2021 — with a youthful roster.
Seniors Josh Slusher (6-foot-6 forward, 5.9 points, 4.7 rebounds last year) and Justin Funderburk (6-2 guard, 1.3 points and 1.7 rebounds) are returning starters, with junior Tre Ratliff (6-3 swingman, 4.0 points) and senior Beck Spear (5-9) also back from a 13-13 that lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Senior Oliver Stamey (6-4 guard), junior Christian Coleman (6-2 guard), sophomore Jaylen Byers (5-10 guard) and freshman Mason Pearsall-Brown (6-2 guard) are the top newcomers.
“Walking out there and representing this school and this community is important to me,” Beau Maye said. “I want us to go out there and play with passion and play with effort every night.
“When you play hard and pay attention to detail, you’ll win games and have success. I know there are good teams around here but there’s no excuse not to be one of the best programs, if not the best program, in the area.”
One of Beau Maye’s coaching methods will be to preach “Hough family” to his teams.
After all, he comes from one of the most prominent Charlotte sports families of all time.
His grandfather, Jerry Maye, was a pitching star for Garinger High before having a Hall of Fame career at Catawba College and spending two years in the Minnesota Twins organization.
His father, Mark Maye, was a multisport star at Independence High before playing football at North Carolina and later in the NFL for Tampa Bay and for the Raleigh Skyhawks of the old World League of American Football.
His mother, Aimee Sockwell, Maye was Mecklenburg County girls’ basketball player of the year for West Charlotte in 1988.
Older brothers Luke Maye (North Carolina basketball) and Cole Maye (Florida baseball) were NCAA champions in 2017 and Luke is playing professionally in Japan while Cole is a commercial real estate salesman in Charlotte.
And younger brother Drake Maye, a former two-sport star at Myers Park and football star at North Carolina, is in his second year in the NFL as starting quarterback for the New England Patriots.
Beau Maye has been a regular at Drake Maye’s games so far this season.
But that’ll soon be changing.
“I’ve been to seven of the first nine games,” Beau Maye said of watching his younger brother’s team. “It’s usually a flight up Sunday morning and a flight back Sunday night. It won’t be as much now that my season is picking up and my attention will be here.”