How did Mallard Creek’s track dynasty start? The roots stretch back 20 years
Mallard Creek’s N.C. high school track dynasty may just have the CIAA basketball championship to thank.
In 2006, the league, made up of historically Black colleges, started a 14-year conference tournament run in Charlotte, and Samuel Willoughby — a former high school track All-American who also ran in college at an HBCU — came to town for the show.
And he really had a good time.
“I came to visit a friend,” Willoughby said, “and I saw this place, and I’m like, ‘OK, this is what I want to do.’”
Willoughby, who grew up in Baltimore and ran for Coppin State University in his hometown, moved to Charlotte in 2007. He got a job coaching track and teaching at West Mecklenburg High School. He stayed there until 2021, when he told Mallard Creek’s then-coach Donald Littlejohn that he was ready for a change.
“Why don’t you come and coach with me?” Littlejohn said.
And after a year as an assistant coach under Littlejohn in 2021, Willoughby has helped transform an already good program at Mallard Creek into an elite one. Littlejohn, now the head football coach at Butler, led the Mavericks’ boys to the 2015 state championship and made them a near-annual regional or state championship contender.
Willoughby, given access to the same deep pool of talent, has led the Mavericks to the past two NCHSAA indoor and outdoor state championships. Saturday, the Mavericks will try to make it three in row.
“It’s just hard work and the culture we set,” Willoughby said Monday. “It’s a combination of things. It’s culture, talent, the coaching, the support of parents. I know a lot of schools have the same thing, but I guess our training is different.”
Full-time big coach, big time results
Before Willoughby got to Mallard Creek, the school had pretty much always drafted a football coach, like Littlejohn, to coach the boys’ track team. The girls, led by coach Antoine Sanders, won the 2026 indoor state title and have long been a regional power.
But when Willoughby was hired at Mallard Creek, the boys’ team then had a full-time track coach, too. The Mavericks’ athletes said that it has made a big difference.
“It starts with the coaches,” said senior Mason Kelley, who won individual event state titles on Mallard Creek relay teams last season. “They pour into us every day, and we have a multitude of coaches — sprint coaches, distances, hurdles — so we each get individual attention and time to work and perfect our craft. And also it’s the competitiveness. There are so many greats have come through Creek, that’s it’s almost the standard now.”
The latest Mallard Creek star is senior Nyan Brown, who has signed with N.C. State.
Brown won the 300-meter hurdles state title last season and was second in the 110-hurdles to then-senior Chey Johnson of Pfafftown’s Reagan High School.
Currently, Brown ranks No. 2 nationally in the 400-meter hurdles. He ran a time of 51.72 seconds last month at the Wavelight All-American classic in South Carolina. He won by more than three seconds. Brown is than half a second behind the national leader in the event this season — Keenan Davis from Washington, DC’s Archbishop Carroll (51.46).
Willoughby thinks Brown, who wants to study kinesiology in Raleigh, is tracking to part of a U.S. Olympic team one day.
“I think I recognized pretty early that I was fast,” Brown said. “I went to hurdles in high school, and it’s been really good for me.”
Mallard Creek’s relay kings
In addition to his two hurdles events at states this week, Brown will run on Mallard Creek’s signature 1,600-meter relay team — which includes Kelley, Josiah Vaden and Roderick Orr.
That quartet won regionals last week by two seconds, even though Brown noticeably slowed down at the end while running anchor, his lead safely out of reach of everyone chasing him.
As a team, Mallard Creek won the regionals by 21 points (the girls won by 73), but there were some shockwaves when Durham’s Jordan High had a big early lead.
“There’s big-time pressure here,” Willoughby said. “Like the athletes expect it, the parents expect it. At the beginning of the school year, they’re already talking about the budget for (state championship) rings. I’m like, ‘Hey guys, we’ve got to win first.’ But they’re talking about, ‘The banquet’s gonna cost this much.’ And, ‘The rings are gonna cost this much.’”
High expectations for Mallard Creek track
It’s probably hard for Mallard Creek parents and fans to not have big expectations of Willoughby and his team.
Consider:
- Mallard Creek won three of four relay events in the 2025 state championships, including a third-straight title in the 1,600 relay.
- Mallard Creek won the overall team state championship by 31 points last season.
- Mallard Creek won the indoor championship a few months ago, beating Jordan by nine.
- And last week, the Mavericks won the 8A Western Regional championship by 21 points, again over Jordan.
“The pressure is huge,” Willoughby said. “Like even last Friday, the look on everyone’s faces when they kept checking the score at regionals. Jordan was ahead by a lot of points at the beginning of the meet and everyone is looking like, ‘Are are going to win?’”
Enjoying coaching
Willoughby seems to enjoy the environment he’s helped create, however. At 55, he figures he’ll coach another five years.
He doesn’t plan to slow down.
Neither do his athletes. They really, really, want to get a third straight set of state title rings this week.
“Three in a row? It would be a very big deal,” said Kelley, whose large cascade of hair, built by six years of no haircuts, flowed through the air as he spoke. “But I almost feel like that’s the standard now.”
NC state track championships
The state’s public and private school state championships begin Wednesday. The schedule:
NCHSAA 2A/4A: Wednesday at N.C. A&T
NCHSAA 1A/3A: Thursday at N.C. A&T
NCHSAA 5A/7A: Friday at N.C. A&T
NCHSAA 6A/8A: Saturday at N.C. A&T
NCISAA Division I: Friday-Saturday at Forsyth Country Day
NCISAA Division II: Friday-Saturday at Raleigh Ravenscroft
NCISAA Division III: Friday at Wingate University
