Northern Guilford High School Athletic Director Darrell Force said today in an exclusive one-on-one interview that:
“We are spread very thin”.
“I don’t know how these kids do it”.
“This has been tougher than we thought but we are going to make it”.
The Nighthawks AD told us that NGHS is battling travel problems, practice and game headaches and a number of other hicoughs. The JV football team has thrived under the direction of Johnny Roscoe and they sport a first-ever season record of 3-1. The only Nighthawk loss came in last week’s game at Northeast.
The Nighthawks will play their next three games under the lights at the newly renovated Armfield Athletic Center and on Herb Appenzeller Field at Guilford College. The Nighthawks will play all of their football games on the road this season and Force says they are very pleased to have the chance to be playing at Guilford where NGHS head coach Johnny Roscoe attended and played football for the Quakers back in the 1960’s. This Thursday’s game will be at 7pm against Southern Alamance. The Nighthawks try to catch the opposing teams during their open week in their schedules when at all possible.
Force tells us the boys soccer team, coached by former Grimsley leader Herk DeGraw, is playing most of their games at Page and that Pirate AD Rusty Lee has been a huge help in providing space for the Nighthawks. Force says the same thing goes for tennis and Lee is allowing NGHS to use the courts at Page, where super-star John Isner made his mark, for the Nighthawks tennis matches.
Force says the hardest part is having to bus all the players to practices and to different acitvities. “We’re sending two bus loads over to Southwest Guilford for volleyball practices this afternoon”. Force also told us that the Cross-Country team uses the Bur-Mill Park as their home course. Travel-Travel-Travel, that’s been the Nighthawks motto this year.
Right now Northern is a two-year school with only freshmen and sophomores enrolled and they won’t even enter the new NGHS buildings until January 2008. Until then, half are housed at Northwest and the other half at Northeast in modular buildings.
“We are busing students everywhere, says Force”. They go from home to NWG and to NEG and then from NEG and NWG to NGHS and then from NGHS to Page and SWG or to Guilford College…..You get the picture that this is one hard road trip but in the fall of 2008 all of the Nighthawks athletic teams will have a permanent home.
The baseball team coached by Johnny and Justin Smith will have a home at NGHS this spring and a new $10,000 scoreboard donated today by Chris Gunter. Thirty thousand dollars went into the preparation of the baseball facilities at the beginning of last spring.
You gotta believe the Northern Guilford Nighthawks are going to make it and when they do they will have earned their wings.
What does the AD have to say about the basketball coach bring players in from all over the place (out of district). What about the big freshman from another county whose dad all of a sudden got a job in maintenance at NG? I guess the AD likes the money because the coach did the same thing at HPC when they were both there. Why does the AD allow illegal recruiting? Are all the sports doing that or is it just basketball.
I was told that one kid who attended High Point Central last year and played for Coach Stan Kowaleski is now at Northern. I believe the kid’s name is Tim Frye(a soph.) and his parents moved into the NGHS district so the kid could play for Stan. The family must want the kid to play for Coach K pretty bad if they are willing to buy a house in the new district and pull up stakes and move out there just so the kid can play for K.
K is a businessman and he will not stand back and not try to put a competitive team together. If I’m not mistaken his basketball team will be playing a Varsity schedule this year and not a JV schedule. Coach K puts a lot of his own money into the program and you are right he has had success.
We will keep on checking into this as the Hoops season approaches.
I start on the j.v. team for northeast guilford who is 5-0 we were northerns only loss so far. They played at are house and we beat them by two touchdowns they tried to take away are pride and we let them know that money can’t good players. I dont care if they have the greatest coach in the world they will never be better than Northeast Guilford
I start for northeast we are 5-0 in j.v. people need to talk about us not those rich boys over there at northern that we crushed by 2 touchdowns.
Money cant by everything
Brandon you are correct about the great program that Coach Tommy Pursley and his staff have put together at Northeast Guilford. The NEG JV’s have only lost maybe 1 0r 2 games in the past FIVE YEARS. Northeast has a super program but what we are trying to do here is just help get Northern established as a recognized team. We are working to help put them on the map and they are on their way. NEG is 5-0 and NG is 4-1 and NEG has the edge but NEG has been around a lot longer that NGHS.
The Nighthawks are a good crowd and I’m sure they have some money backing them up but not all of the kids are rich. If I’m playing hard and the rich man wants to buy me a bicycle, then I want it because I haven’t had one before. Give the NGHS guys a chance and both schools will benefit at the gate when you get up into High School because the crowds coming to watch NEG and NGHS play are going to be HUGE.
It’s a lot like it was back in the 1970’s when Eastern Guilford took away many of the Northeast students when EG was just getting started. The same thing happened when Southwest Guilford opened and took many of the good athletes from Ragsdale. All three of the Adams brothers left Ragsdale and were moved to SWG. Calvin, Amos, and Stefan. It hurt Ragsdale but SWG and EG and even NGHS had to start somewhere so give the Nighthawks a chance as they are getting started.
NGHS vs. NEG and NGHS vs. Northwest is going to be HUGE in the future. I believe the Muhammed Kellis kid would have been going to NEG and Scarfone and Hicks would have gone to NWG.
Hang in there Brandon, and keep us up to date on how the unbeaten Rams team is doing. AD
hey yeah well i wanted to keep yall informed this week we took on the western alamance warriors at there house and beat them 39 to 0 thursday night. so now we are 7-0. and hey in the last comment when u replied back yeah i know northern is a new team but they got huge guys there who negh had on there team last year and we trained them so we should get credit for them guys and Muhammed Kellis yeah he played for the neghs middle school with me in 8th grade and all he did was punt he didnt run or nothing i know about all of them and let me tell you something else they had been rubbing it in are faces since day 1 that they were going to kill us in that game they talked so much smack every day that it wasnt even funny so i am glad we beat the mess out of them that talk to much junk.
I ‘ve played under coach K’s leadership since the summer of my sophmore year and untill last year when he left High Point Central. I can say that there is no doubt in my mind that coach K is one of the most excellent coaches around this area. Of course he is a buisness man, every other critic jus envies him for it. He treats his players as if they are a part of his family, and because of that i have the highest respect for him as well as that whole coaching staff. The fact is, all other coaches, and players who can’t be apart of whats going on, hates him for it. AND ITS NOT RIGHT. Let the guy live his life, coach, and continue to teach kids the way of a succcessful future; Whether it be basketball or not.
Amos Mobley, Senior, High Point Central, Varsity Captain
quick heads up to northern, it is against the nchsaa’s rules to have a full team practice in the spring. i know your coach is from SC where they can do that, but here in NC you can only take out 21 at a time in the spring. so announcing over the p.a. system at school that the team is practicing and everyone is expected to be there is not good for the image of obeying the rules.