Coach Michael Twichell Interview

 A Conversation with Coach Michael Twichell

“It’s ready. I’m ready.” Those words happened to be some of the final ones Coach Michael Twichell generously contributed to this conversation. A conversation covering his life and career in athletics from the very beginning to the present day. The “present day” I speak of happened to be mere weeks from the official start of yet another season as West Craven High School’s head football coach. In what will be his 10th as the program’s leader, Coach Twichell clearly stated his view of the 2025-26 team. “I’m excited about this year’s team, very excited about this year’s team.” he said. “I think this team- it’ll be one 20 years from now, I think we’ll still talk about this team. It’ll be in high regard. I’m excited to get back out there and get these guys rolling.”

Fresh off of a family vacation, Twichell stated, “I went to mow the stadium this morning and mowed the practice field.” To him, the task was a fresh reminder of the fast-approaching new season. Reflecting on it, along with what the end of his vacation represents, he stated, “It’s here.” 

Since taking the reins as the leader of West Craven’s football program, Coach Twichell has fostered the program back to a trajectory that aligns well with its storied history. The consistent levels of success, including 5 conference championships in the past 9 seasons, are a prime example of this. What stands out the most, however, is the nonnegotiable representation of class and character for those in the program. Twichell has become a living example of these high standards and carries his belief in each of them with everything he does. I am certain this is evident in the life and career story he shared with me, which I am very grateful to have the opportunity to share with you. 

MB: Starting from the beginning, where were you born and raised and what was that environment like for you in those early years?

MT: I was born in New Bern, but I grew up in Oriental. My mom and dad lived right on Broad Street, Main Street, whatever you want to call it in Oriental. The parade went right by our front steps, man.

MB: The Croaker Festival!

MT: Yep. I’ve seen about all of those and man, it was a great place. A great place to grow up, a great place to be a kid. I mean, just had a lot of freedom. You know what I mean? Early nineties, riding bikes. I had an excellent childhood and I don’t think I’d want to have grown up anywhere else other than where I did. 

MB: That’s a special place over there, but what role did sports have in those early years?

MT: Man, I played everything growing up. We didn’t really have tackle football in Pamlico County in those days but I played baseball, played basketball, played flag football for a few years as a kid. You know, we had a good little league there and a good rec league and teams. I was fortunate enough to grow up with some really good athletes. It was really competitive in everything. Everything was competitive. It was well organized and well run. I didn’t realize at that time how blessed I was to have the youth sports that I did growing up, you know? Obviously my dad, he coached a lot of us growing up. But it was good, man. I had a lot of good memories and a lot of good people I grew up playing sports with. So, it was fun.

MB: You mentioned your dad there. He was a teacher and coach for Pamlico County Schools from 1973 up until 2012?

MT: Yeah, there was a little bit of a gap in there, but you’re spot on. He taught in Pamlico County Schools and had something to do with things there in that time frame. He was the head football coach from ‘73 to ‘89. Athletic director, head football coach, baseball coach at sometime during that. He got back into coaching, started coaching softball in 2003, so he coached girl’s softball in Pamlico from ‘03 to to 2012. They played in the state championship game in 2011. It’s funny because that’s a long time to be somewhere. My sister and I, we were born in his late thirties and I never really played for him other than little league and him coaching me through youth sports. I actually got to coach with him at the very beginning of my career, which was unique because he coached the parents of some of my friends I grew up with, and they had a completely different “Coach Twichell” than what my friends, and my sister, grew up with forty years later. So, that’s just always fun to hear those stories.

Dad was a special person, man. He did a lot and didn’t ask for anything. He just did it. Whatever needed to be done, he was that kind of guy. He was going to raise the bar himself. A self-motivated guy who took sports and made an impact in the community for over forty years. That’s probably what he’s most known for, that community. Just how he made people feel. How he treated people. How he used academic-based athletics to improve a community. He passed away in 2019. 

I was at Toyota of New Bern passing out Eagle Club letters and his quarterback from ‘83 ran out wanting to talk to me, telling me stories about Pamlico football in ‘83. It’s fun. Like I said, dad had a big impact on me and my sister. Even a lot of our friends, growing up. 

MB: In that high school age range, for you, I came across a couple of articles about your all-area and all-conference selections as a football player in the early 2000s. Did football take precedence over playing baseball at the catcher position?

MT: Yeah it did, man. I think at Pamlico County, at that time, I was very fortunate to play on some good teams. Nine wins my sophomore year, I think we were 9-4. Freshman year I think we won 10 or 11 games. Junior year we won 11 games. In my senior year we played in the eastern finals. My last high school football game was in Dowdy-Ficklin Stadium in the eastern finals versus Wallace-Rose Hill. I played with some special athletes there. We had some really good coaches. Steve Hardy, who’s still coaching at New Bern High School, was our baseball coach there. Greg Peele, he was our head football coach. I had a blast, man. 

I was fortunate enough to be all-conference two years and all-area two years. We won a couple of football conference championships, won a baseball conference championship. Man, we had some really good teams. There was a group of us that came through there, our sophomore and junior year, depending on that grade you were in, that team, the ‘03 baseball at Pamlico, we were kind of a young team and caught fire late in the year, but we knocked off the number one seed Williamston. They had been in the state championship game for like two or three years in a row in 1A and we beat them in the first round of the playoffs there. That kind of triggered like a 37-5 record over the next forty something games. Steve Hardy could probably tell you better than I could. But it was a special run that we had, it really was. A really good run.

 Football was good, we were kind of expected to win a conference championship there at that time. We had some tough luck in the playoffs but we made a run in my senior year and lost to a really good Wallace-Rose Hill team. They had the NFL player Nate Irving on it. He played at NC State and played five or six years in the league. Man, it was good football. I didn’t realize how good it was until I got into coaching. I didn’t realize how special of a group I played with, just from a talent standpoint. At that time, being honest with you, we probably had 3A talent on a 1A team. That group I came up with had multiple college players in it. Guys that were capable and athletic enough to play in college. So, it was a good time to be a Hurricane in the early 2000s. 

MB: I’m sure that brought out a big crowd! You mention playing multiple sports there and from your experience doing that, do you see a benefit in younger two sport athletes, as opposed to specializing in one? 

MT: I think the most beneficial thing to it is that it forces you to be coached by different people. I think that’s a skill that’s lost a little bit. Having as many men or women impact your life in a positive manner is irreplaceable. I think that, more than anything in athletics, if it’s done correctly and the message is the same, that’s where the biggest impact can be made. 

You can get into the scientific side of it with risk of injury and all those things. One sport athletes, when you’re training the body the same way and with the same movements, you can get some overuse injuries. You see it in baseball probably more than anything, with the Tommie John surgery and things like that. That’s probably the number one overuse injury that we probably see in amateur sports right now. I think, too, you’re seeing guys go to one sport too early, in my opinion. We have three guys playing in the ACC right now. All three were three sport athletes. All three of those guys also continued to work on their craft in football throughout the year. I think that’s one thing that probably gets lost when you look at those guys is, yes, they were three sport athletes but they also train in a specific sport twelve months out of the year. I’m not saying everyday twelve months out of the year, but they did do some extra. I think that’s how I argue that point. You’ll hear, “I need to train, I need to go create elite skills in this one sport.” Yeah, but you also need to develop your whole self as an athlete and as a person. I think that’s more important than just going and playing one sport.

MB: Aside from being coached by different people, being on a team with different people is beneficial.

MT: Yeah, because they’re all different and they all have their perks. How we coach football at West Craven and the atmosphere of that team is just different than maybe the baseball culture. Not that any of them are bad or one’s better than the other. It’s just that sport requires a different mindset, requires a different focus and set of skills to be successful at it. They’re all different in their own right. If you can do more of them, you’re probably a well-rounded person.  

MB: Moving past Pamlico County and into your college years, what was your experience like at that next level and the overall adjustment to life outside of that special place you had been accustomed to for 18 years up to that point?

MT: I went and played baseball at Methodist University from 2005-2009. So I played the 2006, ‘07, ‘08, and ‘09 season at Methodist University for hall of fame coach, Tom Austin. He just retired last week and won over thirteen hundred baseball games in an over 40 year career at Methodist. I didn’t know how important that was going to be, standing here now talking to you. It wasn’t scholarship baseball. It wasn’t playing in front of five, six, eight thousand like you see some nights at NC State or Carolina. But it was the right place for me. At that time, I didn’t really know anything other than education and ball. I mean, both my parents were teachers. My mom was an elementary school teacher for thirty-seven or thirty-eight years. Dad had a forty-year career in education. I didn’t really know anything else, man. It was just kind of what my family did. 

I went to Methodist, which was a big jump for me, from playing 1A baseball in eastern North Carolina, on a good 1A baseball team in a good 1A conference at the time, but it’s not 4A baseball in Charlotte, it’s not J.H. Rose or Conley, you know. It was different, from a population standpoint. So getting to Methodist, it was a jump for me, to be honest with you, on the field. But Methodist is a special place, man. It filled like sixteen varsity sports at that time. It was a “big” little place, I guess, for a kid from Oriental. It’s on the north side of Fayetteville, a beautiful campus, great teachers, but for what I wanted to do, it was a perfect fit from the time I got there. I had a really, really good baseball coach, who ended up being a hall of fame baseball coach. I had really good teachers in the physical education department. A guy named John Herring came in about the time I got there and I don’t know that there’s a better P.E. teacher in North Carolina than John Herring. Great guy, great teacher. I was one hundred percent ready to teach when I left there in 2009. I can’t say enough good things about Methodist University and my time there. It was a great place for me. 

MB: How early on was it that you decided you wanted to follow that example your parents set in the education field and work in that environment yourself? 

MT: Man, I didn’t really know anything else. It was just what I was accustomed to. I loved playing sports and never really got tired of playing. It just seemed like the natural thing for me to do. I enjoyed it. I liked being at the ball field. I liked being around athletes. For me at that time, I probably had my eyes set on being a baseball coach. Especially coming out of my college baseball career, you know. I learned a ton about baseball there, playing for Tom Austin. A unique experience for me, I was a DH [designated hitter] most of my career, so I’m sitting in the dugout, except for when I walk up to hit. Well, I just kind of naturally gravitated towards where the coaches were in the dugout. So I got to hear Tom Austin coach from the dugout, make comments, and reflect on the game for four years. I probably learned more baseball sitting like three, four people down from him in the dugout than most people do going to clinics for ten years. So, that was an opportunity that, at the time, I didn’t appreciate as much as I do now, but I just kind of fell into it, man.

I ended up doing my student teaching in 2009 at Terry Sanford High School. At that time, Jake Thomas, who I did my student teaching with, he’s the current head football coach at Cape Fear High School in Cumberland County. Wayne Inman was the head coach at Terry Sanford and he was an All-American at East Carolina. The offensive coordinator on that team was a guy named Bryan Till who’s the head coach at Union Pines High School now. In 2009, Terry Sanford had the number one 4A team in the east. I got to be around those guys everyday in the fall of 2009 in the classroom. I wasn’t on the coaching staff, but I got to see Jake and those guys coach high level football for about four months. I got to go with Bryan Till, about two periods a day into the weight room, which was Jake’s planning period. So I didn’t really have a whole lot to plan, even though I was teaching. I was kind of going off what he had, but I got to go watch Bryan in the weight room and that probably motivated me more early in my coaching career, being around those three guys who, at that time, just showed me the right way in how to do things. I reflect back on that experience and think, am I doing it to that standard? So, that was another time where I just felt like I was so fortunate to have the people around me, there with Tom Austin and those guys when I did my student teaching. Being able to watch them at a high level, it impacted me a ton. It’s probably what got me back into wanting to coach high school football and not just being a baseball guy. 

MB: When you wrapped up your college years, did you immediately go back to Pamlico County?

MT: I graduated in the fall of 2009 and at that time I actually interviewed at West Craven one time prior to 2015. I think it was maybe the spring of 2010. I wasn’t the right fit at that time, for what they were looking for. Then I interviewed at Southside High School and didn’t get a job there. So, I ended up going back and wasn’t doing any teaching during the spring of 2010, just went back and helped my former high school baseball coach, Steve Hardy. I helped him that spring. Pat Whitford was the football coach at Pamlico. Well, unbeknownst to me, this is a one hundred percent true story, Pat had an opportunity to go to Havelock and Pat ended up going to Havelock late in the summer of 2010. He left so late that Pamlico County didn’t have any choice other than to hire me. I’m talking about the middle of July in 2010, Coach Whitford left, gave me a really good recommendation. They hired me in the summer of 2010 and I was the head varsity baseball coach at 23-years-old. I was the defensive coordinator of varsity football at 23-years-old. I was the assistant athletic director under Earl Sadler, who was another absolute blessing in my career. All at 23 years old and I had no business with any of those titles. Knowledge wise, I was probably fine in baseball, because of who I played for in college. But 23 is 23, man. You know, I made a lot of mistakes early. I was fortunate enough to be around really, really good people. Allen Woodard was the head varsity coach there at Pamlico in 2010 and 2011. Jerry Baldwin, who my dad hired in ‘86 to be the baseball coach. He’s been a longtime coach there at Pamlico, he was the offensive coordinator that year, it was his last year teaching and coaching. Those guys had coached me growing up and they were really good to me. I’ll be honest with you, at that time it was probably where I needed to be. I needed to be around those men. I needed to be around Earl Sadler, who was the basketball coach and AD there at that time. I mean, just really good men to work with as a young man stepping into education and coaching. 

We kind of struggled, man, there were some ups and downs. We were okay, but I tell people all the time, I was 23-24-years-old with way more responsibility than I deserved. In the end, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Flash forward, I’m 25 in the fall of 2012, we were one week out from the season in July. Allen Woolard had a heart attack, he was fine and everything was good, but medically he couldn’t be the boy’s football coach. So, I got tagged interim head coach at 25 years old. I asked my dad to help me and had some guys to help me and I had a super young team … super young team. We hired Kevin Yost to help me that year. Doug Smith, who played in the NFL for about 9 years and played for my dad in  ‘83, ‘84 and ‘85. We had some guys and I look back on it now and absolutely laugh, man. I absolutely laugh. Man, you had no idea what you were doing. But I tell you this, we had a young team, a group I grew up with. We started a bunch of freshmen and sophomores, and they were great kids. To this day, I keep in touch with a lot of that group from 2012. But I remember, we were sitting there during a game and we’re struggling. We won 1 game that year. We’re struggling and I remember I asked my dad, I said “Dad, what do I need to do?” and through the headset he told me, “Mike, if you’re going to be a good football coach, you’re going to have to be a better football coach. You’re going to have to go learn from, talk to, and sit down with some good football coaches. Because right now you’re not good enough at coaching this sport to have a good team.” Well, I have never forgotten that and he said it with the most love that you could have with a brutally honest statement.

That off-season Kevin Yost became the head football coach at Pamlico and I went back to being the defensive coordinator. I did what Dad told me to do. At that time, Coach Whitford was at Havelock and I was fortunate enough, when they made those 3 state title runs, that I got to be on the sideline around some of that. Just being around it, you get to see it done a little better than what you’re used to doing. You get to see it at a high level again. Which was kind of  a first for me to see it done at that level. I kind of befriended Caleb King, who was the defensive coordinator on those staffs and I befriended Steven Lovick, who was the defensive coordinator at New Bern at the time. Those guys just kind of helped me with the basics. I think just studying the game, we started making a jump. I copied and pasted what Coach [Jim Bob] Bryant was doing in the weight room at Havelock and that probably made the biggest jump for us at Pamlico County into the ‘13 season when we won 9 games and went to the 3rd round of the playoffs, then winning 10 games the next year. That team probably should have played in a state championship game. The flu hit us in the second round, we had 5 starters out with the flu and probably our best player got hurt in the 1st round of the playoffs, so we sputtered there at the end but were a really good 1A football team. 

I look back on those 5 years at Pamlico County to start my career and I wouldn’t change it for anything. Those ‘13-’14 years, I grew up with that crowd, but a lot of that was- I met my wife, Karen in 2013. Her coming into my life- her and Parker coming into my life, and us getting married in 2014. Man, that probably changed me more than anything in a positive way. She’s always supported me at the highest of anything. Whatever I needed to do, she saw the value in it. It’s irreplaceable because I know some coaches that don’t have that and having her come into my life and just being able to figure it out there at 26-27-years-old, I really feel like it was a turning point of my teaching and coaching career, really.

MB: As your coaching life was evolving, your personal one was doing the same thing. In closing out those years at Pamlico, what was the decision process like towards the back end of it at the end of the 2014-15 year?

MT: Yeah, I had some opportunities. I had some things on the table. Jim Bob Bryant had actually called in like January because Caleb King was leaving ‘14. He took the head coach job at East Carteret. But I had already heard rumors of some things happening at West Craven and obviously Karen and I were engaged and getting married in ‘14, so Vanceboro was where we wanted to be. With her family being here and us going to Vanceboro Global Methodist Church. There were a lot of guys I was working with that I would see and would do a lot of things off the field, and outside of school with. So I felt like it was a really good place for me and the stars kind of aligned. I looked at that crowd that I left at Pamlico, it was a really really good football team. It had nothing to do with anything that those guys weren’t capable of, the administration, or anything. Pamlico County was a great place to work and was a great place when I left it. I just felt like right now I think I’m where I’m where I’m supposed to be, right now. Everything worked out where I got hired in late spring of 2015 at West Craven.

MB: Going into that new environment as both a coach and a teacher, how did you go about earning the trust of a new set of students and athletes that you were there to help lead on a daily basis?

MT: Well, it was really good- I thought in 2015 at West Craven High School, I thought we were doing it right. As right as we could do it. I think the stars aligned a little bit. I don’t think Matt Riggsbee gets enough credit for the resurgence and the turnaround of West Craven football. I don’t think he gets what he probably should get on it. Matt was a really good football coach. He did a really good job of turning West Craven football around in 2015. He had a really good staff. Clay had come back and Todd McMillen was still there, myself, Justin Morris, Bobby Cox. We had a ton of West Craven men coaching that team and I think that’s super important to West Craven High School. We had a principal change. It was Randy St. Clair’s first year and there were a lot of things behind the scenes that probably were different. But I thought in 2015, man I don’t know that anybody’s done it better than we did some things in 2015. As far as the school, the halls were different. I mean, you were there, it was kind of the model, in my opinion. 

So that season was, to me, a dream. I was the offensive line coach and I was in the weight room with the primary varsity athletic boys class. There were football, baseball, basketball guys in there, and varsity male athletes in that class. That was huge because I thought that’s where we shifted the culture a lot. I just thought I was able to be a spark at that time. I really didn’t have a ton of responsibility, I was the offensive line coach, helping in the weight room. I was still kind of the young guy, I had a lot of energy, and I think it was the right combination. We had a really talented team that year, had a really good baseball team that year, and basketball- I mean, we won a lot of championships, conference championships, in that stretch there, ‘15, ‘16, ‘17. It was fun. That ‘15 year was fun.  

MB: You made a good point. Just that whole atmosphere, everything from the halls being painted, the pep rallies, things like that. 

MT: People don’t understand. I’m not throwing anyone in particular under the bus. That year, with the teachers that were in that building and the administration in that building, it was everybody that was there, to me it was the most “right” way that I have seen it in my career. We can’t talk about the time since, or later, it’s not that we aren’t doing it great now, but if you’re going to talk about that year, it was special 

MB: Just the entire student body seemed to be unified. Even those senior guys would look after a freshman, like myself, and be an example that was positive.

MT: It was a great group of kids, man, that senior class, the junior class. At that time we were big, too! We were bumping 1,000 students. The halls were full, as you remember. Then we opened the year with 4, 5, 6 straight wins in football. It was going really well, as you know. 

MB: Even beating New Bern for the first time since ‘08.

MT: That was huge. The way we did it, too. Coming back in the second half. Down 16-0 at the half and by the beginning of the fourth quarter we were up. We scored fast, had a kick return, punt return for a touchdown and man I remember it like it was yesterday. 

MB: Towards the beginning of that spring semester, in early 2016, tragedy struck the entire student body, school and community at large with the tragic death of two beloved student-athletes, C.J. Elliot and Isaiah Yates. 

MT: Man, that’s still- I remember getting that call. We got sent home from the snow. Those guys were going to workout together in Greenville and hit the ice. But man, I still, to this day, often reference the type of people they were and how they were liked by their peers, their teachers, their coaches, just from doing things the right way. They were just good kids, kids that you want to coach. They were guys that you win with, but guys that you win off the field with. They were just great people and they could be successful at anything that they wanted to do, you know? I’ll tell you, the impact they had on our football program and our community, everybody thinks of C.J. and Isaiah. They just think about the good in those guys and how they did things the right way. I hope they always have a place in West Craven football. I think they should. I think they are the example in which we’re striving to be.

MB: Moving forward after that tough time, how did you continue to set the example of that stoic leadership needed to finish out that year? 

MT: Coach Riggsbee, he was still at the helm when that happened. I thought he did a tremendous job getting our program back. I thought Randy St. Clair did a really great job of getting our school through that. I thought both of those men were class acts through that. I thought it really united our school. That junior class, Shaundre Mims and Jarred Arthur, that next ‘16 team man, there was a lot of “we’re going to do this for C.J. and Isaiah” in that team. I think everybody knew that it came from how they were. Those guys in that ‘15 class, those types of guys, you know? They flipped and turned around West Craven football. That was tough, though. I thought a lot of our success in the ‘16 season probably came from that. It was an external motivator and made that group a little more mature, focused, and maybe they appreciated life a little more. They were willing to lay it on the line a little bit. So that was special to be part of. 

MB: They turned it into a positive. Now at what point toward the end of that school year were the keys to the football program handed over to you?

MT: Yeah. Well you know, it was May. We forget that ‘16 spring was a big turning point in Craven County athletics. A lot of people- it’s almost like they’ve forgotten it, but that’s when the county quit funding athletics in Craven County and they cut coaching stipends. Matt just got a better paying job at South Johnston High School. He and Tameka, and their family moved there. So, it was late enough in the year where it was kind of similar to Pamlico County. It’s May, I’ve been with Matt and this football team, and these varsity athletes all spring in the weight room. They did it right. They opened the job up and had some really good applicants come to interview for it and I interviewed for it. You know, there were some things where I think, in the end, they put an interim title on me in 2016. I think they knew the bond I had with the kids at that time, they gravitated to me, that group especially. We spent a lot of time together in the spring. I remember walking in when Coach Riggsbee announced he was leaving, it was in the weight room during 4th period one day. He kind of walked out and I just stepped up and said, “Look, man. It doesn't matter who coaches this team. This is a good football team. We’re going to be really good regardless of who’s coaching, and I’m going to be with you, whether I’m the head coach, assistant coach, whatever.” That’s kind of how we left it one day, one Friday. A week or so later, Coach Fernandez and Mr. St. Clair came to me and said “we want you to be the head football coach of this team in 2016. We’re going to put an interim tag on you, we’ll reevaluate it at the end of the year.” I said, “No problem. I’ll do it. I got it.” 

You know, it was a special group … a special group and here we go. It was being thrown into the fire again, really. At 38-years-old now, 27 then … whew. Loved that crowd, man. For more reasons than winning football games, it was a fun group to coach. 

MB: Through the summer, leading up to that season, what was the balance of creating your own standards, unique to your coaching style and expectations, with keeping the ones that made the team successful the prior year?

MT: That team- you get a team like that early in your career, a team that talented, who played that hard and worked that hard, it can really spoil you. That team was driven, very driven. They were really talented, super competitive. Some of the practices that we were able to create were better than some of the games we played in that year. There’s still guys coaching with me that were part of that team. Coach Fitch was coaching quarterbacks on that team. Coach Jordan was there. Justin Morris was defensive coordinator. Man, that’s probably what we talk about 10, 11 years later. Just how we got that team to practice so hard and compete. Some of it was just the personalities on it, we had the right mix. But man, they worked hard enough and they were focused enough that it was an elite experience, as far as how hard we were able to practice. That’s probably what sticks out to me the most about that team. 

MB: You mentioned Coach Jordan there. As you began your head coaching tenure, obviously he had done it himself for over 30 years, what was that connection like and what was his role in helping shape the team? 

MT: I don’t think anybody understands West Craven football at the level that Clay Jordan does. Coach Jordan’s an elite offensive play-caller … elite. As good as anybody in the state. He loves West Craven football. He understands how to be successful at West Craven. Everything I do probably has a little bit of Clay Jordan in it because he’s just so wise and he’s got so much experience that you’d be a fool not to listen to it. Not that I do everything he tells me to do. You know, he’ll laugh and say I probably don’t now at 38. At 28 I did, I was all ears. To this day, like I said, he’s still with me today. He’s never going to leave, if I’ve got anything to do with it. He’s a pleasure to have there and an absolute asset for our football program.  

MB: You mentioned how that 2016 season was pretty special. There were two games from that season that stood out to me, against local rivals New Bern and Havelock. Both coincidentally had a delay in the middle of the game and yet the team was able to keep the momentum in each one. 

MT: That whole season was weather-stricken, if I remember right. My first win there at West Craven was against a really good Ayden-Grifton football team that ended up getting rained out on Friday night and we played on Saturday night. Then the next week, we go to South Central and win. The following week we go to New Bern and we get a lightning delay in that one. So then we ended up finishing that the following week, on a Monday. Labor Day. So we won that game, then we had a bye and had a few days to catch our breath. The following week we played a really, really good [D.H.] Conley with Holton Ahlers and C.J. Johnson and that was the game that year when I realized we were special. I knew we were good, but we were special. We beat them pretty handedly at home. They scored the first two possessions that they had the ball. We scored, they scored, we scored, they scored. I think we then scored 35 unanswered against a really good team. That was kind of like, “Okay, we’ve got something special here.” Each week it seemed that team- they seemed to believe in themselves more.

Our league that year, to me, was top-heavy. We had a really good Jacksonville team in it, and a really good Havelock team in it. We got to the Havelock game and I think there was a tropical storm off the coast, literally off the coast. I think it was the hurricane! A hurricane is off the coast. It’s at their place. Coach Bryant said we’re playing on Friday night. We showed up and I think we maybe played through the 1st half. We’re up 7-0 I think and the hurricane comes, man. We’re out of school for like 2 weeks. Hurricane Matthew, if I remember right, and it was just unreal. Everything around here was flooded. I remember going to the field house on a National Guard truck and getting our equipment, getting our helmets and shoulder pads, footballs, and all that stuff. We ended up practicing at the middle school because we couldn’t get to the high school because it was flooded. We were driving around, all the way around, and coming in from the New Bern side to go practice, drove all the way back around. Man, it was wild. Then somehow for that team, none of that phased them. None of it phased them. We ended up coming back and going down to Havelock on a Monday night, finished that game. The same week that we were playing Jacksonville. So you play the two best teams in the league in the same week. So we ended up pulling it out at Havelock and winning that game. Jarred Arthur had a big run in that one. P.J. Thompson had a big catch. I remember late in that game, I remember Darious Abrams, he kind of looked at Coach Jordan and it was one of those movie scene deals where “just give me the ball and we’re going to win” and that’s what we did. We just gave him the ball. He was able to get the first down so we could run the clock out. It was not a great play call in the situation, really. It was all want to and will. That night, I still have pictures of that night. I posted one the other day of that team, on that field, in that moment. It was special for that team, a lot of that team were on other young West Craven teams that struggled against some of those really good Havelock teams and that was a really good experience for that group. That group had worked hard enough to earn the right to win in a place that’s not easy to win at. 

So we went on that week and we beat Jacksonville at home and then we finished out the conference, and then ended up winning the conference championship. That was the first conference championship since 2008 that we won in ‘16. You know, I think we ended up 12-1 that year, we actually lost to Havelock at home in the 3rd round of the playoffs. One thing that was lost from that ‘16 season was quarterback, Jarred Arthur, hurting his back. I think a lot of people sitting in the stands on Friday night don’t realize how much guts he had, gutting through the back half of that year. I don’t think people really knew the type of treatments he was getting early in the week, just to be able to play on Friday nights. But, that team was special. I’d love to coach that team again, really. That’s probably one of the things I think about often, is if I could coach them at 38-years-old versus 28-years-old. I think anybody, no matter what you’re doing, reflects back on what you could do better and if you could do it again. That’s one of the teams I’d definitely like to take another swing at it with, you know? 

MB: The following year you ended up losing a lot of the production from the previous season and also turned the page and went to a new conference, even won that one and were back to back conference champions. When it came to going back to back, it was a long road to get there, starting off with some tough opponents. 

MT: People don’t realize how tough that non-conference schedule was that year. We opened up with state champion runner-up Havelock, to 4th round 4A South Central, to New Bern, and played West Carteret, who was a really good team that year, as well. But man, that year we kind of had some bad luck. Chris Campbell, probably the best returning player off the ‘16 team, tore his ACL against West Carteret in week 4. That’s life, man. You’re trying to use a sport to better a community and sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way and you get put in some situations that you don’t want to be put in. In my mind, the ‘17 and ‘18 football seasons were kind of that. If I reflect back on them there was some ability on those teams but there was some poor decision making outside of school that kind of kept us from being what we could have been on the field. I’m not knocking any particular kid, set of parents, or anybody. It’s just being honest, reflecting back on it, we had some bad luck on and off the field in the ‘17, ‘18 years. We won the conference championship in ‘17, finished 2nd in ‘18. Lost by a touchdown at home to Kinston for the ‘18 conference championship. 

MB: When you have those external factors that you mentioned, poor decisions that are out of your control, even in your leadership position, what is the mindset like to make sure you’re continuing to push forward? 

MT: I think the one thing that probably keeps you grounded is your “why” has got to be right. We don’t run our football program to win at all costs. We run our football program to be an asset to our school and our community. We want it to enhance and make better people from playing in our program. So, when things like that happen, there’s other kids on that team that learn valuable life lessons. The process of which we do things, there’s growth in those valleys and it has to be that way. We didn’t focus on the negative in those times. We focused on what we learned and there were some really good people on those teams that probably don’t need to be overshadowed for some of the negative stuff that happened. That’s kind of what I think about some of those teams. I think there were great kids on those teams and I think young guys on those teams were able to learn a tremendous amount, which I think is probably why you saw us have some success right there prior to COVID in the ‘19 season. Bounce back, win a conference championship, lose to a really good Clinton team in the 3rd round, who was flat older than we were. But that’s just kind of how I look at it, through that stretch there. Had some really good kids, had some opportunities to do some things, just off the field choices. That’s just the reality of anything, really. Whether it’s a high school football team or a business, or whatever it may be … the choices of people. 

MB: You mention that ‘19 team that included a few guys who, during my senior year, were freshmen. I’d see them around the halls and could already tell they were going to be solid athletes and overall people in general. Guys like C.J. Mims, Cazeem Moore, the following year was Brayden Manley. All three of those guys, you’ve already mentioned, are ACC D1 football players. What kind of traits do those guys have that have afforded them the opportunity to reach their full potential? 

MT: We don’t recruit, right? I’m not recruiting an hour radius to get the best football players in eastern North Carolina. We’re taking what lives inside of our school district. That’s real. So, to get those guys at the same time, and I’m going to say this, COVID was a turning point for us and our program, I felt like. I feel like, when I look at our program and how we do things, I look at it pre-COVID and post-COVID. I think COVID was a hard reset for a lot of people and a lot of things. I think the time off, there’s a lot of guys that found other things to do, in everything, not just football. To have those guys, Cazeem Moore, C.J. Mims, Brayden Manley, I could go down a list of those ‘19 sophomores, those ‘21, ‘22 graduates. To me, they changed West Craven football for the better. They did it post-COVID, they did it through COVID. I don’t know that I could have made it with a group that wasn’t a high character group like that group was. There were other guys there in that group that were super high character guys and they were fun to coach. They’d show up and give you everything they had everyday. They were super consistent. So, when I think about us post-COVID, that’s what I think about. I think about those guys. Brayden Manley probably had the biggest transformation through COVID of any kid I’ve coached. If you saw a picture of Brayden Manley pre-COVID and saw one post-COVID, he worked his tail off at a time where a lot of people weren’t doing anything. I think that timeframe was probably what’s triggered his success today. I’ve said that every time I’ve had a chance to talk about him. I’ve always referenced what he did when he had a choice. He had time. He had the time to transform his body and to build himself into a good football player and that’s what he did, as did Cazeem Moore, as did C.J. Mims. In that same time period when a lot of people said “don’t do this, don’t do that,” they had the time and they invested that time wisely. Post-COVID, how we did things really went to another level, and I thought we were better in the classroom, better in the hallway, better in the weight room, I thought we just really got back to who we wanted to be. I felt like post-COVID, I probably did my best coaching. Not to toot my own horn, man, it just refocused us on what was important. So, those guys, when I talk about them, all 3 of those guys had Ivy League football offers. When you have the grades and the character and those things, to have Ivy League academic opportunities, that tells you what kind of people they are. I think the kind of people they are far exceeds the players they are, and they’re really good players, but they’re excellent people and I think they’re a great example for who we want our guys to be and just how they go about it. I tell our guys all the time, everybody can’t play Division 1 football, but everybody can strive to be good at something. Whatever your “something” is, here’s how you do it. You know, there’s a consistency, there’s an attention to detail that’s required for you to be good at anything, and that’s what we try to focus on. That process of just bettering ourselves to whatever we’re trying to better ourselves to. 

MB: When it comes to family and career balance, obviously a lot of responsibilities as a coach, but also as a father and husband. What are some things you do to maintain that, not just in the season but even offseason, as well?

MT: I’ve always just tried to be efficient. In the season is probably harder than out of the season. I don’t think the average fan understands the hours that a coaching staff puts in at a high school. I don’t think they understand that- you see us on Thursday night for JV games, you see us on Friday night for the varsity game, but we work on Saturday, we work on Sunday throughout the season. Maybe not officially, but unofficially. There’s a lot of times on Friday nights that I may work until 1:00 in the morning doing things with film, or stats, or something, washing uniforms. I try to steal time when my kids are sleeping during the season, Jackson and Parker when he was younger. Karen obviously is a blessing in that. She gives me a tremendous amount of freedom as a spouse, to work on what needs to be worked on. But I try to take Saturdays. On Saturdays when I wake up, I may go to bed late, late Friday night, but when I get up on Saturdays with Jackson’s Pop Warner football game or whatever it may be. Saturday is kind of our day. Saturday nights, I work Saturday nights, working on film or whatever needs to be done. Go to church on Sunday morning and then Sunday afternoons we meet as a staff for a couple of hours to just kind of set the week. There’s some guys in states like Georgia, Texas, and Florida where they're the football coach. They don’t teach class. Craig Fitch has got to teach history. Hunter Hackney has got to teach science. David Lee has got to teach his class. You’ve got guys who are coaching and they’re teachers, too. I think a lot of time that’s forgotten a little bit, with maybe expectations and things- man these guys are teaching. We practice every day that we can. Labor Day we’re going to practice, Thanksgiving morning we practiced last year. But man, you’ve gotta manage it. I think learning how to be more efficient, there’s a lot of technology now we have that Coach Jordan didn’t have in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I can send film, which we do every week, I can send film and I can do it on my phone, where Coach Jordan used to have to put it in the mail or go meet somebody somewhere. I don’t have to do that anymore, so that steals some time. But I think you can work as much as you want to work. If I didn’t teach I could spend as many hours on football as I do teaching and football, if that makes sense. I could find stuff to do. I teach, too. I teach strength and conditioning and whatever they tell me to teach, and I’m going to teach it. You gotta have that balance. I think burnout is a real thing, I think learning how to be efficient and having really good coaches around me helps me be more efficient. A lot of guys have been with me for a while and work hard, so we kind of divide up duties and get things done. But if we started logging hours, we put a lot of hours into what comes out there on Friday night.

MB: On those Friday nights, how do you pace yourself with that natural adrenaline that’s there in the lead up to kickoff, to keep your composure throughout all four quarters of a long game?

MT: I think you can compartmentalize a lot of things, probably. We kind of just have a set schedule that we try to follow. We have really good community support, and would love to continue getting that community support. The community feeds our football team before the game. We go to pregame meal, then we have some meetings. So, we kind of eat up that time where you’re just not sitting around chomping at the bit. For me, just coordinating with some guys, going through scenarios with our coaching staff. Just some last minute touches, you know? Game stuff. We all have game day duties at home or on the road. By then, man, it’s more of just relax, right? Relax. You know, at a certain time when we finish our pregame meetings and kids start putting jerseys on, it’s when you kind of start getting that adrenaline rush. Getting that sense of here it comes. To me, I just go blank during a game. It has to be super quiet in a stadium for me to hear anything other than what’s going on right in front of me. There’s things that have happened on our sideline that I had no idea about, during a game. When everything starts, when I put that headset on, I’m hyper focused on what's in front of me. That’s just how I work. Those things cancel out and I’m talking to whoever I’m talking to on the headset, executing whatever we’re trying to execute on the field. But man, it’s something- I’ve probably calmed down a little, I know I have. Some of that comes from a responsibility standpoint. I can’t let my emotions cause me to make a poor decision in a game. I’ve done that as a young coach. I haven’t had a flag thrown on me since 2018. Composure to me- I’m going to try to be composed before I try to be super intense, or showing a lot of emotion. I think football has to be played with emotion. It has to be played with passion. So, I think at times you see that come out of me, but when it does, it’s really like (snaps finger) sometimes it’s on purpose. It’s like, (snaps finger) I’ve got to focus this team, focus this player, I’ve got to focus this coach, whatever it may be. It’s almost intentional. It’s done with intent and I’m done and then I’m back where I’m just focused on what’s happening in front of me. There’s a lot of things that go on through a head coach or a play caller in a high school game, they’re so detached. The good ones are so detached from what’s going on around them that they’re really just narrow-focused and I’m kind of in my own zone, I guess. 

MB: During a game I’ll sometimes see you standing off to the side, keeping to yourself for a moment or two and just kind of take it all in.

MT: Yep. For sure, and that’s just about perspective. Trying to detach, you know what I mean? Detach from a little bit of the noise. Getting down where I can just think for a second and then get back into it. That’s just something I do and sometimes I’m trying to get an angle in watching for a play or trying to get a better view of what’s going on. But a lot times I’ll detach and I’m talking to somebody and if I’m calling offense and we’re on defense, I’ll kind of walk the opposite way and get away from it for a second, get on the headset with Coach Jordan or Coach Fitch, somebody on offense and kind of formulate where we need to go from here. That’s kind of what it is, but I think every coach has their own way. You watch a lot of guys. Some of the coaches I watch, study, and think a lot of, when you watch them they’re all kind of the same. They just get this tunnel vision of what they’re doing and they’re so disciplined in what they look at and what they listen to, and they’re always under control. That’s one thing I take some pride in. I always want to be under control and when you study those guys, who you feel are elite in their craft, and they’re all kind of the same. They’re emotionally detached from what’s going on around them. The game’s a lot slower to them then maybe the 25-year-old assistant coach or the players, for sure. They’ve got a much deeper understanding of what’s going on between the lines and that’s really when it becomes fun. It’s almost like you can see stuff before it happens, as long as it’s good, it’s good. You can kind of call it now. You see stuff coming that’s not good sometimes, that’s not as fun. It’s part of maturity, you know? Getting older, having more experience.