Though no team at NCSSM will ever equal the school’s 45-year undefeated run in football (if you know, you know), athletes on the school’s campuses in Durham and Morganton achieved incredible success across a number of sports during the fall athletics season, tallying five state championships, four regional championships, five conference championships, a state runner-up, and four regional runners-up. Thirty-five student athletes were recognized as all-conference in their respective sports, four were named athlete of the year, and three of NCSSM’s coaches were named coach of the year.
Ian McMichael, who leads the athletic department at NCSSM-Morganton, credits much of NCSSM’s successes on fields of play to the drive and determination characteristic of NCSSM’s students.
“There’s the old adage of ‘how you do one thing is how you do all things,’ and these students are driven to be successful in the classroom and within their community,” he says. “That certainly carries over to their athletic teams. They just enjoy competing and challenging themselves.”
Nicole Taylor is a Morganton senior from Highlands High School and a dual athlete at NCSSM in cross country and soccer. Despite the heavier academic load students carry, she says living on campus with her teammates makes it more convenient to participate on NCSSM athletics teams.
“It’s easier in a sense because we can self-organize a little bit easier. If I can’t make it to practice, I’ll be like, ‘Hey, who wants to run with me before school in the morning?’ Having that flexibility is just so nice.”
Greg Jarvis, NCSSM’s athletic director based in Durham, says NCSSM’s unique academic environment allows students to approach athletics with a mindset not always common among high school athletic programs.
“In more traditional high schools, athletics can sometimes be more of a stressor,” he says. “For us, it’s more of a stress release, I think. Kids here are far more concerned with how they did on their math test than whether or not they are gonna score 10 points in a conference basketball game, so when they don’t have that kind of stress or expectation placed on them, it kind of frees them up to play a little looser, a little freer.”
Connor Skeels is a Durham senior from Rocky Mount High School. Since ninth grade he has been a three-sport athlete on school-based golf, soccer, and swim teams. Nothing, he says, compares to the athletic experiences he’s had at NCSSM.
“There is a bond and a level of care that people have here for each other that I’ve never personally been a part of anywhere else,” he says. “We love each other and would fight for each other and I think it stems from just knowing that we all have so much to do outside of athletics, and so it’s kind of like our free zone to escape from everything else and just to support each other.”
While athletic trophies and banners may never equal the number of academic scholarships earned by NCSSM’s graduates, there are enough on display to make clear that teams squaring off against the Dragons and Unicorns will be challenged. Durham has more than 40 years worth of hardware, and Morganton is already beginning to fill its trophy cases.
But it’s all a byproduct of what NCSSM is truly out to achieve.
“Our students are involved in a lot of activities, which we encourage and love to see, and we’re happy that we are able to provide students with opportunities to be part of competitive athletic programs,” McMichael says. “But in the end, the goal of our athletics program is to create environments where students strive to improve themselves, and where they’re learning essential life lessons of resiliency, teamwork, and commitment. We’re here to support our students’ growth beyond athletics.”
Still, it’s nice to win, Skeels says. “It feels good to prove to people who think we’re the ‘nerd school’ that we’re more than just all academics.”
Robin Beets contributed research for this story.
