Editor’s note: This story first appeared/was posted when the Class of 2018 was announced and has been edited and updated.
By CHRIS HOBBS
HobbsDailyReport.com
CHAPEL HILL – David Elder’s fourth Hall of Fame will be his biggest honor, he says.
Elder — who coached Hickory High’s girls to more than 400 basketball wins and the Red Tornadoes to an unbeaten season and state 3A football title in 1996 — is one of eight new selections for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) Hall of Fame.
The class will be inducted on Saturday at the Embassy Suites in Cary.
David Elder, former head coach of the girls’ basketball team and football team at Hickory High, with North Carolina High School Athletic Association Commissioner Que Tucker. He will be inducted into the NCHSAA Hall of Fame in a ceremony Saturday in Cary./NCHSAA PHOTO
Elder, a retired teacher and coach who spent 35 years at five different high schools, is already a member of county Halls of Fame in Alexander County and Catawba County and of the Lenoir-Rhyne University Hall of Fame.
As a teen, Elder played sports at Taylorsville High. He then signed and played football at LRU for the late Hanley Painter.
“I guess this would be the highest honor I’ve ever received,” Elder said during an online podcast from the NCHSAA offices in Chapel Hill.
Joining Elder in the next class are: Jim Biggerstaff of Belmont, Allen Brown of Thomasville, Bob McRae of Kings Mountain, the late Herb Sampsel of Statesville, Donnie Simpson of Elizabeth City, Dave Thomas of Goldsboro and Earl Vaughn Jr. of Fayetteville.
Elder said he was especially pleased to be going into a Hall of Fame that already has among its members other Catawba County coaching greats like Frank Barger (Hickory), Bill Bost (Bandys) and Mike Matheson (Bandys), all of whom are deceased.
“It’s great to be mentioned in the same sentence with those guys because I think so highly of them,” Elder said.
After a standout football career at LRU, Elder first coached at West Lincoln. His first head football coaching job followed, at South Stanly. He was at old Lenoir High and the first head football coach at West Caldwell when Lenoir and Gamewell-Collettsville merged to form West Caldwell.
He spent 13 seasons as a football assistant at Hickory, working alongside Barger, and was named the Red Tornadoes’ head football coach in 1994.
After going 4-7 in Elder’s first season, the Red Tornadoes were 10-3 in 1995 and so dominant in their 1996 season that they won the state 3A title game 42-0 over Jamestown Ragsdale.
Elder was named HHS’ girls’ basketball head coach in 1983-84 and coached through the 2002-03 season. His 20 teams won or shared 11 conference titles, reached the Western Regionals 10 times and won state titles in 1994-95 (27-3), 1997-98 (31-1) and 1998-99 (32-0).
One of 13 children growing up in Alexander County, Elder said he grew up on a farm. He loved sports and decided to pursue his sports dreams even he said his dad told him to stop worrying about athletic stardom and concentrate on developing farming skills so he could make a living.
“I was hard-headed and I didn’t listen to him,” Elder said.
Elder said he learned that “good players make good coaches” and also credited his successes to those he worked with during his career.
“We were never a one-coach staff,” said Elder, who said he would “like to be remembered as a fair but firm coach.”
About the other inductees:
- Biggerstaff was head football coach at South Point from 1969 through 1995, guiding his 1971 team to a Western North Carolina Activities Association (WNCHSAA) state title and winning the 3A title in 1979 after beating Hibriten in the Western title game.
- Brown spent more than 40 years coaching football, most of that time at Thomasville. He won 331 games and his 1995 Thomasville team was the state’s first to go 16-0 (state champion).
- McRae, a superintendent in several school systems during his career, was the chairman of the statewide realignment committee three times. The NCHSAA’s annual state award for superintendents carries his name.
- Sampsel was a pioneer in girls’ basketball coaching at Statesville High, with his teams winning 580 games during his 34 years as head coach there. The school’s gym is named after him.
- Simpson coached at Camden County and Currituck for more than 40 years and was a founding member of the North Carolina Football Coaches Association (NCFBCA).
- Thomas coached for 40 years, most of it in Wayne County. He was that county’s athletic director for 18 years after a 24-year coaching career. He played college sports at East Carolina.
- Vaughn is a Fayetteville native who began working at The Fayetteville Observer while in college. He now works for a weekly publication in Cumberland County, after more than 40 years at the newspaper.