STATE AWARDS: NCHSAA will honor 7 selections Thursday at its annual meeting

HobbsDailyReport.com

CHAPEL HILL – The North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) has selected its seven State Award winners for the 2017-18 school year.

The NCHSAA annually presents the awards in seven different categories, all based on those “who have done the most for high school athletics” rather than a single accomplishment or having an outstanding won-loss record.

State awards are presented to a male coach, female coach, athletic director, principal, superintendent, sports medicine representative and a media representative.

The awards will presented on Thursday at the NCHSAA’s Annual Meeting at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

HobbsDailyReport.com owner Chris Hobbs won the media award in 1992 while covering high school athletics in Piedmont North Carolina for The Charlotte Observer.

This year’s winners:

Doris Howard Female Coach of the Year: Angela Mayfield, the head girls’ basketball coach at Mount Airy, her alma mater since 2009.

She has coached the Granite Bears to two state 1A titles, and she is co-athletic director at Mount Airy, which won at Wells Fargo State Cup a year ago in 1A.

Harvey Reid Male Coach of the Year: Tony Mashburn, head boys’ basketball coach at Northside-Jacksonville.

He has coached at Pittsboro Northwood, Rosewood, Southern Wayne, Southwest Onslow, White Oak and Northside-Jacksonville and just completed his 35th year of coaching.

The Monarchs were state 3A championships a year ago, going 30-0, and were 29-1 last season when they fell in the state title game to Cox Mill.

His career record is 354-100.

Davie Harris Athletic Director of the Year: April Ross, athletic director at Carrboro since 2008.

Carrboro has produced 23 state title teams and won six Wells Fargo State Cups.

Ross previously was AD at Briggs High in Columbus.

She coached girls’ basketball at Tarboro for 15 years, and her 1990 team made the state 3A title game.

Ross played prep basketball at Bath and college basketball at East Carolina.

Bob Deaton Principal of the Year: Joe Poletti of East Carteret, who has been there for two years after spending six years as principal at Croatan.

He spent 14 years as a teacher before becoming a principal and has been an NCHSAA Board of Directors member for six years (vice president last year and president this school year).

Bob McRae Superintendent of the Year: Dr. Tony Baldwin, Buncombe County Schools superintendent since July of 2009.

He was previously associate superintendent for Buncombe County Schools for five years after a long career as a principal in the system.

Baldwin served on the NCHSAA Board of Directors for four years and received a Charlie Adams Distinguished Service Award.

Tim Stevens Media Representative of the Year: Nick Stevens, HighSchoolOT.com, a website owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) in Raleigh.

He began covering high schools in 2006 when he ran a twice-a-week blog on WRAL.com while he was still in high school. He was a student at N.C. State in the spring of 2007 when WRAL.com launched a section for high school sports coverage.

That blog became HighSchoolOT.com in 2008 and Stevens became a full-time employee of CBC in 2010, while still a college student.

CBC launched “HighSchoolOT Live” — which covers Friday night football in much the same way NFL RedZone Channel covers the NFL — through live look-ins and replays.

Stevens and the HSOT Live team won a 2018 Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for innovation.

Elton Hawley Athletic Trainer/Medical Profession of the Year: Dr. Eric Warren, Novant Health, Union County Schools.

He is Medical Director from Health Sports Medicine in the greater Charlotte market and a North Carolina graduate.

Warren has been practiced medicine with Novant Waxhaw since 2007.

He oversees a partnership with Union County Schools that has provided full-time athletic trainers for all high schools in the system for the last nine years as well provided sports physicals, free of charge, to all middle school and high school athletics in the county.

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