ADVERTISEMENT

Question for Burke county football fans

B

Burkeforreal

Well-Known Member
Aug 21, 2006
3,774
1,356
113
Tonight and throughout the season Draughn has come out swinging and has surprised alot of people. This is the 4th round…The 4th!!!! Round.

My question, has any Burke county football team in the history of Burke co football made it to the 4th round before??? 2007 EB shoulda made 4th round if Indy woulda had those ineligible players found out and sat out A WEEK EARLIER!!! But I know Morgsnton had their years, and Hildebran and such but does anyorje know offhand a team that made it that far??

It’s Draughns first and actually first time any Eastern Burke school made it as far as I know.

Any thoughts and input??
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek
swatz19 said:
I will add freedom went 13-3 that year where draughn is now 12-1.
Click to expand...
They were really 12-3. Maxpreps gives them a win over NCSD on the season, but that game was never played and I don't know where they came up with it. Patriots went 9-2 in the regular season and then beat Franklin, W, Henderson and Burns in the playoffs before losing to Concord who lost to Havelock in the state championship game.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek and swatz19
Fbfan28655 said:
Freedom was formed from Oak Hill, Glen Alpine, Salem, and Morganton High Schools. I think East Burke was formed from Drexel, Valdese, and Hildebran High Schools.
Click to expand...
Looking up some Burke Co history, it looks like I left off George Hildebran being part of East Burke. Also, prior to desegregation in 1965, there was Olive Hill High School. After desegregation, those students went to the schools in the district where they lived.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek, ObserveAndReport and swatz19
I’m a patriot proud and true class of 1998 but the number of kids that have left the FHS program is alarming. I have nothing against the coaching staff they currently have but to see Freedom become the 2nd tier team in the county isn’t something I’d ever dream about. Hearing stories today at the barbershop in Morganton about how the big names in other places could of all been at at FHS honestly makes me sick. The two gentlemen I spoke with also feel that more kids and families will be moving on soon. I hate believing rumors but I can honestly see it happening. There is no reason on earth that kids who grew up playing in the local recreation department , played in and for the local powerhouse middle school programs , should voluntarily drive out of district due to the negativity and uncertainty surrounding FHS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek and swatz19
bigtimeEastNC said:
I’m a patriot proud and true class of 1998 but the number of kids that have left the FHS program is alarming. I have nothing against the coaching staff they currently have but to see Freedom become the 2nd tier team in the county isn’t something I’d ever dream about. Hearing stories today at the barbershop in Morganton about how the big names in other places could of all been at at FHS honestly makes me sick. The two gentlemen I spoke with also feel that more kids and families will be moving on soon. I hate believing rumors but I can honestly see it happening. There is no reason on earth that kids who grew up playing in the local recreation department , played in and for the local powerhouse middle school programs , should voluntarily drive out of district due to the negativity and uncertainty surrounding FHS.
Click to expand...
Who are they losing kids too ??
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek and BK13T-$
It's sad hearing about the direction it sounds like freedom football is headed. As a freedom graduate class of 99 and a long time supporter it pains me to see this program in the direction it's headed. One of the problems it has is that the higher upside have always seemed to have had no interest in the program and it has played second fiddle to another sport. Another problem is not being able to keep a steady coach and/ or helping him get quality assistants. Also, having 5 coaches since 2013 is not having a stable program. First mistake was getting rid of Mike helms who was very successful, then after Blair Hardin left they made a huge mistake in not hiring Sam Mackey. In 2017 they hired a top notch coach but because of failed promises he took off to Georgia. They then had a chance to hire Joe Glass who is a coach everyone wanted and he wanted it too. Now the program had went on a steady decline with numbers and kids playing one sport. I'm not bashing the coach they have now but it seems something isn't right in the program and it starts with central office and the administrator at freedom not working to make freedom football successful. Also they didn't even give chris Powell an interview both times he applied and you see what he's done at draughn.
 
  • Like
  • Wow
Reactions: FreedomAlum, swatz19 and Fbfan28655
Freedom will lose 4-5 key football players before the end of this school year. I feel sorry for all of the current seniors and the ones that never got a chance at the next level due to the disarray with the program
 
  • Like
  • Wow
Reactions: Maiden Creek and swatz19
heelsfan28655 said:
It's sad hearing about the direction it sounds like freedom football is headed. As a freedom graduate class of 99 and a long time supporter it pains me to see this program in the direction it's headed. One of the problems it has is that the higher upside have always seemed to have had no interest in the program and it has played second fiddle to another sport. Another problem is not being able to keep a steady coach and/ or helping him get quality assistants. Also, having 5 coaches since 2013 is not having a stable program. First mistake was getting rid of Mike helms who was very successful, then after Blair Hardin left they made a huge mistake in not hiring Sam Mackey. In 2017 they hired a top notch coach but because of failed promises he took off to Georgia. They then had a chance to hire Joe Glass who is a coach everyone wanted and he wanted it too. Now the program had went on a steady decline with numbers and kids playing one sport. I'm not bashing the coach they have now but it seems something isn't right in the program and it starts with central office and the administrator at freedom not working to make freedom football successful. Also they didn't even give chris Powell an interview both times he applied and you see what he's done at draughn.
Click to expand...
As you say all this with football started with getting rid of Mike Helms in 2013. He had done great things for our program, and I don't think the school should have fired him for what it was said he did. That was the start of the decline of his career and that of our program as we hired big names on three different occasions and the longest stayed only three years. I went to the meet and greet for that particular coach and he told those of us there "I know some of you are worried about having a coach for the long term, but if it is up to me I will be here until I retire." Then he left to take a good job in eastern NC. The other two coaches only stayed for a yeat until they left to go out of state and neither took us past the 2nd round of the playoffs. It's been 7 years since we've won a playoff game which is disappointing given how much talent we've had.
One thing that we have to figure out is how to increase participation in all sports. Right now basketball is okay, but I know they don't have enough wrestlers to compete in every weight class and baseball can't get enough kids for a full roster of 18 names. We had a Lacrosse team for a few years but it folded a couple years ago because they couldn't get enough kids to come out. We used to have great track teams, but you see the team pictures online and they maybe have a dozen girls and 20 guys, which is not enough to really be competitive. I know coaches say this is a problem across the board, but some schools seem to do well getting kids to come out for all sports and I'd like to know what they are doing that we aren't.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek
FreedomAlum said:
As you say all this with football started with getting rid of Mike Helms in 2013. He had done great things for our program, and I don't think the school should have fired him for what it was said he did. That was the start of the decline of his career and that of our program as we hired big names on three different occasions and the longest stayed only three years. I went to the meet and greet for that particular coach and he told those of us there "I know some of you are worried about having a coach for the long term, but if it is up to me I will be here until I retire." Then he left to take a good job in eastern NC. The other two coaches only stayed for a yeat until they left to go out of state and neither took us past the 2nd round of the playoffs. It's been 7 years since we've won a playoff game which is disappointing given how much talent we've had.
One thing that we have to figure out is how to increase participation in all sports. Right now basketball is okay, but I know they don't have enough wrestlers to compete in every weight class and baseball can't get enough kids for a full roster of 18 names. We had a Lacrosse team for a few years but it folded a couple years ago because they couldn't get enough kids to come out. We used to have great track teams, but you see the team pictures online and they maybe have a dozen girls and 20 guys, which is not enough to really be competitive. I know coaches say this is a problem across the board, but some schools seem to do well getting kids to come out for all sports and I'd like to know what they are doing that we aren't.
Click to expand...
What impact do you think participation in travel teams (for various sports) has in participation in school sports?
For example when I was in school, almost all the sports were school sponsored and many athletes were multi-sport athletes. Now I see kids playing a single sport at school and then the same sport on their various travel teams. Am I reading this right as possibly being part of the participation problem?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek, ObserveAndReport and FreedomAlum
FreedomAlum said:
As you say all this with football started with getting rid of Mike Helms in 2013. He had done great things for our program, and I don't think the school should have fired him for what it was said he did. That was the start of the decline of his career and that of our program as we hired big names on three different occasions and the longest stayed only three years. I went to the meet and greet for that particular coach and he told those of us there "I know some of you are worried about having a coach for the long term, but if it is up to me I will be here until I retire." Then he left to take a good job in eastern NC. The other two coaches only stayed for a yeat until they left to go out of state and neither took us past the 2nd round of the playoffs. It's been 7 years since we've won a playoff game which is disappointing given how much talent we've had.
One thing that we have to figure out is how to increase participation in all sports. Right now basketball is okay, but I know they don't have enough wrestlers to compete in every weight class and baseball can't get enough kids for a full roster of 18 names. We had a Lacrosse team for a few years but it folded a couple years ago because they couldn't get enough kids to come out. We used to have great track teams, but you see the team pictures online and they maybe have a dozen girls and 20 guys, which is not enough to really be competitive. I know coaches say this is a problem across the board, but some schools seem to do well getting kids to come out for all sports and I'd like to know what they are doing that we aren't.
Click to expand...
Let’s just get straight to the real point. Freedom has lost its edge on not only in the county but the region in regards to HS football. No person in their right mind would send their student athlete to Freedom and expect any sort of positive result. I am truly hurt at the fact that we lost out on some of the best athletes to ever come through the county all because we don’t know how to be the STANDARD anymore. I have read numerous post today and heard personal accounts on how current students are leaving the county soon or going to other programs in the county. We need coaches and someone in charge from the community that will keep these young men and women home. How in the heck is Draughn 3 games away from the title with kids we should of had at FHS? Hats off to that program and community for doing it the right way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek
Fbfan28655 said:
What impact do you think participation in travel teams (for various sports) has in participation in school sports?
For example when I was in school, almost all the sports were school sponsored and many athletes were multi-sport athletes. Now I see kids playing a single sport at school and then the same sport on their various travel teams. Am I reading this right as possibly being part of the participation problem?
Click to expand...
That's some of it, but I don't think it effects sports like wrestling or track. We had a nice Lacrosse program for a while and even hosted a playoff game, but then they couldn't get enough kids to play and we haven't had a team for three years now. Even Patton gets enough kids out to play in all the sports they offer, though they struggle in football and they added girls Lacrosse last year. They went to the third round of the soccer playoffs this year and they draw from basically the same talent pool as we do and we finished near the bottom of the conference. Got to figure out how to fix all that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek and Fbfan28655
bigtimeEastNC said:
Let’s just get straight to the real point. Freedom has lost its edge on not only in the county but the region in regards to HS football. No person in their right mind would send their student athlete to Freedom and expect any sort of positive result. I am truly hurt at the fact that we lost out on some of the best athletes to ever come through the county all because we don’t know how to be the STANDARD anymore. I have read numerous post today and heard personal accounts on how current students are leaving the county soon or going to other programs in the county. We need coaches and someone in charge from the community that will keep these young men and women home. How in the heck is Draughn 3 games away from the title with kids we should of had at FHS? Hats off to that program and community for doing it the right way.
Click to expand...
Obviously, coach Powell has done great things with that program and more power to him, but there is a serious problem with getting kids out to play in lots of sports. A couple of years ago there was a story in the Hickory paper about how many girls' basketball programs in the area did not have JV teams and this is a hotbed for girls' hoops. I don't know what the solution is, but some of the smaller schools seem to be able to field teams in all sports without any problems and I'd like to know how they do it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek
FreedomAlum said:
Obviously, coach Powell has done great things with that program and more power to him, but there is a serious problem with getting kids out to play in lots of sports. A couple of years ago there was a story in the Hickory paper about how many girls' basketball programs in the area did not have JV teams and this is a hotbed for girls' hoops. I don't know what the solution is, but some of the smaller schools seem to be able to field teams in all sports without any problems and I'd like to know how they do it.
Click to expand...
They won’t have numbers unless they stop the bleeding with kid’s transferring away.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maiden Creek
FreedomAlum said:
Obviously, coach Powell has done great things with that program and more power to him, but there is a serious problem with getting kids out to play in lots of sports. A couple of years ago there was a story in the Hickory paper about how many girls' basketball programs in the area did not have JV teams and this is a hotbed for girls' hoops. I don't know what the solution is, but some of the smaller schools seem to be able to field teams in all sports without any problems and I'd like to know how they do it.
Click to expand...

I’m not going to fuel this discussion but I will say this….. hiring little set freedom back 10 years. ✌🏽
 
  • Like
Reactions: CoachHines72
Many things have set freedom football back. I think they used the incident with helms as an excuse to get rid of him due to the rise of the program. Not hiring Joe glass was a huge mistake too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: swatz19 and FreedomAlum
bigtimeEastNC said:
They won’t have numbers unless they stop the bleeding with kid’s transferring away.
Click to expand...
I don't know what to do about that and I haven't heard anyone offer any solutions. Part of the reason that we are in this situation is that we had coaches who weren't sticking around. Coach Hawn may be able to build this program back up, but it will probably take years and being impatient will not get us where we want to be.
swatz19 said:
I’m not going to fuel this discussion but I will say this….. hiring little set freedom back 10 years. ✌🏽
Click to expand...
I know there were people who had issues with him, but he was really a symptom of the problem of FHS taking the big name over someone who might have been able to build us up and we did that multiple times in the last decade. Right now I think we have to give coach Hawn time to figure out how to build this program up, and that means that our fans will have to be patient.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fbfan28655
This is another fact: We've been playing football at Freedom for half a century now and we've had two games after Thanksgiving in school history. One was a third round game and one was a fourth round game. We've never played a game in December and we've had talented teams who were ranked in the top 10 in the state who fell apart late in the season or who lost close playoff games in weird ways, such as fumbling eight times on a rainy night against E. Rowan or letting Forestview come back from 13 down with six minutes left in the game. I think we might be snakebit somehow.
 
Main thing from what I hear needs to be done is a change of culture. I have from many people all the penalties they get in games are uncalled for. Cussing on the sidelines throwing helmets constant 15 yard penalties are unacceptable. No top notch program has those problems. As for little, I saw a few games when he was there, how do you not do better when you have one of top qbs ever to play in the county, the only one I consider better was possibly helms son and not be more successful.
 
Fbfan28655 said:
As a whole, Burke needs to take a serious look at coaching pay. From what I hear, we are way behind where we should be, and not just for football coaches. This impacts both recruitment and retention.
Click to expand...

Every school system in the state needs to look at that. I worry that will only get worse for our coaches as some of these unqualified loonies take over school boards because I feel like many of them won't give a rats butt about athletics and we all should be worried. I worry they will see athletics as unimportant and too costly.
 
heelsfan28655 said:
Main thing from what I hear needs to be done is a change of culture. I have from many people all the penalties they get in games are uncalled for. Cussing on the sidelines throwing helmets constant 15 yard penalties are unacceptable. No top notch program has those problems. As for little, I saw a few games when he was there, how do you not do better when you have one of top qbs ever to play in the county, the only one I consider better was possibly helms son and not be more successful.
Click to expand...


I really think the best QB from the county will never play a snap for freedom. Same for one of the best RBs to ever come through the county.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CoachHines72
bigtimeEastNC said:
I really think the best QB from the county will never play a snap for freedom. Same for one of the best RBs to ever come through the county.
Click to expand...
As quoted in another thread I hope the talented freshman QB at FHS finds his new home in Catawba Co or Cleveland county
 
With all due respect to Tyler Shatley, Leon Johnson was the finest football player in Burke County history. There are running backs with more rushing yards and quarterbacks who were better passers, but if you were allowed to choose from among all of the players in county history to build a team around and you didn't pick him first and put him where you thought he could do the most good you would be making a serious mistake,
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mhsneer, CoachHines72, ocdavis31 and 1 other person
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

G

East Surry

Replies
0
Views
350
1A Football
gdawg74
G
M

Question for Straight Scope or other long time posters

Replies
28
Views
1K
4A Football
Bullzye
Bullzye
G

Closing thoughts on 2023 season

Replies
18
Views
2K
1A Football
Sportsnut17
Sportsnut17
TD-FridayNight

Hello 2024 1A Football Season ( Lets Hear It )

Replies
200
Views
14K
1A Football
TD-FridayNight
TD-FridayNight
Deana_King

Regional Appearances for Final 16 Teams

Replies
4
Views
446
1A Football
thekidd12
thekidd12
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back