This is gotten a little off into discussion of the football programs, which is understandable since that's what most people follow, but my intent was to talk about the athletic programs of these schools overall. In addition to fall sports, I know both Hickory and Watauga have done well in basketball recently as well, with Hickory making a regional finals in boys and Watauga doing the same in girls. I don't know how well they do in spring sports and I don't remember any championships, though I suspect Hickory does well in boys' tennis.
I haven't been able to see if Hickory advanced to the state finals in the girls' tennis duals, but I suspect their regional finals match may have been postponed due to rain. Good luck to both the Lady Pioneers and Lady Red Tornadoes in their volleyball championship games.
Now, I want to touch on some of the things people have said about how these athletic programs have succeeded and what I think may, or may not, be important. I think growth is probably important. I can look on Wikipedia for Watauga County and see that they've grown from almost 43k in 2000 to 54k today, almost 25 percent. It may be that a lot of that growth is from retirees, but even when the elderly population grows it will attract younger people. Someone will have to provide services for those old people after all, and those younger people will have families. I think more students at App State has a similar effect because that means more restaurants, stores and other businesses that cater to them. Bear in mind that the state spent a lot of money to get 321 and 421 in better shape to make Boone more accessible. I spent many days driving up there when 321 was two lanes on that mountain and it's a lot easier today. I can contrast the growth of Watauga County with my own home county and Burke County comes off in much worse shape. We grew steadily up until 2000, which was a big part of the impetus to build new schools, but that growth has stagnated over the last 20 years (I think it might be picking back up). I can't speak to how much growth has impacted Hickory though. I'm really not sure what's going on with sports in Asheville, but it does seem to be on the downswing.
Culture is important, but when have you ever heard a coach say it isn't? Every coach wants to establish the right culture (hard work, teamwork, fellowship, etc) for their program. It's incredibly important in your team's success, but not all coaches are able to do this. So, how they go about this and what the community does that foster that culture are probably the most important variables. Pay for coaches matters as well, but there's only so much we here in NC can do in that regard. Over the last few years there were articles published in one of the SC papers and in the Charlotte Observer about coaching pay. There were about 20-25 head football coaches in SC who make over $100k/yr, but only a handful in NC (and some of those did additional duties to get to that threshold). Yet not every good coach from NC is running off to try to get that SC money (I will note that two former Freedom football coaches now coach out of state for higher pay).
So, I think there's a lot that happens in a community which leads to success at the high school level. It helps if kids who play sports at a lower level can go and watch the HS kids succeed, that's something they'll want to emulate. But you need good youth programs that can teach those kids fundamentals as well. Of course, you need parents who will support their kids in sports and sacrifice to make sure they get to go to camps or can go play on weekends. I think this is why you see some communities that are passionate about their high school teams-because they recognize how much they've helped contribute towards that team's success.
Anyway-TLDR, there are a lot of factors that go towards athletic success at the HS level. I appreciate those who have some insight into the success of these programs giving the rest of us some insight
