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While Roanoke-Chowan area football players are lacing up their shoulder pads and strapping on their helmets for the start of the 2024 season, yours truly is getting his stat sheets ready and printing out the rosters.

I’m ready for some football!!

This marks my 45^th year in covering high school football. I’ve seen my fair share of outstanding players and jaw-dropping efforts over that period of time. And I hope to add to that list during the 2024 season.

That season is actually already underway. Our two local football-playing private schools opened the 2024 campaign this past Friday night (Aug. 16). Northeast Academy (Lasker) and Lawrence Academy (Merry Hill) were both at home for their season openers. Northeast dropped a 46-12 decision vs. Community Christian while Lawrence kept Columbia High School off the scoreboard in a 50-0 win.

From a player standpoint, it’s a mixed bag for Roanoke-Chowan area teams. Each lost key players to graduation, but all have some guys returning that performed well last season.

The “wild card” for 2024 is not who’s on the field, but rather who’s on the sideline. Two of our local schools – both traditional heavyweights when it comes to football – have new head coaches this season.

At Hertford County High School, Willie Gillus III is now in charge of the highly touted Bears football program, one that has won just over 65 percent of its games (163-86 overall record) from 2004-2023.

Gillus, who was on head coach Terrance Saxby’s staff at HCHS during the 2017 and 2018 seasons where he coached wide receivers and special teams, spent three years as the head coach at John Marshall High School in Richmond, Virginia and then was the head coach last season at Justice High School, a Class 6A program in Falls Church, Virginia.

Ronald Pou is the new head football coach at Bertie High School, the home of two state championships (1995 and 2000).

Coach Pou knows what state championship feels like as he was a player for Williamston High School when they won the 1999 Class 1A title. He has also served as an assistant football coach at J.H. Rose High School in Greenville.

Another new head coach at a local school isn’t “new” to football.

Robert Brown, who spent 40 years coaching at teaching at schools throughout eastern North Carolina, came out of retirement to take over the football program at Lawrence Academy.

Over the years, Brown has coached football in Elizabeth City, Roper, and Columbia.

Brown arrived at Bertie High School in 1993 as the junior varsity football coach and also handled sports medicine. He was part of the Falcons coaching staff under Roy Bond when the school captured it pair of state titles and remained on the sideline as an assistant after that.

Another local coaching veteran is Stevie Flythe at Northeast Academy. While in high school he played football for the Eagles and has been a fixture on the NEA sidelines for a number of years. 2020 was a good year at Northeast where Flythe coached the junior varsity team to an undefeated season that ended with a hard-fought 14-12 win over Wayne Christian School in the championship game of the Colonial Carolina Conference’s post-season tournament.

The two coaching “deans” of Roanoke-Chowan area high school football are Matt Biggy at Gates County High School and George Privott at Northampton County High School.

Hired in 2006, Biggy is the local area’s longest tenured head football coach as he is now entering his 18^th season at GCHS.

The Florida native, who played at Class 6A Riverview High School in Sarasota, has been in the R-C area for over 20 years. He was an offensive lineman at Chowan University. He spent one season working under Delton Cotton, then the head coach at Hertford County High School, as part of his Chowan internship. Biggy then returned to Chowan where he spent one year fine-tuning his coaching skills as he worked with the tight ends and running backs.

Even though Biggy got off to a slow start as the new head coach at Gates County High School (a combined nine wins during his first three seasons), he transformed the Barons into one of the dominant ground-oriented teams in eastern ‘Carolina.

Deleting the COVID pandemic seasons (2020 and 2021), Biggy and the Barons have enjoyed eight winning seasons since 2009, including an 11-2 record in 2010. That marked the school’s first 11-win season since the Donnie Kiefer coaching era (back-to-back 11-win seasons in 1991 and 1992).

Biggy also led the Barons to a 10-3 record in 2018.

This is at a school that didn’t have its first winning season until 1969 (8-2 that year). GCHS, then under legendary head coach Pete Smoak, followed that up with 9-1 and 13-0 seasons in 1970 and 1971, the latter of which ended with a state Class 2A championship.

2024 will see Privott, who played high school football for the legendary Daryl Allen in Ahoskie, entering his 15^th season as the head coach at Northampton County High School. He owns a 107-68 coaching record.

Taking away the 2020 COVID impacted year, Privott has experienced only one losing season (3-9 record in 2014) during his time as a head coach.

Five of his teams enjoyed 11-win seasons (2012, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022). The 2019 team finished as the state Class 1A runner-up.

The 2021 squad won 10 games.

Privott’s career saw the Ahoskie native serve as an assistant coach for the North Carolina team at the 2023 Shine Bowl of the Carolinas.

So, as we enter the 2024 high school football season, it appears the caliber of coaching remains high among our Roanoke-Chowan area teams.

The results from Friday night’s contests this season depends greatly upon the successful execution by the players during their game preparation on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Here’s wishing much success to Bertie High School, Gates County High School, Hertford County High School, Lawrence Academy, Northampton County High School, and Northeast Academy during the 2024 football season.

Cal Bryant is the Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at cal.brynt@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.