Young Harris Ideally Aligns With Strong Past and Future of Conference Carolinas

This is the continuation of a series of Body, Mind & Soul stories that highlights member student-athletes, coaches and administrators of Conference Carolinas.

YOUNG HARRIS, GA – So what exactly is Young Harris? An actual person? Maybe a new hit coming-of-age television series on Nickelodeon or the CW Network? And does Young Harris beg the question, is there an Old Harris?

None of the above. Young Harris is a small, idyllic, Christian-based college located in the southern Appalachian Mountains that officially joined Conference Carolinas as the 14th member of the prestigious NCAA Division II athletic league.

Viewed as a key addition to a conference that plans to expand to a three-division model this year, Young Harris will compete in seven men’s and eight women’s sports in Conference Carolinas. Initially, the sports of men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, softball and women’s volleyball will compete in the league’s new three-division setup in 2023-24.

Founded in 1886 as a two-year school, the circuit’s new member was originally named the McTyeire Institute. However, the college struggled financially after only one year of operation. Young L.G. Harris, a judge from Athens, Georgia, heroically stepped in to fund the school through its early turbulent period. By 1895, the institution was renamed Young Harris College in honor of its benefactor.

But that name?

“Yeah, we get a lot of questions from schools we play outside our area,” chuckled Lindsay Huffman, the Mountain Lions’ women’s basketball coach. “I guess we’ll be doing some more explaining in a new conference.”

Beyond its unique name, Young Harris offers many other factoids of interest to Conference Carolinas, such as:

• For as long as anyone can remember, the college has been fondly called “The Enchanted Valley.” The campus is perched between three different mountains and the highest point in the state of Georgia (Brasstown Bald, 4,784 feet).
• Current enrollment at the private, Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college is 1,205.
• The town of Young Harris, with a population 1,059 according to the 2020 U.S. census, is located almost at the North Carolina border in northern Georgia.
• Joining NCAA Division II as a full member in 2014, Young Harris has only competed as a four-year college for nine years despite being founded more than 130 years ago.
• While a small college, Young Harris can proudly boast its share of accomplished graduates. In entertainment, comedian/actor Oliver Hardy (of Laurel & Hardy fame), actress Amanda Bearse (Fright Night movie, Married…With Children TV series) and country music superstars Ronnie Milsap and Trisha Yearwood are graduates. In sports, such Major League Baseball standouts as Charlie Blackmon, Nick Markakis, Cory Gearrin and Billy Buckner once wore Mountain Lion uniforms. In politics and government, the school has produced two governors of Georgia (E.D. Rivers and Zell Miller) and a Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice (William Henry Duckworth). And in business, Tom Fortner was co-founder of one of the South’s beloved restaurant chains, the Waffle House.
   

Perhaps the one person at Young Harris who can appreciate the role that athletics can play most in a young student-athlete’s life is also the No. 1 employee of the school: President Drew Van Horn.

Horn was once a strong student-athlete in his own right. In fact, he was twice named all-conference and an academic All-America as the star point guard on the basketball team at Elon College from 1978-82, and was elected into that school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.

“We saw joining Conference Carolinas as a great opportunity,” Van Horn said. “Elon was a member of the conference when I played basketball there, so I have always followed Conference Carolinas and have been impressed by its members who represent integrity, athletic excellence and spiritual values that fit so well with Young Harris’ mission and values.”

Van Horn particularly emphasized how moving to Conference Carolinas was such a logical transition.

“We join an association where virtually every school is private and we all share the same philosophies in terms of developing the whole person and living out what it means to compete in the NCAA Division II level. We preach to our student-athletes to give it your all and leave it all on the floor because you’re a competitor. Defeat is not a failure but something to grow from.”

Young Harris’ President also sees an opportunity to expand his school’s brand into different regions of the South through this new conference affiliation.

“We will benefit by gaining more recognition in Appalachia and by being associated with such fine institutions.”

Young Harris’ men’s basketball coach Jeremy Currier matches Van Horn in terms of his enthusiastic endorsement of the move to Conference Carolinas.

“This is such a great opportunity for Young Harris College,” Currier said. “There’s such a rich tradition and there are many schools in the league that are similar to YHC in regards to enrollment and academic curriculum. I also think very highly of the coaches in the conference. I believe that we will have natural rivalries with quite a few of the local schools.”

Huffman, the women’s hoop coach, agrees whole-heartedly.

“I’m really excited about this opportunity for Young Harris College and our athletic programs,” Huffman offered. “I believe Conference Carolinas will provide stability and will give our student-athletes the opportunity to compete against institutions that are similar to us. We are excited for the new challenge!”

Baseball, where Conference Carolinas is arguably the best conference top-to-bottom in all of NCAA Division II, might benefit the most with the addition of the Mountain Lions. Young Harris has consistently produced good teams and future professional players through the years, both at the two-year and four-year periods of the school. Young Harris head coach Stephen Waggener steered his club to a program-best 39-19 mark in the 2022 season, capturing the school’s second Peach Belt Conference Tournament crown in 2022 and finishing the season ranked No. 25 in the NCAA Division II Coaches Poll.  

Now they join two previous national championship programs in North Greenville (2022) and Mount Olive (2008), as well as several other prominent baseball programs, in Conference Carolinas.

For Waggener, the prospects of joining such a juggernaut baseball league is both exciting and perhaps daunting.

“We’re definitely looking forward to it,” Waggener enthused. “Conference Carolinas has made some great moves in recent years and has several top baseball programs, starting with North Greenville, the national champs in 2022, Mount Olive with their history, Belmont Abbey, which has gone to the World Series, and of course, we are familiar with both UNC Pembroke and Francis Marion.”

While Waggener indicated that his recruiting approach won’t change noticeably with the move to Conference Carolinas, he does admit that being part of a strong baseball conference should attract more quality high school players to his program.

“Definitely on the recruiting side, Conference Carolinas is considered the new and up-and-coming baseball league in NCAA Division II. They’re trending the right direction with so many perennial regional programs. We’re looking at five schools, at the least, that are regular postseason teams. So you have to run the gauntlet. I see that as a plus, because any quality athlete wants to play against the best.”

In men’s basketball, Currier says the conference move will also improve recruiting for Young Harris.

“Joining Conference Carolinas will enhance our recruiting efforts both in-state and in the Southeast region,” Currier said. “The geographical footprint of the conference opens up for more recruiting opportunities in Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and our home state of Georgia.” 

For Dean Gray and his men’s soccer program at Young Harris, which was ranked as high as No. 1 nationally in the 2021 season, the recruiting element probably doesn’t change too much, however.

“We’ve always been involved internationally with our recruiting top soccer players, so I don’t expect that to change much,” offered Gray, a native of London, England. “So the location of our games is not a big shift for us.”

Jennifer Rushton, the person charged with orchestrating the move to a new conference as Young Harris’ Director of Athletics, is ready to rattle off a multitude of reasons why her college is ready to take the big leap.

“The first word that comes to me is ‘excited,’” Rushton said. “It’s just a great opportunity for us to join a conference of like-minded institutions. We’re so much better equipped to do business with other private schools, as we share the same goals in terms of academics, student enrollment and size of our budgets.” 

The Mountain Lions athletic chief also cited such positives as more efficient travel within the conference (“it will give our student-athletes more time for academics”), competing in all sports under one conference umbrella and belonging to a conference where every member is committed to developing the whole student-athlete.

Another point made by both Rushton and her boss, President Van Horn, is how impressed they were with the Conference Carolinas leadership team.

“From the first conversation we had with Commissioner (Chris) Colvin and his staff, we have been so impressed with their innovation and proactive approach,” said Rushton. “Clearly, they want to continue strengthening the conference. It shows in their strategic plan. With a lot of changes at the NCAA level and various conferences, you need to be creative and aggressive or you’ll fall behind.”

Van Horn only echoes those sentiments regarding conference leadership.

“Commissioner Colvin and his staff just struck me as very professional,” the president said. “They are ahead of the curve and it makes you proud of their high standards.”

The same can be said about Young Harris College, whose tradition of high standards and athletic success makes it an ideal addition to Conference Carolinas.

Bob Rose is a longtime sports public relations executive who has worked for the San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics, the NFL Cardinals, Cal, Stanford and other organizations. Bob works with Assistant Commissioner for External Relations Brian Hand and the entire Conference Carolinas office to help tell the stories of the tremendous student-athletes, coaches and administrators in Conference Carolinas.