Like-Minded Conference Carolinas Football Member Institutions Eager and Ready for 2025

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

GREENVILLE, S.C.- Football in the fall in the South.  

Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

It also became clearer and clearer to Conference Carolinas Commissioner Chris Colvin and the presidents of member institutions that it was time to bring America’s most popular sport back to one of the nation’s elite NCAA Division II conferences after nearly a 50-year absence.

Conference Carolinas, which played football from 1931 to 1974, announced recently that the sport will resume as a conference activity in the year 2025. The league boasted a rich history on the gridiron during that 43-year period, with Lenoir-Rhyne claiming a NAIA national championship in 1960 and national runner-up finishes in both 1959 and 1962. Elon was another national powerhouse, earning its own runner-up trophy in 1973. In all, Lenoir-Rhyne (15) and Elon (13) combined to win 28 of the 43 conference titles during that era.

While none of the present Conference Carolinas institutions were part of that now ancient history, six of today’s conference schools will compete as charter football members when the sport is re-launched in two-and-a-half years.  

Shorter, Barton, Chowan, Erskine, UNC Pembroke and North Greenville will don shoulder pads and helmets in 2025 in Conference Carolinas.

A quick look at each football-playing school, their history in the sport and other interesting factoids:

Barton College

While Barton has played football for each of the last three years–including one winning season (6-5) in 2021–the school is somewhat of a neophyte in the sport. The school has only logged 13 football seasons in total. To say the Bulldogs have played football in spurts would be an understatement.

Under its first head coach, Casey Blackburn, Barton scrolled a 2-7 record in his debut season in 1920. Then the program went dark until 1927 when the Bulldogs spliced together three straight campaigns before “The Great Depression” hit.  

Football ceased to exist on the Wilson, North Carolina campus until World War II ended in 1946. Barton resurrected the program in 1947 but only fielded a team through 1950. Remarkably, 70 years later Chip Hester was hired to build the football program from scratch, which he‘s done in respectable fashion over the past three seasons while playing in the South Atlantic Conference.  

Hester could not be more enthused about the prospects of playing football in Conference Carolinas.

“Our program is brand new as well, so my mentality is we have another chance to make history,” the Barton coach said. “I find this really exciting. I think it’s going to be a good league”

The Bulldogs’ skipper also welcomes joining other Conference Carolinas’ schools that are like-minded and similar in size and resources.

“As a coach and football program, you want to have a chance to compete,” Hester said. “Obviously, that’s why you get into a conference. You want it to be a level-playing field. Barton’s motto has been to be bold, and this is a bold move by the conference to start football. It could end up being a really competitive league.”

Hester brought a rich football resume to Barton four years ago, having served at past winning programs at North Carolina A&T (offensive coordinator) and Catawba College (head coach). Yet, nothing could prepare him for building a program from scratch.

“I was able to talk with several coaches that have done this before,” he added. “They gave me some great insight. The biggest curveball was COVID. It was going to be our first season. You have all these plans but that certainly threw a wrench in the gears. You have to adjust. That’s part of the deal. You have to adapt and adjust, which was a great lesson for our players and coaches.”

Hester now has the Bulldogs poised and ready to transition to Conference Carolinas in 2025, a minor miracle considering the program laid dormant for seven decades. 

“This is about building a legacy. We talk to our guys about that every day. I want them to know that when they come back to campus 20 years from now, they can be proud of what they established. I think the program is being built on solid footing and we’re trying to do it the right way.”

Chowan University

Jim Garrison casts a long shadow on the Hawks’ football program. In 1958, he became head football coach at what was then Chowan College. Garrison built the junior college program into a national power, winning 182 games over 37 seasons, seventh all-time among the nation’s junior college coaches.

Cal Bryant, the long-time sportswriter for the Roanoke Chowan News Herald who started covering Chowan football in the late 1970’s, remembers Garrison well.

“Jim Garrison was a real legend at Chowan,” said Bryant, a 1973 Chowan grad and member of the Hawks’ Athletic Hall of Fame. “He was my PE teacher. You have to know his backstory. Coach Harrison grew up in an orphanage, which changed his mindset as a coach. He embraced the opportunity to be a second father to all the kids he coached. He was Jim Valvano before there was Jim Valvano. He was a motivator. Even after he retired, the new coaches would bring him back to talk to their teams. He was just a great man.”

Garrison was inducted into five Hall of Fames, including both the National Junior College Athletic Association and the North Carolina Sports halls, and to cap it off, the Chowan University Hall of Fame was renamed the Chowan University “Jim Garrison” Hall of Fame. 

When Garrison died in 2015, a memorial service was held at the school’s football stadium named after him to accommodate all the people wanting to pay their respects.

Eventually becoming a four-year college in 1992, Chowan’s football endured many difficult seasons after the Garrison Era. The Hawks made national headlines in 2008 when their football program joined the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, making history as the first school to play in the CIAA that was not a historically black college or university.

“They struggled after Garrison left but the program never died,” said Bryant. “The tradition never died.”

In fact, in recent years, the Hawks football team has performed admirably.

Chowan has posted a 14-7 record over the past two seasons, including a sterling 7-1 mark in conference play in winning the 2022 CIAA Northern Division.

Gattis Hodges, another Chowan Athletic Hall of Famer, has broadcast Hawks football since 1986. He agrees with close friend Bryant that Chowan football is on the rise 

“The last several years, we’ve finally found our stride in Division II,” Hodges said. “It took us a while to get our first winning season in 2013. But now we’ve had winning seasons five of the last seven years. It’s been awesome to watch how competitive we are.”

Over the years, Chowan football has produced a bevy of great players, some of which have gone on to star in the National Football League.

Hodges’ favorite player in his 37 years of announcing Hawks games is 2021 quarterback Bryce Witt.

“He reminded me of Ben Roethlisberger, probably 6-3, 230 pounds,” said Hodges. “I think he’s the best player at Chowan since we became a Division II program. He threw for 99 touchdowns in four years, broke all the records and was just fantastic. His football IQ was off the charts and he studied game film like crazy.”

Of course, the school was a veritable assembly line for producing great players for major conference four-year schools and future NFL teams.

Bryant, the sportswriter, clearly had difficulty narrowing down his list of former Chowan stars. Among those he mentioned with great fondness were wide receivers Freddie Banks (Miami Dolphins), linebacker George Koonce (Green Bay Packers), defensive back Jerry Holmes (New York Jets), defensive ends Robert Brown (Packers) and Jody Schulz (Philadelphia Eagles) and punter Mark Royals (15 years in NFL with 10 teams).

One of the bizarre chapters in Chowan football history occurred in 2001-02. Lou Saban, the pro and college football vagabond and two-time American Football League Coach of the Year with the Buffalo Bills, accepted the head coaching job at Chowan at the tender age of 80. He compiled a 2-13 record over two seasons before leaving the Murfreesboro, North Carolina campus.

“That was very unique,” offered Bryant. “I don’t know how that came about. It was not a successful marriage. I’ll kind of leave it at that.”

Looking to the future playing in Conference Carolinas, Chowan will feature a new head coach, Paul Johnson, who became the Hawks’ ninth head coach in January when highly-successful Mark Hall left the program to become head coach at UNC Pembroke. As irony would have it, now Hall will face Chowan in 2025 in Conference Carolinas play.

Johnson was the offensive coordinator and tight ends and wide receivers coach at Bloomsburg University the past two years, where he played a prominent role in a high-powered offense. 

Bryant’s take on the new coach?

“I met him at the press conference. He’s a football man with an outstanding pedigree from West Virginia. He’s been associated with some very good programs. I think he’s taking over a program with a lot of momentum and on good footing with Conference Carolinas.”

Erskine College

When Erskine Vice President for Athletics Mark Peeler was asked about his initial reaction to the news that Conference Carolinas would be reinstituting football as a conference sport in 2025, he offered only one word.

“Relief,” Peeler answered succinctly.  

A man of faith overseeing the athletic department of a Christian-affiliated college, Peeler also took a leap of sorts when he and the school’s Board of Trustees decided in 2020 to bring back football to Erskine after a 70-year absence.

The athletic chief for the Flying Fleet explains:

“We were supposed to begin playing football again in the fall of 2020 but then COVID hit and our first full season was postponed. We had hired a coach (Shap Boyd) and brought in our first recruiting class, which redshirted in 2019. In fact, we had developed a 10-game schedule as an independent but all that work went down the drain.”

Peeler, who also doubles as Erskine’s women’s head basketball coach, was forced to scramble and cobble together an abbreviated six-game schedule in spring 2021. Sadly, the football program lost most of their initial recruits when it was learned that the 2020 season had been canceled.

The AD marvels over Coach Boyd’s resilience and perseverance through this journey of unexpected detours.

“I have great respect for our  coach,” Peeler said. “He’s had so many obstacles. The pandemic hit. He started with no team locker room. And he still doesn’t have an on-campus stadium. “

The Flying Fleet, which posted a 1-5 record as an independent in spring 2021 and a 2-9 mark competing in the South Atlantic Conference in fall 2022, play their home games at Greenwood High School–which is a 20-minute drive from the Due West, South Carolina campus.

Understandably, Boyd had times when he felt he got more than he bargained for as a first-time head coach.

“Well, I’d be a liar if I answered no to that,” he admits. “But I’m not one to sit around saying woe is me. It was a challenge I accepted. I knew just going to a small Christian school with less than a thousand students would add a degree of difficulty to my job. And then COVID hit. But our thought process is this: figure out a way.”

Boyd’s boss gives him high grades for preserving under very unique circumstances.

“You can look at our record as not being very good,” Peeler admits. “But considering all the obstacles, I think we’re actually ahead of schedule. We’ve been able to recruit the number of student-athletes desired and Coach Boyd has set a standard for the way his football players act on campus and how competitive they are on the playing field.”

Erskine originally started football in 1896, and were known to beat such regional powers as South Carolina and Clemson during the period between 1917 and 1921. The school played in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association from 1925-41, a period that saw them win conference titles in both 1929 and 1937. Many years later, the Flying Fleet placed another feather in its football cap when it upset Florida State, 14-6, in 1948. However, the college pulled the plug on the program three years later in 1951. The program laid stagnant until its return in 2020.

Peeler, who has seen the athletic program swell from 10 to 24 sports under his 24-year tenure, said that the addition of football fits well in Erskine’s overall strategy to increase student enrollment at the school.

“Eighty-five percent of our students play some intercollegiate sport,” he points out. “We’ve gone from 130 student-athletes to 720 during my time here.”

Erskine athletics teams have seen unprecedented success in NCAA Division II under Peeler's watch. The Flying Fleet has won 24 Conference Carolinas championships, participated in 25 NCAA Division II Southeast Regionals and won two NCCAA National Championships.

While Erskine only reinstated football three years ago, it has already been quite a journey. Under Coach Boyd, the program will play as an independent and members of both the South Atlantic Conference (2022-23) and Gulf South Conference (2024) before finding a final destination in Conference Carolinas in 2025.

“Playing in those other conferences made us very aware of the inequality of resources between large and small, public and private schools,” said Peeler. “I’ve always felt there was a bit of a disconnect between football and our other sports which all competed in Conference Carolinas. Now, we can unite all of our programs within one conference.”

For Coach Boyd, the re-launching of football at Erskine has been rich with teaching moments for his players.

“As far as life lessons go, we’re growing young men up to be future leaders, husbands and dads,” he stressed. “They’re learning character, perseverance and stick-to-itiveness. That’s hard to find these days. In today’s world, nothing is normal. It’s about improvising and adjustments. If you’re not ready to adjust on the fly, you’re going to struggle. I’m really proud of our kids.”

Perhaps the high point of Erskine’s return to football occurred during the spring of 2021, when three former players who played in the final year of 1951 before the program went dark visited the campus for the coin toss of the Spring Game.

Duddie Bennett (Class of ‘51), Tom Chandler (‘53) and Bob Gorham (‘51) were designated honorary captains, providing the last connection between an earlier era of Erskine football.

“It was one of the coolest, most emotional things I’ve ever seen during my time at Erskine,” the AD said. “You could see how important it was to them that football was back on campus.”

North Greenville University

Like Chowan, North Greenville was a junior college juggernaut prior to becoming a four-year program in 1994. In fact, NGU reeled off an unworldly combined record of 40-6 during a five-year period from 1988-92 in its final seasons in the JuCo ranks.

The shift to stiffer competition deprived the Crusaders from their previous dominance, as the program experienced only two winning seasons–7-4 in 1996 and 8-4 in 1998–during its seven years as a NAIA member. Then in 2001, the university took the plunge to NCAA Division II status, playing as an independent for 17 straight seasons before joining the Gulf South Conference in 2018.

It took some time for the Crusaders to find their footing in Division II, but their rich football tradition returned within the next decade as they scrolled records of 10-2 in 2006 and 11-3 in 2011.

Lamont Sullivan, a former North Greenville football player who now serves the university as Assistant Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Engagement, can offer a unique perspective on the place football has held on campus and what it means for Conference Carolinas to reactivate the sport in 2025.

“This is great for our university,” said Sullivan, a member of North Greenville’s Athletic Hall of Fame who holds a degree in interdisciplinary studies and master’s in Christian ministry. “This will unify all our athletics under one umbrella. It gives us symmetry in supporting our teams, away game opportunities and the regional aspects.” 

Today’s Crusader football program is much different than when Sullivan played, yet it’s clear he holds those years with great affection.

“My experience was great,” he said. “I got to experience a childhood dream. We were transitioning NAIA to Division II because we wanted to be aligned with a conference. Before that as an independent, we played schools in Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. There were very long bus rides. And the games were so far away, very few fans or parents could attend the road games. But now being in this conference as new charter members, it's going to give our alums, fans and families some new options.”

Jeff Farrington, the Crusaders’ head football coach, has tasted success during his 10-year tenure at North Greenville.  A year into his reign, Farrington piloted NGU to the 2014 Victory Bowl Championship–a competition of members of the National Christian College Athletic Association.  

He followed up with a 7-3 record in 2015 and led his team to a NCAA Division II Quarterfinals appearance in 2016.  

Farrington has attracted his share of elite athletes to his program. Most notably, wide receiver Freddie Martino led all NCAA Division II players in receptions in 2013 and later played for multiple NFL teams (Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers). And in 2019, edge rusher Chauncy Haney earned Gulf South Defensive Player of the Year and AP second team All-America. Haney continues to play professionally with the Birmingham Stallions of the USFL.

While the more recent Crusader teams have not risen to those levels, the coach is excited about his program’s future in Conference Carolinas.

“I think it’s neat for our whole athletic department,” he said. “Now, we’re all playing the same teams It’s all about family, brother and sisterhood, and pulling for each other.  For o long, the football program was on the outside looking in. Now we’re playing against like-minded schools very similar to us. I think it’s the way it was supposed to be.”

Farrington suggests that his recruiting net might be spread a bit wider as football becomes a Conference Carolinas sport.

“Right now, we mostly recruit in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. The footprint regionally in Conference Carolinas is going into the Delta and peninsula. So we’ve got to expand, because to be the best, you’ve got to recruit the best players. We’re looking for Division I players who want to play at a Division II school.”

The coach also expressed his appreciation to be playing in a conference with schools of a common mission.  

“With one exception (UNC Pembroke), we’re moving to a conference of small, private universities. There are no schools with 10,000 students like there were in the Gulf South. It’s a level-playing field.”

UNC Pembroke

Todd Anderson, Associate Athletic Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at UNC Pembroke, has worked at the school for 17 years. He’s been an eye witness to the Braves’ football program, which resumed play in 2007 after a 57-year absence.

Operating as a Division II independent at the beginning, UNC Pembroke benefited greatly from the hire of Pete Shinnick who built an instant winner in those formative years. After a 4-7 maiden season in 2007, Shinnick piloted the Braves to a 9-1 record in 2008 and a 9-2 mark in 2009 – a run that culminated in an NCAA Division II first-round playoff appearance. Over a five-year stretch (2008-2013), UNCP rolled to a combined 46-17 ledger as a regional powerhouse. 

“Shinnick was a great recruiter and an outstanding players' coach,” Anderson recalled. “He had fantastic values. He mentored his kids to be good people and good husbands, and the players related to that. Pete was very genuine and surrounded himself with outstanding coaches. He also came from a football family so he was branded with a football pedigree.”

His 2013 squad blazed a 9-2 record before losing in the second round of the NCAA Division II Playoffs. Soon thereafter, Shinnick announced that he was leaving to accept the head coaching job at the University of West Florida. Understandably, it was a very sad day in Pembroke.

“Pete left some big shoes to fill when he left to build the program at West Florida,” Anderson said. “Florida is a hotbed for high school football, and it is no surprise that he has been able to accomplish big things in Pensacola as well.

Under head coach Shane Richardson, the Braves reached similar heights in 2016. That club fashioned a 10-2 record and advanced to the NCAA’s second round after registering the program’s first NCAA playoff victory – a dominant win over perennial national power Valdosta State on the road.

Since then, the UNC Pembroke program has experienced its ups and downs, precipitated by the advent of COVID and also the joining of the Mountain East Conference in 2020. The Braves have been competitive in the Mountain East over the past two years, compiling an 11-11 mark, including a winning campaign in 2021.

The next era of Braves football will be headed up by Mark Hall, an 18-year collegiate coaching veteran who was hired by the Braves in December after he led Chowan to new heights in 2021 and 2022. Hall’s program in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, produced back-to-back 7-win seasons, including a run to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship game during the latter season.

“The players have related very well to Coach Hall during his first few months on campus, and the program seems to have already been invigorated,” Anderson said. “He has already accomplished so much in his first couple of years as a head coach, so we are all very excited to witness the things that he can do with the program here in Pembroke. There is already a noticeable excitement surrounding the program, both on campus and in the community.”

Over the past 17 years, Anderson has seen many highlights of the UNCP football program, but a handful of memories undoubtedly stick out in his mind. 

“We opened at Davidson in that inaugural season back in 2007, and there was so much excitement surrounding that contest. In 2013, we opened the season with a nationally-televised game against Winston-Salem State, who was ranked No. 5 in the country and had made an appearance in the national semifinals the year previous. We came back in the second half and were able to pull off the upset in front of a record home crowd.”

Anderson is particularly fond of the 2013 team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA playoffs and was highlighted by the program’s first postseason home game.

“We also played at Charlotte that year,” he recalled. “They scheduled us for their homecoming, and I’m sure they thought a Division II school would be an easy win. We ended up beating them 45-22, and it wasn’t even that close.”

That 2013 club featured quarterback Luke Charles, who became the school’s all-time passing leader until Josh Jones surpassed his totals last season. As for the best players to don the Braves’ football uniform during his time at Pembroke, Anderson named three: Charles, running back Travis Daniels (a recent UNCP Hall of Fame inductee) and wide receiver B.J. Bunn (leading receiver for the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League). Anderson thought Daniels, the school’s all-time rushing leader with 3,356 yards from 2008-2011, was headed for an NFL career before he tore his ACL on the final play of his senior season.

But Anderson sees beyond the great players and teams. He also sees the big picture clearly, citing the many advantages of football joining UNCP’s other sports in competing in Conference Carolinas in the near future.

“We’re very appreciative that Conference Carolinas will field football again,” the Braves’ PR man said. “It will give us an advantage in that our student-athletes will now be playing against some of the same players that they faced in high school, and it will be easier for parents and alumni to travel with our teams on the road.”

Anderson also paid compliments to the conference leadership.

“We’ve had nothing but good experiences with Conference Carolinas. We’re so impressed with the Conference leadership, starting with Commissioner Colvin all the way down their administrative staff. Adding football is a monstrous task for any conference, but we’re in great hands. There’s no doubt it will be a successful venture and will help grow the Conference Carolinas brand.”

Shorter University

The addition of football by Conference Carolinas was tailor-made for its newest member, Shorter University. 

And Shorter brings quite a football pedigree to its new conference. The school was a NAIA heavyweight in the 2000s, including a Cinderella season in 2008 when Phil Jones was named the Grant Teaff National Coach of the Year while leading Shorter to a 9-3 record and the NAIA National Football Championship.

Shorter played a prominent role in NAIA football during that period, as the school’s Barron Stadium served as the host of the 2008, 2009 and 2010 NAIA Football Championships.

Following its 2008 national title, the school reeled off three winning seasons over the next four years, leading to the Hawks joining the Gulf South Conference and transitioning to NCAA Division II competition by 2014.

Jordan Shaw, a two-time All-America safety and finalist for the Cliff Harris Award as the nation's best small college defensive player during his time at Shorter, was a senior when the school officially made the leap to Division II status. He remembers it as a baptism-by-fire experience.

“Not only did we move up a level, but we were thrown into one of the toughest football conferences (Gulf South Conference) in Division II,” Shaw remembered. “There was no easing into it. We played programs like West Georgia, who went to the Final Four and Delta State and Valdosta State, who had won a national championship (in 2012).  

While it was tough sledding as NCAA Division II neophytes, Shaw recognizes the important role that he and his teammates played back in those early days.

“We took a lot of pride in knowing we helped take the program from NAIA to NCAA status,” said the former Gulf South Conference Player of the Year who snared a school-record eight interceptions in 2014, which ranked fifth nationally. “You never know how it’s going to go, but now looking at the program and where it’s headed, things have worked out very well.”

While Shorter football has struggled during the past nine years, the program is clearly positioned to compete favorably in Conference Carolinas–an association of like-minded and equally-financed small schools similar to theirs.  

Shaw believes that Zach Morrison, the Hawks’ fourth-year coach, has built a rock-solid foundation for the football program and the school will see positive results as it moves to Conference Carolina.

“The transition is not always easy,” he admits. “But now that coach Morrison has established some stability, I expect the program to take off a little bit. Conference Carolinas will offer a much more level-playing field.”

Morrison has a unique perspective on the growth of Shorter football, having played on Shorter’s inaugural team in 2005. A two-time NAIA All-American and three-time all-conference center, he started every game for the Hawks for four straight seasons. Under Coach Phil Jones, Shorter stormed to that 9-3 record and its first-ever conference championship during Morrison’s senior year in 2008.

“It really is special being part of Shorter’s first team and now going into year six as head coach at my alma mater,” Morrison shared. “It’s still very surreal. I love it. I’ve been very blessed to be at a place that gave me an opportunity to play football."  

Morrison said he tries to share the same philosophy that his former coach Jones instilled in him with his current players.

Like Coach Jones, we pride ourselves in relationships,” Morrison said. “Relationships with teammates, coaches, the community and Jesus Christ. We try to do things the right way.”

Morrison believes Conference Carolinas is the perfect fit for Shorter football.

“We will have the ability to play schools very similar to us, like-minded institutions. We won’t be facing Gulf South Conference public schools that have 17,000 or 20,000 students, yet we’ll still have great competition with quality schools and players.”

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.