CHAPEL HILL—Seven more outstanding individuals in the annals of state prep athletics have been selected for induction into the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
The late Jack Holley of Teachey, Ralph Holloway of Morehead City, the late Joe Miller of Wilmington, Chris Norman of Shelby, Moyer Smith of Chapel Hill, Rick Strunk of Carrboro and Jerry Winterton of Cary have been named as the 28th group of inductees to join the prestigious hall. That brings to 163 the number enshrined.
The new inductees will be honored during special halftime ceremonies at a football game at Kenan Stadium on Saturday, October 18, when North Carolina takes on Georgia Tech. The University of North Carolina has designated the day as the 30th annual NCHSAA Day. The new class will officially be inducted at the special Hall of Fame banquet next spring in Chapel Hill.
The NCHSAA Hall of Fame is supported in part by a special grant from GlaxoSmithKline.
"These individuals joining the Association Hall of Fame this year have had a tremendous impact on high school athletics across North Carolina," said NCHSAA commissioner Davis Whitfield. "Their accomplishments are impressive, but the character they exemplify and the lives they touched are truly representative of what the NCHSAA stands for. Their selection maintains the standards of excellence established by our previous inductees, and we are proud to honor these deserving individuals."
Jack Holley
The late Jack Holley won more high school football games as a head coach than any other coach in North Carolina history.
He was born in Ashton, NC, and then was an outstanding athlete at New Hanover High School in Wilmington, where he played on state championship teams in several different sports, before going to Guilford College and graduating in 1963.
Holley coached for 46 years at a variety of stops, including Tabor City, Wallace-Rose Hill, Hallsboro, West Columbus, South Columbus and Harrells Christian Academy. He had two major stints at Wallace-Rose Hill, from 1982-92 and then from 1997-2008. During his tenure, his teams won an amazing 412 games against 96 losses and nine ties, including numerous conference championships, which has put him in the top ten of football coaches nationally. Holley also coached in both the North Carolina Coaches Association East-West all-star games and the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas.
Holley has been inducted into both the Greater Wilmington Sports Hall of Fame and the Guilford College Sports Hall of Fame.
Ralph Holloway
Ralph Holloway has compiled an impressive slate as a high school coach as well as an administrator.
Hollloway grew up in South Carolina and then attended Elizabeth City State University, graduating in 1975, with a master’s from East Carolina. He embarked on an outstanding teaching and coaching career, with stints at the high school level at Burlington Cummings from 1983 to ’89 and then at Kinston from 1989 to ’98. He was defensive coordinator at Cummings when it won the ’87 NCHSAA football crown and guided the women’s track team to a couple of state championships there. He left Cummings to serve as head football coach and athletic director at Kinston.
Holloway then went to West Carteret as athletic director and assistant principal for three years, followed by10 years as principal at East Carteret. He served as president of the Board of Directors of the NCHSAA and also on the Board of the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association.
He is in the Palmetto (SC) High School Hall of Fame as an athlete, the Cummings High School Hall of Fame as a coach, and in the North Carolina Athletic Directors Hall of Fame. He also helped to chair the NCHSAA’s recent Centennial Celebration.
Joe Miller
The late Joe Miller, who died unexpectedly earlier in the year, was an outstanding coach and athletic administrator, with his time in North Carolina at New Hanover High School and in the New Hanover County central office.
Born in Sewickley, Pa., Miller graduated from Western Carolina University and began his coaching career in Georgia and Florida before a couple years as an assistant football coach at Kansas State. He arrived at New Hanover High in Wilmington in 1974 and was head football coach there for 20 years, compiling a brilliant 186-56-1 mark with nine conference championships. He also coached New Hanover to slow pitch softball state championships in 1975 and ’76.
He moved to the central office in New Hanover, serving as county athletic director from 1994 to 2011. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the NCHSAA as well as the Board of the North Carolina Coaches Association and also served a term as president of the N.C. Athletic Directors Associatoin (NCADA) Board.
He is a member of the NCADA Hall of Fame and the Greater Wilmington Sports Hall of Fame.
Chris Norman
Chris Norman was an outstanding head coach in football as well as a well-respected athletic administrator.
Born in Shelby, Norman attended Shelby High School and then graduated from Gardner-Webb College in 1984. After three years as an assistant coach at East Rutherford, Norman went to Shelby where he was a successful assistant coach before taking over as head coach from 1998 to 2010.
His career coaching mark was a stellar 147-39-1, with three state NCHSAA championships and a perfect 16-0 mark in 2006. The Golden Lions also won 10 conference titles and five regional crowns under Norman. He also served as Shelby’s athletic director for six years as well as coaching men’s and women’s track and field for several years during his tenure.
Norman was the president of the North Carolina Coaches Association in 2011-12 and served four-year terms on both the NCCA Board of Directors and the NCHSAA Board of Directors. He coached in both the North Carolina Coaches Association East-West all-star games and the Shrine Bowl and has worked with the Shrine Bowl combines in the last few years.
Moyer Smith
Moyer Smith had a stellar career as an athlete, coach, athletic administrator and fund-raiser, with his involvement in the NCHSAA primarily involving sponsorship and the Endowment.
Smith was a standout athlete at Lexington High School and played in the Shrine Bowl before going to the University of North Carolina, where he played football and ran track. Following graduation, he was a head football coach at Albemarle and Lexington before moving to the college ranks as an assistant at Florida State and then at North Carolina.
He moved from coaching into athletic administration at UNC and then later was the president of the UNC Educational Foundation from 1986 until 2002. After his retirement from UNC, he volunteered to work with the NCHSAA as a consultant and fund raiser for a period of seven years. He helped raise over half a million dollars in a number of different initiatives with special Endowment programs connected to specific awards as well as corporate support.
He was inducted into the Davidson County Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and was the first Lifetime Achievement Award winner given by the National Association of Athletic Development Directors (NAADD).
Rick Strunk
Rick Strunk has been involved with high school athletics for almost 40 years, with his entire professional career involved with the media.
After graduating from Newton-Conover High School, where he played basketball, Strunk attended the University of North Carolina on a prestigious Morehead Scholarship as well as a National Merit Scholarship. He was sports editor of the daily Observer-News-Enterprise in Newton, sports director of WNNC Radio there and also did eight years of radio and television broadcasting. He served at Lenoir-Rhyne College and at Furman University as sports information director and won 16 national awards for excellence in publications.
Strunk has been on the NCHSAA staff since 1986, helping initiate such programs as NCHSAA Scholar-Athlete, Hall of Fame, the NCHSAA Record Book and an intern program. He served eight years as the chairman of the National Records Committee and twice was master of ceremonies for the National High School Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He has designed, written and edited many NCHSAA publications and serves as media liaison.
Strunk has received Distinguished Service Awards from the NCHSAA, the N.C. Athletic Directors Association and the NIAAA, and he earned the National Federation Citation award in 2013.
Jerry Winterton
Jerry Winterton compiled an amazing record as a wrestling coach that has drawn both statewide and national attention.
A 1973 graduate of Brockport State in New York, Winterton’s record as the head wrestling coach at Cary from 1981 to 2010 is unmatched, although he also coached four years at East Wake and was an assistant at N.C. State University from 1975-77. He also worked as an assistant football coach at Cary for 14 seasons and head tennis coach for four.
Winterton’s Cary grapplers won 11 North Carolina High School Athletic Association state tournament titles and eight dual team championships. His teams also finished as runners-up in those two events on 13 occasions. His overall record during his stint at Cary was an astounding 621-16, with 28 consecutive conference championships and 138 consecutive victories at one point.
He coached 42 different individual state champions and has been honored previously by the North Carolina chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
July 28, 2014
