Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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JULY 11-17, 2018 UCW 29 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM King seeks to bring winning to old neighborhood by EARL VAUGHAN JR. Ernest King, a1992 gradu- ate of Westover High School, is returning to his alma ma- ter as head football coach, and he's facing a pretty difficult challenge. King, who was the former coach at E.E. Smith and has been at St. Pauls the last couple of seasons, replaces Craig Raye, who served one year as coach of the Wolverines. King takes over a Wolverine team that went 4-8 last year and lost to powerful Southern Nash in the first round of the state 3-A football playoffs. e timing of King's return to Westover is compli- cated by how limited he'll be in assessing his team before the first official day of fall practice on July 30. ere are two mandatory dead periods in July. One already took place the week of July Fourth. e second is the week of the North Carolina Coaches Association clinic and East-West All-Star games starting July 16. at gives King barely two weeks to see what he has returning. Further complicating matters, he's got to hire almost a full staff of assistant coaches. e only coach back from last season is head wrestling coach Bennie Tillman, who assisted with football last season. King also needs to establish some continuity quickly as he's the third head coach of the Westover football program in three seasons. "e biggest thing is discipline,'' he said. He plans to stick with the basics, teaching the fundamentals of offense, defense and special teams. By the second week of July, he hopes he can take his team to a seven-on-seven pass skeleton with another team to get a better evaluation of his available talent. Another concern for King is getting his players into the weight room. "I want to try and get the kids stronger as much as possible,'' he said. "We'll lift during the season.'' King said he'll have to use the non-conference portion of Westover's schedule to get the team ready for league play. "We'll take it week by week,'' he said. "We will evaluate our kids every day in practice, see what types of schemes we need to run.'' He expects to move players to different positions as needed, do what's best for the team and try to keep things simple. "Some kids may not buy in,'' he said. "e ones that do, we'll continue to coach them up and try and get them better each week.'' King said one of his biggest intangibles is getting the Wolverine football players to believe in Westover pride. "Hopefully me being a product of that envi- ronment and knowing what the demographics are, I can turn it around and get those kids out,'' he said. "I may have to go out in the neighborhood and meet the kids in the hallways to get more kids out that normally don't play football.'' Ernest King Parrous, Walker represent county in All-Star games by EARL VAUGHAN JR. e annual East-West All-Star games and North Carolina Coaches Association Clinic returns to Greensboro the week of July 16-19. e clinic annually draws thousands of high school coaches in various sports to Greensboro for clinic sessions with a variety of speakers covering sports specifics and changes in the rules. In conjunction with the clinic, the East-West All- Star games are held in boys and girls basketball and boys and girls soccer and football. Schedule for the All-Star games Group ticket rates are available in advance of the All-Star games. Call 336-379-9095 for details. • Basketball: Monday at Greensboro Coliseum. Tickets: $10 adults, $5 students. Parking: $5, Coliseum main lot. Game times: Girls at 6:30 p.m.; boys approximate- ly 30 minutes after the girls game. • Soccer: Tuesday at Macpherson Stadium, Bryan Park Soccer Complex. Tickets: $10 adults, $5 students. Parking: Macpherson Stadium lot. Game times: Girls at 6:30 p.m.; boys at 8:30 p.m. • Football: Wednesday at Greensboro Grimsley's Jamieson Stadium. Halftime fireworks display. Tickets: $10 adults, $5 students. Parking: Free in main parking lot. Representatives of the Oasis Shrine will be taking donations for the Shriner's Crippled Children's Hospitals. Game time: 8 p.m. Cumberland County All-Stars Profiles At press time, only two athletes were scheduled to take part in the games, Talia Parrous of Terry Sanford for East girls soccer and Greg Walker of Seventy-First for East football. ere are no Cumberland County coaches on the staff of any of this year's all-star teams. • Talia Parrous, Terry Sanford East girls soccer 5-foot-6, forward. Coach: Karl Molnar Highlights: All-State as a senior. Scored 31 goals and had 23 assists. As a junior, Parrous was All-State, All-Region, All-Conference and the Cape Fear Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Year and Fayetteville Observer Player of the Year. She scored 25 goals and had 14 assists. As a sophomore, she had 24 goals and six assists. She also played basketball. She was a member of the National Honor Society, the Twelfth Man Club, Friends Club, French Club and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She signed an athletic grant-in-aid with UNC-Wilmington to play soccer. She will most likely major in sports manage- ment or nutrition. Her mother is her role model. • Greg Walker, Seventy-First East football 6-foot-2, 260, offensive line. Coach: Duran McLaurin Highlights: As a senior, Walker was All-Conference, All-Region and All-910 All-Star. He won the Pres- tigious Helmet Award and had 18 pancake blocks. As a junior he was named Most Valu- able Offensive Lineman. He signed an athletic grant- in-aid with Johnson C. Smith where he will major in business. Coach Kellikai Aipia is his role model. Talia Parrous Greg Walker AUGUST 17 TH Clinton HS at Cape Fear HS Fuquay-Varina HS at Terry Sanford HS Airtime and GAME times pending 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 50 MONDAY FRIDAY & BRINGING YOU THE BEST IN CUMBERLAND COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS 6-8pm ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?