Cap 8 debuts football media days
PHOTO (L-R): Millbrook’s Cairo Williams, Bryson Gray, Andrew Jayne and coach Laymarr Marshall.
Buy me a coffee to support my research to tell untold college football integration untold stories.
Thomas Shanahan | @Thomas-Shanahan-23
Order link:
Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, The Integration of College Football 3rd Ed – August Publications
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By TOM SHANAHAN
The Rolesville High gym was loaded with college football prospects as new Rams head coach Kevin Riddick, a former North Carolina and NFL player, and his Cap 8 Conference colleagues hosted their first Cap 8 Media Days.
I took a moment to talk with three Millbrook players, quarterback Bryson Gray, defensive back Cairo Williams and offensive guard Andrew Jayne, about the upcoming season.
Gray (6-3, 190) is committed to Mercer College and Willliams is weighing several Division I offers. Jayne (5-10, 260) doesn’t have the height of a prototypical Division I recruit, but he plays bigger than his size, knocking down DI recruits across from him.
The Wildcats also return two of the nation’s top recruits, defensive end Rashad Streets (Oregon) and linebacker Quinton Cypher (Ohio State). In composite recruiting rankings, Streets is No. 23 nationally, No. 4 Edge and No. 2 North Carolina. Cypher is No. 246 nationally, No. 19 linebackers and No. 9 North Carolina.
Click here for video:
— Thanks to Rolesville media class students for help with the video and their work on the overall program. They were Thaili Taylor, Kennedy Clifton, Eliza Leicht and Maddison Farabaugh.
One reason I enjoy writing about high school sports is the coaches I meet. Yes, they’re good at X’s and O’s, but they also develop their players on and off the field.
The off the field is what I never experienced in my high school career. I didn’t know that high school coaches could teach the value of teamwork in games, camaraderie off the field and spent his or her own time to improve fundamentals and build character.
When I was only a year or two out of college, I interviewed a football player at Vista High, a power in San Diego County. He told me that his coach, Dick Haines, was like his father. My jaw dropped. That was not within my frame of reference for a coach. My coaches, I began to realize, failed me. And it was confirmed to me as the years progressed meeting new athletes and coaches.
I thought high school coaches were idiots until I started meeting them and writing about their athletes and teams as a sportswriter.
I told this story once to the late, great Bill Walton, who, of course, had John Wooden as his UCLA coach. He also had Jack Ramsey as his coach with the NBA champion Portland Trailblazers and K.C. Jones with the Boston Celtics. But Walton also had a great high school coach, Gordon Nash.
“It was the other way around for me,” Walton said. “I didn’t know there were bad high school coaches until I got to the NBA and talked to teammates.”
For all of above reasons, i’m looking forward to another high school season.
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Millbrook won the Cap 8 title with an unbeaten record and advanced to the N.C. High School Athletic Association 8A championship. The Wildcats fell to Charlotte Hough, 21-0. Hough is ranked No. 1 in the HighSchoolOT’s statewide preseason rankings and Millbrook No. 4.
The other Cap 8 media schools and their 2025 records: Rolesville 9-4, lost third round of playoffs; Leesville Road 8-4, lost second round; Enloe 6-5, lost first round; Broughton 5-6, lost first round; Corinth-Holders 4-6; Wakefield 1-9; Athens Drive 0-10.
PHOTO: Enloe coach Ryan Clark and his players.
CAP 8 OPENING NIGHT GAMES, Friday August 21, 7 p.m.
— MILLBROOK at Garner
Millbrook coach Laymarr Marshall attended the Cap 8 Media Day with players Bryson Gray, Cairo Williams and Andrew Jayne.
— ATHENS DRIVE at Green Level
Athens Drive coach Tommy Smith Jr. with players Camron Young and Jai’Shaun Sheppard.
— BROOUGHTON at Apex Friendship
Broughton coach Bryan Patterson with players Kareem Elboulaki, Darias Johnson and Owen McCallen.
New Brunswick at CORINTH HOLDERS
Corinth Holders coach Carl Smith with players Lamont Hunt, Joshua Price and Ayden Jones.
— ENLOE at Southeast Raleigh
Enloe coach Ryan Clark with players Jaiden Creath, Leo Gorga and Jacob Stanford.
— Jordan at LEESVILLE ROAD
Leesville Road coach Ben Kolstad with players Jha Thompson, Donovan Best and Wyatt Gardner.
— ROLESVILLE at Mallard Creek
Rolesville coach Kevin Reddick with players Marquis Bryant, Marley Emerson and Jack McHugh.
— Heritage at WAKEFIELD
Wakefield coach Brandon Hughes with players Grayson Clopton, James Williams and Kiylan Dingle.
PHOTO: Rolesville coach Kevin Reddick and his players.
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Visit my homepage: TomShanahan.Report
— Watch a three-minute video to learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.
Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama that earned first place for Enterprise from the Football Writers Association of American.
— Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.
— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”
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PURCHASE LINKS, non-fiction books
— RAYE OF LIGHT,
Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, The Integration of College Football 3rd Ed – August Publications
or on Amazon.
— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, August Publications or on Amazon.
PURCHASE LINKS, children’s books
— DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here.
— HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP. Order here:
How Duffy Put Hawaii On America’s Football Map by Tom Shanahan, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
Amazon.com: How Duffy Put Hawaii On America’s Football Map eBook : Shanahan, Tom: Kindle Store
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