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By Brian Pitts
Davie Enterprise Record

Second of two parts on new Davie head football coach Brian Hinson.
When Brian Hinson got his first head job at East Rowan in 2007, a coaching star was born.
A longtime laughingstock, East savored a 7-5 season in ‘07 like a first kiss. From 2000-06, the Mustangs went 16-61 under four head coaches and failed to beat a Rowan County rival from 2002-06.
“My old principal got a call from Mr. (Michael) Pruitt and she said: ‘When he first came, he walks in, he’s mild-mannered, he’s nice and polite to everybody, calm and doesn’t get worked up too much. I was really wondering if he was going to be able to change and do this and handle these kids. The first time he walked out on the field, I heard Coach and I thought we were OK because it was like he flipped the switch and was a different person,’” Hinson, who will move from West Cabarrus to Davie in March, said. “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to go at it full speed, and I want it to be as good as it can be.”
The Mustangs took their lumps in 2008, going 1-10, but Hinson had them believing in the impossible in 2009. A 9-4 season made East hearts jump out of their chests.
“When I was a younger coach, I wanted to get into college coaching so bad that I didn’t appreciate what we did at East Rowan,” Hinson said. “But that nine-win season at East Rowan was really special. Those kids took so much pride in it. And when I see those guys now, they still have pride about what we did.”
In that ‘09 season, the Mustangs tasted exhilarating glory when they beat South Brunswick 14-11 in overtime for their first playoff victory in 12 years. East has enjoyed one winning season in the 15 years since Hinson left Granite Quarry.
“Davie County will not be disappointed,” said Mike Herndon, a longtime assistant under Hinson who is Davie’s winningest baseball coach with 211 wins from 1999-2012. “He’s a great leader of young men and coaches and the best X’s and O’s guy I have ever been around.”
Gary Bass played football at Catawba and worked on Hinson’s staff at East Rowan. Now he’s the head coach at UVA-Wise.
“I learned a ton,” Bass said. “I mean, one of the reasons why I think I’m a college head football coach is a testament to what I learned from him. First and foremost, understanding how to relate to your players, how to hold them accountable, but also how to make sure that you were good to them and took care of them. He did a phenomenal job of holding our kids accountable and getting the most out of them, but also having a great personal relationship with the players and the other coaches on staff. I think the second piece is he did a phenomenal job of putting people in position to do a good job and the knowledge to be able to do a good job. And then the personal side of him, seeing him be a father and husband when I was still young was huge for me, seeing that you can be a good football coach and still have a family and do all the things that you need to do.”
Hinson’s coaching career began at North Rowan, where he was an assistant for two years. He joined David Bennett’s staff at Coastal Carolina in 2002, spent three years in Conway, S.C., and helped the Chanticleers win a Big South Conference championship. After spending five years at East Rowan, including assistant roles in 2005 and 2006, Hinson went back to the college level as Catawba’s offensive line coach from 2010-16.
His second head-coaching stop was at Salisbury. Before Hinson arrived, the Hornets were wobbling all over the place, going 11-35 from 2013-16 after managing just one winning season in the 1990s. He inherited a 3-8 team and turned heads with a 7-4 mark in 2017.
“He understands the entire game, how to motivate people and bring people together,” Bennett said. “Brian’s got a gift of bringing people together for a common goal.”
“As far as a football mind, he’s extremely intelligent,” Bass said. “He’s a phenomenal teacher. He knows as well as anybody that it’s not what you know, it’s what everybody knows.”
After finishing 7-5 in his second year in 2018, Hinson developed the Hornets into a monster. In 2019, they went 13-3 and finished second in the state in 2AA. They took that final step in the covid-delayed 2021 spring season, going 9-2 and capturing the 2AA state championship. The next season, fall of 2021, they were 11-0 before falling in the third round of the playoffs. That was a soul-crushing squad that outscored opponents 53-5 on average.
Hinson was the head football coach as well as athletic director. After the 2021 season, he gave up football and remained AD.
“I made the mistake of giving up football and not giving up AD,” he said. “When I had no football, I was miserable. I hid it because I didn’t want my kids to know that. But we were sitting at home one night and my kids said: ‘Dad, we miss you coaching football.’ And I said: ‘Well, hold on now, we can change this.’”
West Cabarrus opened in 2020 and finished 3-4, 3-7 and 0-10 in its first three seasons. After sitting out one year, Hinson was itching for football and he took over a program that was something beneath hopeless. West Cabarrus went 0-10 in 2022 and got outscored 432-76.
The Wolverines’ 1-9 record in Hinson’s first season in 2023 was deceiving; they were highly competitive in 21-20, 21-20, 26-23 and 35-28 defeats.
“When I interviewed (at Davie), I said if you just look at my overall record (70-49) and look at some of the seasons I’ve had, people are not blown away by it,” he said. “And I understand that. But I’ve taken over situations that not a lot of people were interested in taking over. I’ve never shied away from a challenge. “(In 2023) we lost four games by a total of 12 points. I mean, the kids were competing and giving everything they had.”
Last fall the Wolverines suffered a four-game losing streak, but fans could scarcely believe it when they won four of five and whipped Hickory Ridge 38-14 in the first round of the playoffs, marking the first postseason dub in the program’s five-year history. The 5-6 season ended with a 21-20 loss at Northern Guilford.
“The thing that’s awesome is seeing the kids start to take pride in what they’re doing and seeing them be successful,” he said. “Their posture changes, their attitude changes. I mean, athletics matters in the high school and the community.”
Now Hinson is ready to build a staff at Davie and breathe new life in the War Eagles following a rough 3-7 season in 2024.
“I truly believe we’re going to be able to have a really, really good football staff,” he said. “But it’s going to be a process.”
Bennett and Bass will tell you Davie is getting a fantastic coach who is also a wonderful guy.
“He can coach with anybody, and I think he loves proving that,” Bennett said. “Some of the best years (Catawba) had, Brian was the offensive line coach. Whatever he was going to do – coaching, business, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever he would have chosen to do – he was going to be good at it.”
“He was a phenomenal player and he’s a phenomenal coach,” Bass said. “And he’s an even better man. Those kids are going to be very lucky to have him. I can assure you of this: They are very lucky to have him because he does things the right way.”