BY RONNIE GALLAGHER
SALISBURY POST

Realignment has brought eight new schools into the three conferences in the Post coverage area. They will be profiled each Friday.

Today: Statesville.

STATESVILLE— Statesville High School has been in existence for so long that there are some questions that just can’t be answered by the current coaching staff.

When asked how the monstrous concrete football facility, known as “Greyhound Hollow” got its name, Athletic Director Steve Rankin and football coach Roger Bost gave each other a blank stare.

“You need somebody a lot older than us to tell you that,” Rankin said with a laugh.

Statesville is old. You can tell by the shiny hardwood floors in the hall. You can tell by the athletic facilities, crunched into a small space. But you can really tell when you look up at all of those championship banners and see the date 1928.

Yep, Statesville High is ancient, but one thing isn’t old: winning conference championships.

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Ready for this? The girls basketball team won its first title in 1936 and has 26 titles overall. The girls tennis team has won 19, the boys 18. The football team has won championships 18 times. The baseball team has 18.

Since its beginning, there have been 168 — count ’em, 168 — conference championship banners you could hang on the wall.

The Greyhound gym isn’t quite big enough, however, for 168 banners. So Rankin has simply hung a banner for each sport with the years the sport won.

But what really sets Statesville apart is the prestigious Wachovia Cup, which is awarded to the school with the best overall athletic program. The Greyhounds have won all but three times since 1978.

So when realignment put Statesville in the same league with the Rowan and Cabarrus schools in the North Piedmont 3A Conference, you could almost hear the other ADs in the league gulp.

Funny thing is, Rankin seems to be the one doing the fidgeting.

“I’m scared to death because of who’s in it,” he said of the NPC. “You talk Kannapolis, Mooresville, West and East Rowan and Northwest Cabarrus and you start shaking. And of course, we have the big rivalry with North Iredell — and emotions have as much to do with that as talent.”

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Rankin says his athletes are not ignorant to the ways of the new schools that will be greeting the Greyhounds.

“They know there’s a new conference and they’re really concerned,”he said. “Football players hear about Kannapolis and the soccer guys hear about Northwest Cabarrus. They know they’re not going to sneak up on anybody.

“But we’re interested to see how tennis and golf will fare.”

That question has already been answered. As of today, the Greyhounds are unbeaten.

You certainly remember Statesville tennis. It put Salisbury out of the playoffs one step from the state finals the last two seasons on its way to consecutive 2A titles.

Rankin credits Randy Pate for much of the tennis success. He formed Randy Pate Academy and begins teaching the girls when they are young.

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Football is the money-maker and the team plays in that famous, gargantuan 4,500-seat stadium.

Greyhound Hollow may be named for the creek that runs around it: Free Nancy Creek. As the story goes, a slave back in the 1800s named Nancy was a favorite of the local kids and when she was freed, the creek was named after her.

When you’ve got creeks running through school property, it’s hard to consider yourself a city school.

“With the exception of Kannapolis and us, every school is out in the country,” Rankin pointed out. “But we’re smaller than Kannapolis, so we’re really rural — and urban —at the same time.”

Rankin loves to talk about location. It’s easy to get practically anywhere because I-40 and I-77 cross in town.

Rankin said, “I had a fan ask me, ‘What’s your away schedule?’ I told him and he had the right answer. He said, ‘You don’t have an away schedule.’ ”

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Rankin has been at Statesville for 17 years, 13 as athletic director. And it took a while to put his past away.

He’s a 1969 graduate, and former athlete, at South Iredell and still lives in Troutman.

His first job was at Oakwood Junior High, which fed Statesville.

“But I still had that South Iredell blood in me,” he chuckled. “I’d sit in the stands and be real quiet. I didn’t want to root for South and upset somebody or root for Statesville and upset somebody.”

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If there’s a downside to all of this Statesville glory, it’s the facilities, where everything seems pretty darned cramped in a city block.

Rankin pointed to a converted playground across the street from the gym that now serves as a practice field. The soccer and track teams practice at the same time on the same field. And the football team works out on the baseball field, “so you know what happens in the spring when you try to field a ground ball,” Rankin sighed.

“We’re landlocked.”

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But that hasn’t stopped the proud program from locking up title after title.

“Our kids are proud of being Greyhounds,”he said. “They come back and brag about it.”

Rankin is glad he is out of the Southern District 7, which always had Statesville and West Iredell, along with three Catawba County schools and two from Caldwell.

“It was always 5-2,” he said, noting that the Iredell schools seldom got a say in matters. “They were so adamant at the last realignment about calling it the Southern District 7 because they said there had always been one. So we agreed to that.

“But guess what? There is no Southern District 7 now.”

Rankin grins like Statesville has just won another big victory.

And the Greyhounds have by going into a much more prestigious conference where they will have a say in matters.

He’s so happy over that personal victory, it’s probably worth hanging a banner.

But guess what? There’s no room left on that gym wall.

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Contact Ronnie Gallagher at 704-797-4256 or rgallagher@salisburypost.com .