Inspiring Coach honoree builds Smithfield-Selma football program by investing in his players

By RANDY CAPPS

Zero, zero, one, one, one, two and eight.

Those aren’t someone’s lucky lottery numbers, they’re the season win totals for the Smithfield-Selma football team for the last seven seasons. For the last two seasons, played in the spring and fall of 2021, the Spartans were under the direction of Deron Donald.

Donald’s team finished 8-4 in the fall, reached the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and won the most games in a season at the school since 2005. It’s for that turnaround, and a few other reasons, that Donald was selected as the 2022 Johnston Now Honors Inspiring Coach Award winner.

“Just the love of the game,” he said, when asked about his start in coaching. “After my professional career kind of came to a conclusion, and even before then, I just loved working with young people. I started working at the YMCA in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in around 2000. I just always had a passion for working with young people. With that, and my love of the game of the football, (coaching) just kind of made sense to me.

“It’s ministry for me. Just being able to pour back into young people through athletics. For me, that’s one of the things that kind of pushed me into coaching.”

Donald arrived at SSS in time for the spring 2021 season after coaching most recently at E.E. Smith in Fayetteville. He knew Cumberland County well, having played his college football at Fayetteville State, but was eager for a new challenge.

“SSS has been an awesome place,” he said. “The diversity of it, being in Johnston County, learning different things in a different environment — sometimes you need that to grow. Sometimes, you can be in a place so long you become comfortable because you’re familiar with it. This has been an opportunity to kind of challenge myself, to take on a job. I don’t call it a bad situation, I call it an opportunity.”

After a 2-3 start to the season, the Spartans finished the campaign with six wins in their last seven games to complete a remarkable turnaround.

“Going into the situation, we just wanted to lay the foundation,” Donald said. “I felt like laying the foundation, providing the structure and the discipline — the rest would take care of itself. Sometimes, it’s like building a house. You're getting that foundation done, and then you might have a date when you say it’s going to be done. But then you get rain. The weather may be bad, so there might be a delay. You may have a time when the weather’s not as bad, and you might get done a little sooner. But the main thing is get the foundation done. I think we did a great job of coming in and doing that, and the byproduct was winning the eight games this year. And we expect to continue going up that slope.

“I wouldn’t say I had a time frame on it, but I knew that we would get better. Eight wins in year two? We’re grateful for it, but my goal was to make the playoffs. And we were able to accomplish that, and on top of that, we were able to win a home playoff game against a cross-town rival (South Johnston). That was like the cherry on top.”

Like any coach, Donald likes to win. But the wins and losses are only part of the story.

“Of course you want to win games,” he said. “When you work hard, you want to reap the harvest and the fruits of your labor. It could be a team that’s winning all these games, but if your kids aren’t going to class or they’re being negligent in the building or in the community, what good is it? My thing is build young men first. Try to work on their character, their integrity. We all sin and come short of the glory. None of us are perfect. But we’re going to chip at it every day, as men, as coaches and as a program to try to be the best that we can be. If we stumble along the way, we’ll try to fix those issues, get back up and keep treading in the right direction.

“One of the things for me is, growing up, my mom was a single parent. So having mentors that poured into my life, coaches, helped me grow and learn what it was to be a young man. We know in our society today there’s a lot of young people who don’t have that positive male (role model) in the home. We are privileged to be able to work with so many young people, and we’ve seen great outcomes and people’s lives have changed. Just because somebody was there to push them, hold them accountable and love them at the same time. So, it’s been a blessing.”

Donald is quick to credit his players for the revitalization of the Spartan football program.

“I’m really thankful for the senior group we just had,” he said. “Those guys really paved the way for us to have the success that we had. George Brewer did a great job for us. He played quarterback his junior year, but when Dashawn (McCullough) came in, he didn’t complain. He said, ‘Coach, I’ll play receiver and outside linebacker.’ And he was an all-conference player this year. He was great for us, and he earned a scholarship to play at UNC Pembroke.

Those were the things that made us so dynamic. We had guys that were selfless that played. Like Luke Jenkins, who was thinking about giving it up but came back and was the Special Teams Player of the Year for the Quad County 3A. Those guys set the frame work for who we are and where we want to go. Hopefully, (the rising seniors) will take the baton and run with it.”