New coach hopes to continue momentum for Smithfield-Selma

By RANDY CAPPS

SMITHFIELD — Smithfield-Selma was one of the major stories in North Carolina high school football last season, winning its first conference championship in 25 years en route to a 9-2 record.

The winds of change blew through the program in the offseason, shifting its head coach (Deron Donald) to Garner, an assistant (Keionte Gainey) to the head coaching job at Oxford Webb and a bevy of talented players to the college ranks.

The same breeze has brought Hancel Phipps back into the coaching ranks after a one-year retirement. He was the offensive coordinator at Wake Forest, where his modified pistol Wing-T helped produce three state and five regional crowns in 10 seasons.

“Once you’ve done it for a long period of time, it’s hard to get it out of your blood,” he said. “I did 33 years of coaching, got out and couldn’t get rid of the itch. I started looking, and being retired, I could be a little more picky about jobs. I wanted to find a community that might be one of those places that nobody’s looking at, but has the potential to be on the rise. The Smithfield and Selma area checked a lot of those boxes.”

In addition to installing a new offense, Phipps is also still working on filling out his coaching staff at press time.

“We’ve been lucky enough to have some time in the spring, and we’ve just finished up our 10 days here in the summer,” he said. “We’re getting it put in. The good thing is that a lot of these kids … didn’t play much last year. We were a very senior-laden team with Coach Donald.

“Having new kids coming in, they’re more receptive to try something different. It’s not like taking a senior who’s been running a system for three years and trying to change it on them. We’re definitely moving in the right direction.”

There will be plenty of opportunities for new faces for the Spartans this year, thanks to the roster turnover. Seniors Jayden Brinkley and Jaelyn Groves, according to Phipps, have stepped into leadership roles for the otherwise young squad.

“The great thing about this offense, at least my philosophy is, it adapts to the kids,” he said.

“They don’t have to adapt to it. If we’ve got kids that are small, quick and fast, we’ll run a lot of jets and rockets and all that stuff. If we’ve got a big, bruising fullback, we can run more off tackle and power. We’re going to adapt the offense to fit our kids and do what it takes for them to be successful.”

The new-look Spartans will kick off the 2023 campaign at South Garner on Aug. 18.