Soccer coach becomes athletic director

Youth Sync

Soccer coach takes over as athletic director

In anticipation of retiring in December, Northwest Guilford High School’s athletic director, Mike Everett, will turn position over to Jason Allred next month

by MEREDITH BARKLEY

NORTHWEST GUILFORD – Jason Allred, who guided Northwest Guilford boys soccer to the state semifinals the last two years, has been named the high school’s new athletics director.

He takes over from Mike Everett, who has directed Northwest sports since September 2019. Everett, 59, is stepping down in preparation for retirement late this year.

“Just being in an athletics administration role was something I’d thought about for a long time,” said Allred, 42. “What it really boiled down to was a new challenge.”

He takes over in July in time for the lead-up to the 2021-22 athletics seasons. Until then he’ll be working with Everett on the transition and hiring a boys soccer coach.

Allred has coached soccer and taught English the past 17 years – six years at Western Alamance before moving to Northwest in 2010. In his new position he’ll be giving up both.

“Giving up the soccer gig was definitely a tough decision,” said Allred, who played soccer at East Carolina. “But looking long-term, I thought it was a good time to move into a different role.”

Allred and his wife, Laura, will remain invested in the sport, though. Their daughter Ava was the only freshman on Northwest’s womens varsity team this past year, and son Eli, a rising eighth grader, plays for a club team.

As part of the interview process, Allred presented a “strategic plan” for school athletics, which he hopes will serve as a road map for modernizing the school’s sports programs and making them more relevant to students and the community.

He wants to move eligibility requirements for athletes online and eliminate all the paper they generate, find ways at the helm, Northwest won Metro 4A Conference titles in a number of sports. Those numbers are somewhere in the archives, he said, but he hasn’t kept track.

“I never kept up with records,” said Everett, who played basketball and baseball at Western Guilford and High Point College, now High Point University; he added he was much more interested in the relationships he developed with the kids, win or lose, than he was with the records.

“I hope the student-athletes realize how deeply important they were to me and how deeply I cared about their well-being. I hope I had some impact on their lives,” he said.

He expects to keep busy in retirement and play lots of golf.

to market the school’s brand, replace aging football and soccer scoreboards and use social media and other means to get all students involved.

“I feel like if we could bridge these two (athlete and non-athlete students) there would be better schoolwide involvement and better school spirit,” Allred said.

During his years as soccer coach Allred’s Western Alamance teams won two conference titles and reached the state quarter-finals in 2005. During his 11 years at Northwest his teams won another nine conference titles, reached the state quarter-finals three times and the semifinals the past two years.

Everett will teach physical education at Northwest until December, when he’ll retire. He said he decided to give up his position now so that Allred could begin with the new school year.

“I’ll help him through the summer and into the fall,” said Everett, who turns 60 in November. He said the school had five or six applicants for the position but chose to stay in-house.

During Everett’s nearly two years

Mike Everett Jason Allred

“A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they

wanted to.“ – Tom Landry

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