Former Garner football coach Hal Stewart said he was glad that he was sitting down when he learned that he had been selected to enter the N.C. High School Athletics Association Hall of Fame.
“If I had been standing, I would have fallen out on the floor,” said Stewart, who built one of the state’s most dominating programs at Garner Senior High in the 1980s and ‘90s. The Trojans were the undefeated state 4-A champions in 1987 and reached the finals in ’99.
The Trojans’ Class of 1990 did not lose a regular-season game during their three-year varsity careers.
“After I got over the shock of the call, the most dominate feeling with humility,” Stewart said. “It hit me very strongly that Hal Stewart has been a very lucky and very blessed man.
“There is no successful coach that has not been surrounded by exceptional players, coaches, and administrators. I have been supported by great people, including my wife Linda and my daughter Lauren, and my mother and father, and my brothers, Eddie and Jimmy, and my uncle Dave. If you surround yourself with great people, great things can happen.”
Consistent Success
Stewart had a 159-47-1 record in 17 seasons at Garner and his teams won at least 10 games 12 times. The Trojans won 11 conference titles, posted a 15-0 state championship season in 1987 and returned to the state finals in 1998.
“Talk about surrounding yourself with great people, I got to coach Anthony Barbour (the star of the 1987 team,)” Stewart said. “He was the greatest high school running back that I ever saw and he was a better person than he was football player.”
Stewart said one of his biggest thrills was seeing Barbour at N.C. State and ’90 Garner graduate John Leach of Wake Forest lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in rushing in back-to-back seasons.
Leach was among the many athletes that Stewart persuaded to play football.
“The thing about Hal is that he could go into the poorest kid’s house and be perfectly at home or go to a reception with the Governor and be comfortable. He can relate to anyone,” said former Garner athletics director Brinkley Wagstaff. “He has a knack for developing relationships.”
Eddie Gray, a long-time assistant football coach and the former Trojans’ basketball coach, said Stewart had an unusual way of game planning.
“I think it goes back to his basketball background,” Gray said. “Hal always looked for match ups. He would move players around to try to create a matchup that we could exploit. Not many football coaches would do that.
“And he really knew how to push the motivational buttons. Plus, he always kept it fun. Players knew he cared more about them as people than he did as players.”
Where It Began
Stewart began his head coaching career at Durham High in 1975 (12-9 in two years) before leaving to return to Richmond County, where he had been an assistant football and baseball coach for three years before going to Durham.
He posted a 20-6 record in two seasons with the Raiders, including a 12-2 state championship run in 1978. Perry Williams, a future 12-year player with the NFL’s New York Giants was the star of that team, which rallied from a 1-2 start.
He resigned following the title season and sold cars for a year before becoming the head coach at St. Pauls High in 1980. His three clubs were 9-2, 8-3 and 5-5 and were led by Lee Vernon McNeill, a future Olympic sprinter who died last year from Covid complications.
Garner had interviewed Stewart in 1980 and Principal Shirley Paige called him in 1983 when Garner’s head coaching job opened again. He took the job, and a dynasty was planted.
He left Garner to become the head coach at Erwin Triton, fulfilling a wish made by his father Harold. Alton Stewart, Harold Stewart’s father, was from Coats, which is close to Triton. Alton Stewart received the first civilian pilot’s license in North Carolina and died in a plane crash on Dec. 25, 1929. Hal’s father, then a boy, was taken off the doomed flight right before takeoff.
“My father had ties to Harnett County, and he always wanted me to go back and coach there,” Stewart said. “That’s why I went. My father asked me to do it and I did.”
He coached at Triton three years and had 6-4, 5-5, and 7-4 records.
He remained a driver’s education teacher in the county, but his coaching career was over.
“It was time,” he said. “I had loved sports for a long time and still do, but it was time to stop playing and coaching.”
The Journey From Player to Coach
Stewart played football, basketball, and baseball at Goldsboro High School. He played in the first game played at Durham County Stadium, scoring the first touchdown in the park after catching a pass from long-time friend Dave Odom, eventually the head basketball coach at Wake Forest University. Goldsboro finished 1-8-1 that year, beating Garner for its only win. His senior year Goldsboro was 0-10.
Stewart almost didn’t become a coach. He was offered a baseball scholarship to East Carolina after graduating from Goldsboro High but signed with Portsmouth (Va.) Frederick College where he could play basketball and baseball.
He stole some empty soft drink bottles and sold them his junior year, netting $5.29. He and a friend bought six hot dogs for a quarter each and got tickets to a basketball game. He was suspended from school.
He was at home in Goldsboro and working for his father in a metal fabricating facility when he decided to join the Air Force. As planes from Seymour Johnson Air Force base flew overhead, he decided he was signing up on Monday.
But that Saturday he agreed to ride to Edwards Military Institute in Salemburg, N.C . with a friend. An Edwards coach recognized him and offered him a spot on the basketball team. He played one semester and returned to the Portsmouth school.
“People ask me why I believe in second chances,” Stewart said. “That’s why. I made a stupid mistake. I stole those bottles. That’s the truth. It was a stupid thing to do, but I did it. But somebody gave me a second chance.”
He made his coaching debut helping Odom and legendary baseball coach George Whitfield with the Goldsboro American Legion baseball team in 1963 and ’64 while still in college.
“The thing with Hal is that he loves the kids,” Whitfield said. “Kids will do a lot for you if they know that you really care.”
He got a $500 supplement to coach football, basketball, and basketball at Goldsboro’s Greenwood Junior High after graduating from college. He left to go to Jacksonville High and assisted Coach George Thompson for two years before being reunited with Whitfield at Hamlet.
He was hired as the head of the Industrial Cooperative Program at the school but moved to special education after two days when another teacher resigned. Eventually, he received certification in special ed.
“It was just one of those things,” he said. “I love working in special ed. I think it was a factor in the success we had in football. It helped me relate to all of the players better.”
He took a head basketball coaching job in Havelock but left to join Whitfield and head football coach Ron Kroll at the newly opened Richmond County High as an assistant. Three years later, Odom called and asked Stewart to replace him as head football coach.
“When I look back on it, I see all of these people playing huge roles in my life,” he said. “You just have to believe that God had a plan that I knew nothing about.”
Stewart was in the inaugural class of the Garner Magnet High School Hall of Fame.
The N.C. High School Athletic Association banquet will be held on Aug 20, 2022, at the Embassy Suites in Cary. Ticket information will be available in March for the festivities.