High school football finalists Cardinal Gibbons, Julius Chambers steeped in history
Cardinal Gibbons football coach Steven Wright and Chambers football coach Glenwood Ferebee are to be commended for keeping the focus on the field. Both coaches articulated relatively unconcerned tones about any notion of Cardinal Gibbons playing a “home game” in Saturday’s N.C. 4A state final at N.C. State’s Carter-Finley Stadium.
Cardinal Gibbons’ Edwards Mill Road campus is located across the street from Carter-Finley. This reality acknowledged, let’s contemplate this reality’s impact on what has happened in state championship games through the years.
Cardinal Gibbons’ proximity to Carter-Finley Stadium enabled the school to open its campus to NCHSAA schools participating in football state finals. The school’s hospitality partnerships included stadium access for pregame walkthroughs, and interior space for pregame meals and sports medicine needs. Cardinal Gibbons extended this outreach years before the 2019 Crusaders qualified for the school’s first football state final.
As for firsts, Saturday’s final underscores the rarity of a Raleigh school playing in such close proximity to a football championship venue. Fifty-one years have passed since Broughton defeated Olympic of Charlotte 14-0 in the 1970 4A state final, also played at Carter-Finley Stadium. Since then, Cardinal Gibbons is the first school from within Raleigh’s city limits to qualify for an NCHSAA football state final in Raleigh. (Wake Forest and Rolesville, schools that have played in state finals at Carter-Finley Stadium, represent Wake County towns beyond Raleigh.)
Building on history
Cardinal Gibbons and Julius Chambers high schools share more than just a football pedigree.
In 1954, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education landmark ruling that declared public school segregation by race to be unconstitutional, Cardinal Gibbons became North Carolina’s first integrated high school in 1954 . Cardinal Gibbons (then located on Hillsborough Street) had a dormant athletics program for several years, but many schools declined to play the Catholic school’s integrated teams. The school moved off Western Boulevard in 1962, and was located there in 1971 — a landmark moment for Chambers High School’s namesake.
Chambers — Julius L. Chambers — was the winning lawyer in another landmark Supreme Court case — Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board Of Education. The case was presented in court in October 1970. In April 1971, the Supreme Court declared busing as a viable option for fostering school desegregation and enhancing access to high quality education.
Maybe it’s serendipity that Cardinal Gibbons and Chambers meet at Carter-Finley Stadium on this 50th anniversary of the Swann case ruling, and in the first season Chambers bears the late attorney and educator’s name.
There has been talk about Cardinal Gibbons’ players walking from the school’s campus across Edwards Mill Road and to Carter-Finley Stadium.
But both teams will walk into that stadium Saturday with a purpose, and whether they know it, a greater purpose. Cardinal Gibbons’ and Chambers’ student-athletes will walk onto the Carter-Finley Stadium field because of the efforts of their schools’ giants who preceded them decades ago.
In 1970, NCHSAA membership was in its earliest integrated period (which began in the late 1960s). Many student-athletes who will play in today’s state final would not have been guaranteed such opportunities in 1970. One way or another, these student-athletes will be part of history.
What’s at stake
A Cardinal Gibbons win will earn the school’s first football state championship, and give Wright — the school’s winningest coach, who surpassed 100 wins at the school this fall — a crowning moment.
A Chambers win would secure the Ferebee-led Cougars’ third consecutive state championship. This result would include Ferebee in “legend” conversations about Charlotte-Mecklenburg coaches. Only Tommy Knotts (seven straight state titles at Independence, 2000-06) and Mike Palmieri (three straight state titles at Mallard Creek, 2013-15) have led teams to three straight state titles.
Today, may all in attendance at Carter-Finley Stadium make the Crusaders’ and Cougars’ student-athletes feel at home. May we cheer for them and their historical pursuits, all the while knowing the vitality of their contributions to hometown lore.
Fifty years from today, those who don Cardinal Gibbons and Chambers jerseys will be the next generation’s torchbearers, thanks to thriving legacies enhanced by today’s participants.