By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — Lusty hoorahs echoed throughout the evening on May 17, in the Grandview Ballroom on the campus of Appalachian State University. The occasion? The Watauga High School football team’s ring ceremony celebrating an undefeated 2025 season and an NCHSAA 6A State Football Championship.
Keynote speaker Jon Steinbrecher, the commissioner of the NCAA Division I’s MidAmerica Conference (the “MAC”) is a Watauga alum and member of the school’s last state championship team, in 1978. Including a nod to the former head coach of that 1978 team (in the audience), Bill Mauldin, Steinbrecher urged the 2025 team members to celebrate the great accomplishment but not to think of it as “the” highlight of their young lives. From marriage, children and jobs, as well as avocational pursuits, there should be many more highlights in their life journeys, he said. “Don’t let this ‘the’ highlight. It is just the beginning of your lives.”
The Pioneers’ head coach since 2014, Ryan Habich, looked back at the steps the team took in getting there, not focused on winning a state championship but on doing things “the right way.” He reiterated the importance of the program’s longtime key values: WTW: Work to Win; GPE: Give Perfect Effort; and TBM: Team Before Me, as well as foundational principles “Stay in the Fight” and “Faith Over Fear.”
The number, “47”, took on special significance this year and Habich recounted the ways it meant so much to him and the team in 2025. It had been 47 years since the Pioneers’ last state football championship and 47 kept popping up in scores, as well as on the game clocks. At one point, he called for quarterback Cade Keller to “take a knee” with the game well in hand and 47 seconds on the clock. It was a purposeful nod to the 1978 team.
With other 6A state championships in Women’s Cross Country and Women’s Indoor Track, as well as state runners-up finishes in Volleyball and both Women’s and Men’s Outdoor Track as well as noteworthy individual performances and conference championships, Athletic Director Dustin Kerley deserves special recognition for his spearheading the athletic program, not just for the athletic performances but for the program’s balance in sport, academics and personal development of the young men and women participating at Watauga.
The celebratory rings, diamond encrusted and personalized with the players’ and coaches’ last names alongside the program’s key acronyms, may have been the centerpiece of the evening festivities, but how the team got there: overcoming adversity, the lasting impression on the young men forging the brotherhood of accomplishment and the central messages of Habich, Steinbrecher, Keller and Kerley are what will resonate the longest, at least in the mind of this reporter.
Kudos to Heather Jones, Amanda Habich and their organizing committee, as well as Touchdown Club president Jeff Greene for putting together a special night for the players, coaches, school administrators and their families.
