One day the Pisgah Bears football team was running their usual routes; the next day they were cleaning up a field of debris left behind by a once-in-a-century hurricane. Pisgah High School, located in the town of Canton 135 miles west of Charlotte, was one of the Western North Carolina communities heavily affected by Hurricane Helene.
Jake Lowery (’25), star football player for the Pisgah Bears, described the destruction in an interview with the GH Falcon. He described the storm as a “war zone” that took down infrastructure throughout his town.
The hurricane also took down Lowery’s true love: football.
Beginning early in the summer, the Pisgah Bears prepared for their upcoming season with a new head coach. Lowery stated, “Starting in June we would lift every day and then three days a week skill position players did 7 on 7 and two days a week lineman would do lineman practice. Once in July, we would either play 7 on 7 [games] or the lineman would do lineman challenges.”
Going into their first game, the Bears had hopes of winning the conference, something that people across Canton had grown to expect. In 2023, the Bears went 9-3 and finished second in the conference, not something Pisgah fans are used to. Lowery continued, “Pisgah has a tradition of winning, so not winning the conference the last two years was odd for us. We wanted to win the conference and make a run in the state playoffs.”
This year, another winning season was within reach as the Bears, led by Lowery’s seven offensive touchdowns, started the year 4-1. Lowery discussed their start to the season saying, “We started off the year strong … the last game we played was our first conference game and we won that. We are rolling right now and feel that we can keep it going.”
Like others in the region, the people of Canton knew about Hurricane Helene before it landed. The aspect of the storm they were unaware of was the severity. Lowery said, “We had normal practice that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Until that point we knew it was going to rain a little bit, but by Wednesday night we found out the potential of [the storm].”
The people of Pisgah High School experienced similar storms in the past. In 2021, Tropical Storm Fred dumped 10 inches of rain in Canton, ravaging the town. One of the landmarks hit hardest was the Pisgah football stadium. Lowery recounted, “We got flooded my freshman year, and that [rain] flooded the field, and it took all of our equipment. [This] helped us to be more prepared. For [Helene], we got loads of our equipment and brought it in trucks to higher ground and closer to the school.”
This preparation helped to mitigate the damage to their sports equipment when Helene landed. However, the destruction was unprecedented.
Lowery described the aftermath in his town in painstaking detail. “There were houses destroyed, bridges gone, roads gone … we had no internet, power or water for more than a week,” he said.
As of Tuesday evening, Canton continued to reel from the storm. “These things are just starting to come back. Some places in the community still don’t have power.”
The good thing about the town of Canton is that the people stick together. Lowery shared that the generosity of residents is playing a critical role in recovery. “The best thing about my community is everyone helps each other out. We all rallied around each other and made the most of the situation; volunteers have gone to help muck people’s houses out.”
While the town has experienced extensive structural damage, the school itself was largely intact. “The high school is located at the top of a hill, so the flooding didn’t reach high enough to affect it. There were trees that fell in front of the school though.”
However, the athletic facilities didn’t have the same luck. “The softball field that is located beneath the school was destroyed; the football field was destroyed as well,” Lowery said.
As one of many schools with no water, Pisgah High School classes have not been in session for two weeks. With no classes to attend, the athletes work to help out the community. “The different sports teams rotate working the distribution site at our school helping to give the supplies to the people who need them. Our main goal was to help the community before we thought about practicing sports again,” said Lowry.
With the community rallying together to get Canton back on its feet, Pisgah football is ready to make its way back. This past week, the county cleared the Pisgah team to practice, and the team plans to play Friday, Oct. 11. Lowery shared, “Thankfully, everyone in our conference is cleared to play. Some of the neighboring conferences are not in the same situation.”
As of Oct. 9, Buncombe County, another county in Western NC, was not cleared to play.
After all Pisgah and Canton have been through, a return to Friday night lights brings a sense of normalcy to a ravaged school and community. Lowery shared, “Before [the hurricane] Pisgah Bears football meant a lot to a lot of people. We have some of the best community support in the nation for high school football. If a visitor was to come to Canton on a Friday night in the fall, nothing would be open because everyone would be at the game.”
Even though this fall may feel different, something as simple as a Friday night football game aims to show that a school can bring people together in the midst of a tragedy. “The game will give everyone a chance to reunite and get back together. It will give everybody something to help take their mind off of it. Everyone will come to support the team and we should have a big fan turnout like we normally do.”
As the Pisgah Bears prepare for their first game in three weeks, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) made decisions to assist the student athletes by implementing a revised playoff schedule. On Wednesday, the association announced that, for many sports, the playoffs would begin later than originally scheduled to allow schools like Pisgah located in the western part of North Carolina to make up games missed due to the hurricane. Football, for example, will have its first round of state playoffs on Nov. 15 rather than the previously planned Nov. 8.
This change will affect all schools in the NCHSAA, Green Hope included. Green Hope’s athletic director Coach William St. John sat down with the GH Falcon to discuss how Green Hope will adapt to the new schedule. Coach St. John stated, “With the extended regular season, I will meet with each coach to see if they want to take the state up on their offer to play additional games or take the time to rehab and get ready.”
In addition to this revision of the playoff schedule, the NCHSAA also allowed teams the option to play an extra game during the off week. Coach St. John explained how that would affect two of Green Hope’s top teams – soccer and volleyball. “Soccer has a full schedule, so if they decided to play the extra game allotted by the state it would not affect their RPI standing. It would essentially be an exhibition game to keep them fresh. For volleyball, though, they have not played a full schedule so if they decided to play another game the result would impact RPI. This means the game would affect playoff seeding.”
While considered a small portion of people’s lives, a return to high school sports should help to reenergize communities devastated by Hurricane Helene. Towns across western North Carolina are still accepting donations as they work to rebuild and restart their lives.
For Canton in particular, as donations from a local church are being handed out to residents, these same residents will be cheering on Jake Lowery and the rest of the Bears. While their games are being played at a local middle school, the Friday night lights of Canton are back.
