Q&A: Former EB soccer coach Brian Jillings talks playing days, living in Valdese

Brian Jillings grew up in Port Alberni, which is located on Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia in Canada, but he currently resides approximately 3,000 miles away in Valdese.

After beginning his college soccer career at a Canadian university, Jillings transferred to Appalachian State University, where he played for the Mountaineers through the 1993 season. Following a stint as the JV boys and girls soccer coach at Watauga High School from 1994-97, he played semi-professionally in Louisiana for a couple of years before a nagging knee injury forced him to step away.

In 1999, Jillings returned to North Carolina when he was hired as a physical education teacher at East Burke High School, where he also coached the Cavaliers’ varsity boys and girls soccer teams. However, he left in 2006 to fill the same roles at Hickory High School, and he has remained there ever since.

Jillings recently announced that he will no longer coach Hickory’s boys team – which has appeared in the past three North Carolina High School Athletic Association 3A state title matches and was the state champion in 2022 – in order to devote more time to attending athletic contests involving his daughter, Piper, a rising sophomore who excels in multiple sports for the Red Tornadoes, including volleyball in the fall. Nonetheless, Jillings will continue to coach Hickory’s girls squad, for which Piper is a key player (she scored 23 goals and dished out 19 assists this past spring).

This week, Jillings discussed various topics with The Paper, including how he met his wife, what he remembers about his time at EB, what it meant to win a state title, and more. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: Once you came back to North Carolina and took the job at East Burke, how did you meet your wife, Kendall, who has now owned Tumblemania School of Gymnastics in Morganton for more than 20 years?

Jillings: Soccer has gifted me with many blessings in my life, and Kendall is one of them. She was helping coach down at Heritage, so I went down and I would watch the middle school, see who was going to be coming up to the high school, and introduce myself. But we were also in the market for an assistant coach with the girls program, so I asked Kendall if she would be interested in helping out, and I guess the rest is history.

Q: Going back to your playing days, what age were you when you started playing soccer and what got you interested in it?

Jillings: My grandparents immigrated over from the United Kingdom and they were soccer players growing up, so they kind of instilled the passion along with my parents. I was really young, 4 or 5 years old, when I first started playing, and just fell in love with the game. I played a number of sports growing up, including hockey and rugby, but soccer was always my passion.

Q: When did you decide that coaching was something you wanted to do?

Jillings: Initially my first year of college I was gonna be an accountant, but somewhere along the lines when I transferred in from a university in Canada to Appalachian, I switched my major into physical education. I blew my knee out my last year at App, it was actually in the spring, so I could no longer really play for quite a while, and I was given the opportunity to help coach at Watauga High School. So I started coaching the JV program in 1994 up at Watauga, that was kind of my first taste of coaching, and I just fell in love with it.

Q: Who are some of your biggest coaching influences?

Jillings: Well, Doug Kidd was the head coach at Watauga and he gave me my first coaching opportunity, so he’s always been a great mentor of mine, and (former Freedom High School coach) Rob Wilcher from T.C. Roberson was also one of the bigger names back then. But also when I first started teaching at East Burke, I was surrounded by some great young coaches that were a really great influence on me. Coach (Rob) Bliss was coaching basketball, Coach (Chris) Cozort was coaching baseball, we really had a great group of coaches at East Burke there in the early 2000s that I learned a lot from. Maybe not necessarily about soccer, but just how to run a program and build relationships with athletes and stuff like that, so I was really fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of good coaches.

Q: What do you remember most about your time at East Burke?

Jillings: So, like I said, I was really fortunate to come in at a time with some great coaches. Coach (Mike) Biggerstaff was coaching football and Coach (David) Fletcher (was coaching soccer at Freedom). I already said Bliss and Cozort, and Coach (Rick) Ogle was coaching girls basketball, so you had some young guys and some guys that had been around a long while, and we really had a great time. They were not only great coaches but great people, and there were some shenanigans in the P.E. department, so it was really a fun time. And as far as the coaching goes, I was really blessed to work with a lot of great kids, great athletes, and I think one thing about those soccer players is the kids were not only athletic but they’re really good people who have gone on to do great things, so I’m really blessed in that aspect as well.

Q: So now that you’ve been at Hickory High School for nearly two decades, what stands out to you about your time there?

Jillings: So along the same lines with coaching East Burke, I’m just surrounded by great people, and at Hickory we’ve been fortunate to have a little bit of success, a few state championship appearances, fortunate to get a ring one year. But again just the relationships with the coaches, the teachers, and the kids. The kids have been fantastic, they’ve always bought in and they come to practice each and every day with a joy. I look forward to it, and I’ll miss that on the boys side for sure.

Q: You mentioned the state title win a couple of years ago. You had previously been to some state championships and come up short, so how satisfying was it to win that state title?

Jillings: A bit of a relief to say the least, because we had been knocking on the door so many times, and you kind of start to wonder. But it’s something that’s essentially the pinnacle for a high school coach is to win that state championship, so I’m really proud of the boys and our coaches, and a lot of work and effort goes into it during the season and in the offseason. We had a really supportive community that rallied around the team, attendance at our games was unbelievable, so it was just a relief and a blessing, and I was glad that we could bring that back for the entire Hickory soccer community. It’s a really great soccer community.

Q: Your daughter plays multiple sports, but you get to coach her in soccer. How exciting is it to watch her growth as an athlete and specifically to be her coach?

Jillings: I’m really fortunate to have that opportunity. Not too many people do have that opportunity, and I’m super proud of not only the athlete that she’s becoming but the person as well. She’s well-rounded, she’s extremely hard-working, she’s blessed with some of her mother’s athletic ability, and she has some potential to be pretty successful. Maybe it’s soccer, maybe it’s volleyball, whatever passion she determines she wants to pursue she can be successful at, and we’re excited. It’s her future, it’s what she wants to do, so we’re behind her 110% whatever direction she wants to go in.

Q: Outside of coaching and teaching, what are some of your other hobbies and interests?

Jillings: Definitely traveling. We’ve been fortunate to get to go to a number of different countries. I also love hiking. I’m a big fan of climbing some trees and getting in some water. I grew up in British Columbia with such beautiful country, so I enjoy getting out and enjoying the great outdoors. And of course following and supporting my daughter, that’s a lot of what we do now and we’re fortunate to have that opportunity to do it. She’s only got a couple more years left before she graduates, so we’re trying to make the best of it.

Q: How different is it going to be this fall to not be coaching boys soccer and to instead get to sit back and watch your daughter play volleyball?

Jillings: Well, I’m excited, but at the same time I’ve been going out to some of the workouts and I just find myself watching the guys running around and trying to put pieces of the puzzle together. I’m gonna miss that. At the beginning of the season there’s optimism about the upcoming season, so I’ll miss all of that aspect and I’ll miss game nights, the nerves and the atmosphere. But that being said, I’m giving that up and I’m getting something better in return. There’s nothing better than watching my daughter play the sports that she loves to play, so I’m really looking forward to being able to sit in the stands and just cheer her on and support her.

Q: What do you enjoy most about living in Burke County?

Jillings: We’ve been living there for 20-plus years now. It’s a great community, and we love Valdese, the people there are fantastic. As far as raising our daughter, I couldn’t think of a better place. We have a great source of faith through the Waldensian church there, it’s a small town, and it’s a great place to raise Piper up.

Q: In all these years you’ve gotten to coach, what are some of the best things you’ve learned about coaching?

Jillings: I think the important things are establishing relationships, that’s kind of the key to success, and making sure that you surround yourself with the right people. And I think if you can establish the right relationships, build the right culture, then your athletes are gonna play for you and they’ll invest themselves in the program. I think one piece I remember is 20% of the kids that you coach will buy in, they’ll run through a brick wall for you, while 20% are at the other end where it doesn’t really matter what you say or what you do, they won’t necessarily buy in. And then the trick is getting that 60% in the middle in order for you to be successful, getting them to buy in will help determine the strength of your program.

NOTES: Excerpts of this Q&A were edited for brevity and clarity .... If you know of others with ties to Burke County who are coaching outside of the county, send an email to josh@thepaper.media.