All-Area Coach of the Year: Kevin Motsinger

Sat. December 24, 2011 at 2:10 p.m. | By Powell Latimer | StarNews Staff Writer

Kevin Motsinger has been waiting for quite a while for this.
He’d spent the first six off-seasons of his football coaching tenure at New Hanover hearing fans tell him, “Well you had a good year, but did you beat Hoggard?”
Motsinger’s role in ending 15 years of frustration by beating the Vikings – twice, no less – will put an end to those comments for quite a while.
But it was Motsinger’s ability to keep his team together and focused through a roller-coaster season that made him the best coach in the area this year.
Two weeks into the season, New Hanover’s starting safety Tevin Hankins was charged with first-degree murder. In the first conference game of the season at New Bern, starting running back Montrell Baldwin took a hard hit and ended up in the hospital with internal bruising.
And on the field, the Wildcats found themselves in plenty of tight spots: They needed goal-line stands in back-to-back weeks against Hoggard, then rallied late against Southeast Raleigh in the playoffs. New Hanover simply continued to win games as Motsinger’s focus and perseverance rubbed off on his team.
“A lot of times in a lot of our kids’ lives, they get knocked down a lot,” Motsinger said. “I tell them all the time, perception is reality.
“We keep pounding and pounding and pounding on them, you make your own destiny. And the saying I tell the kids: you’re going to end up in life where your feet take you. And it ain’t gonna be nobody’s fault but the person who put on your shoes. So we just have to keep on walking.”