King
Will Woolever
sports@thefranklinpress.com
Franklin High School’s athletic director is stepping down from the top job.
For the past six years, Blair King has served FHS as an assistant principal, overseeing a vast range of the school’s daily operations. After three years of also wearing multiple hats as athletic director, King is resigning from his post with the athletic department to spend more time with his family and rehab an old injury from his playing days.
“My boys are getting so much older, and they’re hitting that age to where I don’t want to miss much, and I almost refuse to,” said King. “This last year was harder and harder, especially with COVID where all of our seasons were crammed in. Their [King’s sons’] seasons weren’t quite lining up in trying to get to their games, and there’s a lot of time with them that I don’t have that I’d like to have.”
King still deals with the lingering effects of breaking his neck during a high school football game and two of his fingers stay numb. “I stay in a lot of pain, and Randy Phillips – I call him Voodoo – does a lot of therapy with me trying to get that feeling back. I’ve got four herniated discs all in my neck, and over time it just gets worse and worse and worse. It’s just kind of time to take care of myself.”
At one time a sought-after defensive line prospect on his high school football team, King was on track to play Division I ball before the catastrophic neck injury ended his career. Between that injury and others sustained both on the field and in a bad car wreck several years ago, the former standout has undergone a total of seven surgeries on various body parts over the years. While King says Phillips – owner of Franklin’s Nantahala Physical Therapy and FHS baseball’s first base/pitching coach – is the best therapist he’s found since his injury, his rigorous schedule as assistant principal and athletic director makes it difficult to find time to visit Phillips on a regular basis. Between supervising and attending the contests of FHS’s roughly two dozen sports teams and overseeing the day-to-day happenings of FHS, King has more or less been carrying out two full-time jobs.
“In my position, I’m handling transportation, facilities, custodians, school safety, teacher evaluations, and I do all the discipline for the entire school,” said King. “Then I added the AD position on it, but I was able to do a lot because of [FHS Assistant AD Ryan Haley]. Ryan knew what I couldn’t do before I knew I couldn’t do it. We both have kids, so we both understand. I would call him and say ‘I really want to go see my son play’, and I’d literally walk into Parker Meadows and it’s a tag-team – I’m going in and he’s leaving.”
While King credits Haley for helping him shoulder the job of AD – a task that includes attending every FHS home contest among many other responsibilities – it’s been a busy few years for the department’s head man. While he says he will still keep close track of FHS’s athletic exploits, the longtime school district employee plans to spend more time with his two favorite athletes.
“I take my boys to hit all the time,” said King. “The older one loves baseball – loves it, loves it, loves it. My younger one loves football, but he’ll play baseball if he can play football. I’ll say ‘As long as you’re having fun’ and all that, but this year, he’s hitting it 250 feet and not swinging correctly; it’s just his arms. His buddy’s dad looked at me and said ‘Dear God!’ My older son, he’ll put the bat on the ball every time. It may not go the furthest, but he can hit the gaps and he can run. The younger one, we went out hitting the other day, and he’s ticking the older one off.”
Between his wife, Ashley, and sons Parker, 10, and Payton, 13, King says he’s looking forward to spending more time with his three most important people before he has to move Payton into his college dorm room. While he will continue to serve as assistant principal, the departing AD says he’d like to thank former FHS principal Barry Woody for trusting him with the position, Ryan Haley for his help carrying out the AD duties, the Macon County Board of Education, the FHS front office staff, the best coaches, athletes and fans in Western North Carolina, and his wife and sons most of all.
“If you talk to people that had those kids, there’s leaders everywhere – they’re just great kids. You can have conversations with them, and you feel like they’re young adults,” said King of FHS’s student-athletes. “I remember when they ran [the women’s 4x400-meter relay state finals], my heart sank when I saw how far behind Dylan was. I hate to even say it, but I didn’t think they had a chance, and then, something just … happened. When she crossed that line, I remember I couldn’t even talk when I got to wrestling, I had been screaming so loud. That moment was unreal, and I don’t want to miss those moments with my kids. I want to be there seeing them train, helping them train … maybe some of my hair will grow back.”