The upcoming fall sports season will mark the end of an era for the Hickory High boys soccer program.
Brian Jillings, who has led the team for 18 seasons, announced he is stepping down from his post as the school’s head coach.
Jillings plans to continue to teach at Hickory High. He will also continue coaching the girls’ team. His daughter, Piper, will be a sophomore on that team next year.
Jillings said it was a difficult decision to step away from the program. He said he felt he needed the flexibility to focus on his daughter’s athletic goals. In addition to being a standout on the soccer field, Piper plays volleyball with the Carolina Select club as well as at Hickory High. Piper is also a sprinter.

Hickory High soccer head coach Brian Jillings reacts to a play on the field during a playoff match in Hickory on Oct. 30, 2023.
“Volleyball and soccer play on the same night and that didn’t really set well with me,†Jillings said. “It’ll give me more time to be there. She is my favorite athlete.â€
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Piper also plays club soccer and has appeared in multiple international tournaments. Last spring, she played with the 15-under national team at a tournament in Costa Rica. She hopes to play Division I soccer in college, and Jillings said he would like to be able to travel more so he can see as many of her games as possible.
Legacy of success
Jillings came to Hickory in 2006 after coaching for eight years at East Burke High School. In his time at Hickory, he has amassed a record of 355-71-33. He has coached 14 conference championship teams, won five regional championships and the 2022 state title. He was chosen as the conference coach of the year nine times. He was named NC Coach of the Year fives times and was selected as the United Soccer Mid Atlantic Coach of the Year three times.

The Hickory boys soccer team won the 3A West Regional championship for the second year in a row on Nov. 16, 2022, defeating host Asheboro 2-1 to advance to the state title match.
Before coming to Hickory, Jillings played Division I soccer for Appalachian State University until 1993. When his eligibility expired, he began assisting the soccer team at Watauga High School. After a stint in Louisiana playing semi-professional soccer, Jillings returned to western North Carolina and began teaching and coaching at East Burke.
Moving forward
Jillings believes he has built a program that will continue to be successful as it transitions into its next era. He said between the assistant coaches and the support from the school and community, he believes the program has everything it needs to continue to be a highly competitive program.
“Hickory soccer is still going to be Hickory soccer,†Jillings said. “It’s still going to be one of the better programs in the state.â€
He pointed out that it takes much more than one person to build a perennial powerhouse like Hickory. He said every person in the program has a role to play.
Bruno Ramos has been an assistant coach at Hickory since 2009. He agrees, saying Jillings has built a program that will last after he is gone.
“We don’t move past fundamentals until we feel like you have achieved a certain mastery,†Ramos said. “All our practices are the same. ‘Lock your ankles,’ ‘receive it with the inside,’ ‘heel the ball,’ very fundamental … we have to get them fundamentally sound.â€
He said a focus on empowering coaches and players to fulfill their role set Jillings apart and will have a lasting impact on the program. Ramos said Jillings has the confidence to know he doesn’t always have to be right, which builds confidence in his coaches and players.
“We have five coaches,†he said. “We take a rotation … we scout and there’s a lot of overlap. We focus on what we are seeing together … it’s so complimentary and so inviting and that is the environment Brian has created.â€
More than a game
Ramos said that inviting environment extends far beyond the soccer field. He said he, Jillings and other Hickory coaches still keep in touch with players who played at Hickory years ago.
“We follow up with these girls and boys. They get married. They start their businesses,†he said. “They still reach out to us now.â€
One former player even made Jillings the godfather of his first child.
Ramos said Jillings invests in the players far beyond the games on the pitch. That investment has reaped long-term support for Jillings and the program. Ramos said several of Hickory’s assistant coaches are former players and others come back regularly to watch games and support their former coach and his team.
“It’s beautiful to see those players coming and visiting,†Ramos said. “You’ll see a bunch of people behind our bench and those are all former players.â€
Ramos said, after 16 years, he feels the same kind of loyalty to Jillings and to Hickory soccer. It’s why he agreed to stay on as an assistant in Hickory soccer’s post-Jillings era.
“I always thought we’d ride off into the sunset together,†he said. “But I’m staying because he asked me to help keep it going.â€
It’s also why he dedicated their 2022 state championship win to his mentor. He said as players were taping their wrists before the game, Jillings told them to write a favorite quote or saying on one wrist and then write the name of the person they wanted to dedicate the victory to on the other. Ramos taped his wrists, too.
“I wrote ‘all glory to God’ in Latin on one, Soli Deo Gloria,†he said. “And then — this is how much I love this man — on my other wrist, I put ‘400 for Jillings.’â€
They won the game. It was Hickory’s first state title in four tries under Jillings and the coach’s 400th career victory. Including his time at East Burke, Jillings has amassed 424 career boys’ soccer victories over 26 seasons.
How much manufacturers in North Carolina spend on equipment
How much manufacturers in North Carolina spend on equipment

Equipment enables manufacturers to create almost every modern product, from the clothes on our backs to the cars we drive.
Acquiring the latest equipment and machinery consumes more than three-quarters of American manufacturers' annual capital budgets, Census Bureau data shows. U.S. manufacturers spent more than $135 billion on new and used equipment and machinery in 2021, according to the most recent . In all but one state, these expenses comprised more than 60% of manufacturers' annual capital expenses.
analyzed equipment spending among manufacturing companies in North Carolina as part of a larger , using 2021 data from the .
Manufacturers in North Carolina spent $5.2 billion on equipment in 2021, comprising 78% of their overall capital expenditures. Equipment is one of two major capital expenditure categories measured by the Census Bureau. The other is buildings and structures, referring to money spent to create new facilities or renovate and expand existing ones. In North Carolina, manufacturers spent $1.5 billion on these facilities.
North Carolina ranked #28 among states nationally in the share of capital spending put toward equipment. Within this category, manufacturers spent $139.5 million on computers and data processing equipment and $192.7 million on trucks, cars, and other highway-capable vehicles. The rest went toward other machinery, the needs for which vary widely based on forms of manufacturing; examples might include things like tractors, forklifts, robots, and power tools.
The scale of manufacturing within a state, as well as each locale's most prevalent industries, can impact how much companies must spend on equipment. For instance, aerospace, food, and computer/electronics were the primary manufacturing industries across several top-ranked states in the South, West, and Midwest. Within all three of these industries, automation and artificial intelligence have advanced production in recent years—in many cases requiring equipment upgrades.
These common manufacturing segments are particularly influenced by social, regulatory, and environmental factors, which also influence their tool spending. Heightened safety concerns and evolving carbon emissions regulations call for advancements in inspection, assembly, and other elements of aerospace manufacturing. The effect of climate change on crop growth, wildlife habitats, and livestock health challenges the entire food supply chain. The shift to a hybrid-virtual world, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has put pressure on manufacturers to get breakthrough technologies into peoples' hands swiftly and without disruptions.
Acquiring the latest tools helps manufacturers build products efficiently while meeting safety regulations. Explore the to further compare this spending between manufacturers of states.
This story features data reporting and writing by Paxtyn Merten and is part of a series utilizing data automation across 50 states.
This story originally appeared on Machinery Partner and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.