Â鶹´«Ã½

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.

“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.�

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.

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.�

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.�

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.�

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.�

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.�

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.�

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.’�

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.