Northwestern hires coaches who grew up in Rock Hill, including a 2-time state champ
In a sense, Leon Boulware is coming home — and Hunter Moxley is staying home.
Boulware, who grew up in Rock Hill and wrestled for the statewide fixture that is the Rock Hill High School wrestling program over a decade ago, was recently named Northwestern High School’s wrestling coach.
Moxley, who’s also a Rock Hill alum and spent the last few seasons as an assistant at South Pointe, is taking over the helm of the Northwestern volleyball program.
“Coach Boulware comes from a championship background as a player and as a coach, and he’s great at developing young men,” Northwestern athletic director Jimmy Duncan told The Herald. “And Hunter is coming from South Pointe as an assistant there, and he had a big leadership role. One of the reasons we were drawn to him was because of how he develops culture and athletes, and you’re going to see that across the board with our hires.
“I’m really excited about both of these guys.”
Both hires are impressive.
In his four years at Indian Land, Boulware led his team to four consecutive region titles and two consecutive 3A state championships. In the 2018-19 season, the South Carolina Coaches Association named him the state’s Wrestling Coach of the Year. The next year, he eclipsed his 200th win as a head coach before having five of his wrestlers become state champions at the end-of-season individual tournament.
“I’m excited to get started,” Boulware told The Herald in a phone interview. “I’m bringing up a quality staff that will care about the wrestlers’ success on and off the mat. And we’re going to produce some champions in life.”
Boulware also will help out with the football team, he said.
“(Football coach Page Wofford) and I are going to lean on each other and work together to get the football players who aren’t playing basketball to come out for wrestling, and it’s actually going to help them as football players as well,” Boulware said. “It’s an all-in program.”
Boulware aims to repeat Indian Land success at Northwestern
Boulware has been around wrestling since he was 3 years old, he said. His father, Leon Sr., was a longtime assistant wrestling coach at Chester High.
Boulware wrestled at Rock Hill High and attended Limestone College. Afterward, he went headlong into what he calls his coaching “calling” and steadily worked his way around the Tri-County: He was an assistant at Lewisville before taking a head coaching job at Lancaster High. He later was the coach at Nation Ford, leading the Falcons to their first playoff appearance in school history.
“And then from there, I took a leap of faith, as we say,” Boulware said, “and went to Indian Land.”
When he arrived at Indian Land, Boulware said the school had a slew of good wrestlers, but the program wasn’t accomplished like it is now. Numbers were low. Expectations for the team were low, too.
“My main goal going into that program was to get the numbers up,” he said. “I’ve always believed in getting in the hallways and encouraging (students) to at least try it. And I challenge them.”
In some ways, Boulware finds himself in a position not all that different from the one he was in four years ago: Northwestern wrestling has potential. The team finished fourth in Region 3-5A and made it to the second round of the 5A state playoffs last season, and the school itself is replete with athletes.
But the program’s success doesn’t yet match Rock Hill and South Pointe, the schools it shares a city with.
Boulware said he’s excited about the challenge.
“For the last two years we’ve won, we’ve had great support,” Boulware said of his time at Indian Land. “But it started the first year I got on campus, when I told the kids, ‘Everyone can say they’re family, but we’re actually, truly going to mean it.’ I mean, we spend so much time together traveling on the road, taking overnight weekend trips for matches. The parents are part of the family, too. …
“That’s something I’m looking forward to, getting the family environment and getting the community to buy into Northwestern.”
Moxley will live out ‘dreams’ at Northwestern
Moxley has quite a bit of experience coaching, too.
The Rock Hill native’s first volleyball coaching job in a school environment was at South Pointe, where he was an assistant for three years. He also has spent years coaching several travel teams with different gyms around the area, including two years at Intense Volleyball, where he coached the 16U and 17U Adidas Elite teams.
At South Pointe, Moxley did what he could to help the program, he said — from setting up practices and camps over the summer, to working with the Stallions’ junior varsity and varsity teams.
Moxley said he’s excited for the chance to be a head coach of a team that represents a community.
“With school ball, there’s a lot of community and a lot of family involved,” he said. “When you win, you’re not just winning for you, or your team. … You’re out there representing your school, your town, your community. I think it’s just a really cool environment to be in.”
And he’s excited to be in that environment, despite coaching for a school he grew up knowing as a rival.
“Being a Bearcat, it’s kind of weird to be a Trojan, but I know what the rivalry means to this area, and I’m very excited to be part of that,” Moxley said. “It’s really cool to stay in Rock Hill and have the opportunity to live out my dreams in my hometown. It’s really special to me.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 11:00 AM.
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