Northwestern hires 3 coaches, including one who built on a Rock Hill High legacy
One grew up in Lancaster and has a web of connections across South Carolina and in Rock Hill. Another is from northeast Ohio who moved down south three years ago. And the third has spent over a decade sustaining the legacy of the Rock Hill wrestling program — one with a state championship record and trailblazing purpose that is peered by few.
Northwestern High School made three coaching hires official this week:
▪ Ryan Whitmore, a longtime wrestling assistant coach at Rock Hill High, is Northwestern’s new head wrestling coach.
▪ Caleb Gaither, a Lancaster High School alum who’s earned a winning reputation in the AAU and high school circles in the state, is the Trojans’ new basketball coach.
▪ And Brian Coleman, who most recently wore many hats in his three years at Georgetown High School on the S.C. coast, is the school’s new strength coach.
Here’s what you need to know about each of the hires.
Ryan Whitmore hired as Northwestern wrestling coach
Next year’s Rock Hill-Northwestern wrestling match will be a must-see event.
Whitmore has coached in 14 years worth of these crosstown rivalry matches, but next year will be vastly different: Instead of screaming from the Rock Hill sideline as the right-hand-man of Bearcat head coach Cain Beard, Whitmore will be the Northwestern head coach — competing against Beard.
“I think any time schools that are so close in proximity both get good, it helps both programs,” Whitmore told The Herald in an interview in the Northwestern gym Wednesday morning, trying to conceal a smile on his face. “It’s not much of a rivalry when one side is winning all the time. So it’s exciting. I know those guys over there really well. I know the coaching staff really well. Coach Beard and I go back a long time, even more than just the coaching together part. So I’m excited about it.”
Northwestern is excited about his arrival, too.
At Rock Hill, Whitmore helped the Bearcat program to eight state title appearances and four state title wins in 14 years. He helped sustain a special South Carolina championship legacy at Rock Hill: The Bearcats have won 19 state championships since 1980 — including eight in the 1990s alone.
Whitmore (with Beard) arrived in Rock Hill in 2007-08. Before then, he coached in Shelby, North Carolina. And before that, he wrestled at Gardner-Webb — where he and Beard were also college wrestling teammates for a year, Whitmore said.
“I’m going to be honest with you, when I resigned, I walked in and told them, ‘Hey guys, Coach Whitmore over at Rock Hill High is the guy you need to go grab,’ ” Leon Boulware told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
Boulware said he’s known Whitmore for more than a decade. Whitmore coached Boulware’s younger brothers at Rock Hill High 13 years ago, and now Boulware — who largely transformed the Trojan wrestling program in the single year he was there — is passing the baton to his friend.
“(My recommendation) was by name,” Boulware said. “And from day one.”
Whitmore had been offered other head coaching jobs across the state and in North Carolina while at Rock Hill — but between not having to move and coaching at a school with a tradition of 5A athletic excellence, this move was “the perfect fit,” Whitmore said.
And the coach is already thinking of ways to put his own spin on the Trojan program. One of the first ways? Investing in girls wrestling.
“That was a big part of what we did at Rock Hill,” Whitmore said. “And a lot of those girls that we saw come into the high school have wrestled in my youth program. And had wrestled at the club (level) before they got there. So that’s something that I’m going to push. I’ll have a youth program here, and I want to push girls’ wrestling from the beginning.”
Gaither feels like he’s coming home to Northwestern
Although Gaither was never a Trojan, he considers the Rock Hill school “basically home.” And understandably so.
Gaither is familiar with Northwestern High School. He grew up playing against them. He said he always considered Northwestern “the standard” — a school that excels athletically and academically and has strong community support.
He also has a surprising amount of roots here: In his new job, his mother, who still lives in Lancaster, will be 20 minutes away from his workplace. His brother, too, will be close by and join Gaither’s staff. The coach also went to Winthrop University in Rock Hill and remembers playing pickup in the campus’s West Center against many hoopers he grew up playing against — including Douglas Pearson, who’s now the head boys’ basketball coach at Rock Hill High.
Gaither even has a connection with his predecessor, John Bramlett, who announced his resignation from the Northwestern boys’ basketball job in February: “I think Coach Bramlett did a heck of a job. Again, it’s a small world. I don’t know if he remembers, but he actually taught me a (basketball philosophy coaching) class at Winthrop, so I learned a lot of coaching things from him.”
His connections to the area alone didn’t land him the job. He has a decorated resume.
Most recently, he spent the last four years at Lower Richland High in Columbia, where he compiled a 67-44 record and made the postseason in three of his four seasons. LR was his first head coaching opportunity. Before then, he was an assistant in statewide power Dorman and Rock Hill’s South Pointe. He also had a stint being an assistant coach at Lander University.
“It’s all about the kids at the end of the day,” he said. “Not only Rock Hill, but I want to take the state by storm. I know Coach Duncan, he wants us to compete with the Dormans of the state. The Ridge Views and schools like that. And luckily for me, he thinks I’m the guy to do it. And I couldn’t be more excited to put Northwestern basketball even more so on the map.”
Coleman ready to seize ‘Football City USA’
The Trojans have an idea of what they’re getting in Gaither and Whitmore. But they have plenty of reason to be optimistic about Coleman’s arrival, too.
You can learn a lot about Northwestern’s new strength coach from his story: Coleman grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, a suburb of Akron with a blue collar identity that would later inform so much of his childhood and athletic and coaching careers.
He was raised in a single-parent household, he said. Didn’t come from money. In a story he told The Herald — one he willingly shares now to show how far he’s come — Coleman was chased home by bullies from school one day while he was in sixth grade, and he ran directly to his basement so his younger sister wouldn’t see him cry. That day, he said, he dusted the cobwebs off an old weight bench his grandfather gave him and lifted a bar off his chest until he couldn’t do it anymore.
That moment “lit a fire” in him, he said, and would later furnish a lifelong purpose and career. He became an integral part of his high school football team and would later earn a scholarship to Syracuse.
“(Syracuse) took a chance on me by giving me an athletic scholarship, and I dedicated my four years there to proving those coaches right,” he said. “When people believe in me, just like the administration at Northwestern has, I’ll do anything for them to pay them back and prove them right.”
At Syracuse, his passion for weight training blossomed more: He learned a lot from his defensive line coach at Syracuse — Ed Orgeron, who’s now the head coach at LSU with a national championship to his name — and he learned more under the strength and conditioning staff at Syracuse post his graduation.
His career took off from there. He started working as a weight training coach in high schools back near his hometown in the 2000s — schools like Upper Arlington, Nordonia and Delaware Hayes — where his impact was visible in not only football but all sports. He then moved to Georgetown High School in South Carolina in 2016, where he served as strength coach, wrestling coach, football defensive coordinator and, for one year, interim head football coach.
Coming to Northwestern, where he’ll be replacing Donny Bigham, he’s had a hand in 28 state championships across all sports.
“(Coleman’s) passion and overall drive was just undeniable,” Duncan said. “You could just see his passion for the kids. It’s contagious.”
Coleman’s excitement for joining the Northwestern staff is two-fold, he said.
“I want to work at a school where I have an opportunity to compete at the highest level in every single sport,” Coleman said. “I want to have an opportunity to win a state championship in every single sport. That way, I’ll allow myself to have an impact on every single kid in that school and prove to them they can be champions. And I think Northwestern is a school where we have that opportunity. …
“Obviously, too, I was raised as a person with a deep love for football. And I want to work at a school where football is extremely important. Where the kids are extremely committed. Not just the kids but their families and the community. …
“A place called Football City USA? It sounds like the place that I’m meant to be because it speaks to the community’s love and passion to be the very best in football. I know the expectations are extremely high. But that’s exactly what I want.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated when Whitmore arrived at Rock Hill High. It was ahead of the 2007-08 season, not the 2006-07 season. The error has been corrected.
This story was originally published May 12, 2021 at 2:47 PM.
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