By Miles Layton

Been around a bit to see or write a lot about John A. Holmes’ football, so I’ve been able to see Aces’ Coach Paul Hoggard’s influence and impact on the players, coaches, fans and community. 

That’s why I’m writing this story — yes, Hoggard achieved a major milestone – 100 wins – but more important is his approach to coaching, an approach that I’ve seen transform teenagers not only into a team that wins games, but forges their character in positive ways that last a lifetime – a legacy that will echo an eternity.  

In Northeastern NC, we celebrate our coaches – educators – like this, so I’ll say it because I know Coach Hoggard is a humble guy – I love Coach’s post-game speeches on the playing field and how his players hold themselves to a higher standard as they walk the halls at John A. Holmes High School. When you’ve played for the Aces, you are part of something bigger than yourself, and that spirit translates to wins that unite the community behind the home team.   

Thursday night at Edenton felt like any other early-season football game for John A. Holmes High School — the Aces hosting Pasquotank County, the lights humming over a field that has hosted 11 years of Hoggard-coached teams. But by the final whistle, something historic had happened. Coach Hoggard had just picked up win number 100 at Holmes, tying Jay Swicegood’s 100 victories, according to research from the Aces’ Athletic Department.

His new mark: 100-37, with six conference championships, four Eastern regional finals appearances, and one state championship appearance to his name. It’s the kind of résumé that would have most coaches counting down to the milestone game, circling it on a calendar, savoring the anticipation. Hoggard didn’t even know it was coming.

“I didn’t know it until they gave me a plaque after the game,” Hoggard said, still sounding a little surprised days later. “I really hadn’t thought about it to be honest with you. Just getting ready for the game and getting through preseason and getting the first game in. I really hadn’t thought about it.”

It wasn’t until Holmes presented him and his wife, Cathy, with a plaque commemorating the achievement that the magnitude of the moment set in.

“Was kind of shocked at the end of the game, when they presented Cathy and I with plaque,” he said. “It was pretty neat, but it was on my dad’s birthday.”

That detail — the date lining up with his late father Joseph’s birthday — clearly meant something to Hoggard, a quiet thread connecting a historic coaching achievement to family roots that run deep in everything he does.

Photo comes from Edenton Aces football — Paul and Cathy Hoggard — congrats!

A Career Built on More Than Wins

Hoggard has been coaching since 1987 — nearly four decades on sidelines, in film rooms, and on practice fields across eastern North Carolina. Ask him about the secret to good coaching, though, and he doesn’t talk about game strategy or play-calling. He talks about patience. And humility.

“Coaching is the easy part,” Hoggard said. “It’s getting the kids to the field, getting them to practice. You wear a lot of hats. You’re a chauffeur, you’re a psychologist, you’re a doctor, you’re a lawyer. You’re washing clothes, you’re hanging laundry, you’re sweeping floors. You’re doing so many things, and I guess just being humble, I think is a great quality that a lot of successful coaches have is humility. And if you put your life in the hands of 14 to 18-year-olds, you better be humble because you’re going to get humbled.”

It’s a philosophy that has clearly resonated far beyond the scoreboard. Hoggard’s fingerprints are on generations of Holmes football — players, assistant coaches, and families who have passed through his program and come out the other side changed. When asked to reflect on that broader impact, Hoggard didn’t hesitate to reframe what “success” actually means in his world.

“I think that what people don’t grasp a lot of times is it’s not about winning and losing,” he said. “You have to win to stay somewhere, regardless of what level. Whether people say, you know, high school is high school coaching, you always got job security — that’s not necessarily true. You have to win whatever level you’re on or there’s going to be a change. But it’s not the main thing, and making an impact on people that you are coaching, that’s the job. Making a positive impact on the people that you are in charge of. And I have found over thirty-nine years that if you put those type things in front of winning, the winning normally takes care of itself. And if you are doing things the right way, doing things the correct way, and leading in the correct way, then the wins kind of follow that.”

It is, in many ways, the thesis statement of Hoggard’s entire career: put people first, and the record will write itself. At 100-37 at JAHHS and more than 200 wins throughout his career, it’s hard to argue with the results.

The Foundation: Faith and “Do Right”

Anyone who has stood near the Aces’ sideline after a game has likely heard Hoggard’s postgame message to his team — and noticed it rarely centers on Xs and Os. Faith, he says, has been the bedrock of his program since day one.

“The program that I’ve been in charge of has always been based on the good book,” Hoggard said. “And if it’s in the good book, then that’s the right thing. And we have one team rule and that’s do right. Teenagers have a lot of guidance to help them try to do right. But how I operate and how we run our program since day one has been based on faith and based on the Bible, and if it’s written in that book, then that’s probably a pretty good way to go.”

That same day-by-day mindset shapes how Hoggard approaches each season — including this one. He’s not chasing a specific championship this fall so much as chasing consistency in how his program treats people.

“We never, and I never have, you know, like some people say, ‘alright our goal this year is to win the conference and win state championship’ — and yes, those things are great and we’d love to do that,” he said. “The day has always been how I look at things and how good and what impact and what a difference can we make today. And if you take care of it a day at a time, normally at the end things work out pretty good.”

Memorable Moments and Family Ties

Ask Hoggard to name a signature moment from his career, and his mind doesn’t go to individual stat lines or trophy presentations. It goes to 2016, and a road that ran directly through his own family.

“I probably beating Northeastern in the early round of the playoffs in ’16,” he said. “They had beaten us pretty good in a regular season, and then we had to play them in the playoffs. And that was the year we made it to the state championship, and getting past them in the third round was — Luke, my son, was a quarterback. It was his senior year. To get to go to the state championship for his senior year, that was pretty neat.”

Football, for Hoggard, has never been separate from family — it has been an extension of it. Three of his sons came through the program under his watch, a fact he counts among the greatest joys of his career.

“It’s been a fun ride,” Hoggard said. “The joy of my life is having our sons that come through and being able to be their coach. And the game of football has meant a lot to me and the people that I’ve met and the people I’ve gotten to know. I love the game of football for what it teaches and what it can teach and how it develops kids if they use it correctly. And I hope I’ve had a small impact in reaching the lives of the people that I’ve been around for all this time.”

The Better Half

No conversation about Hoggard’s 39 years in coaching is complete without his wife, Cathy — known simply as “Mama Hogg” to generations of Holmes players. She stood beside him Thursday night as he received the plaque marking win number 100, a fitting image for a partnership Hoggard says has powered the program from the start.

“I’ve told people all the time, I said she’s definitely the better half of this operation,” Hoggard said. “I think the biggest thing — and you see this in a lot of young coaches — but the support that she has given me and our program for thirty-nine years has been unbelievable. Her name with the kids is Mama Hogg, and that tells you what you need to know. She’s not just somebody that was mad because her husband’s always gone and never home during football season. She’s a part of it and understands it. And you know what a great supporter she has been of me and our coaches and our programs over thirty-nine years. In football terms, I out-kicked my coverage when I married her.”

A Legacy Still Being Written

At 100-37 with six conference titles, four Eastern regional finals appearances, and a state championship berth, Hoggard’s place in Aces history is secure. But talk to him for more than a few minutes, and it becomes obvious that the number on the plaque isn’t really the point.

Thirty-nine years in, Hoggard is still measuring success the same way he always has — not by a milestone win total, but by the daily difference made in the lives of teenagers who pass through his program. The wins, as he puts it, tend to follow.

For Holmes football, win number 100 is a landmark. For Coach Hoggard, it’s simply one more day of trying to do right — and letting everything else take care of itself.

Congratulations!