64-62.  

That’s how close Southern High School’s men’s basketball program was to achieving history at the end of the 2025 season.  

Two points stood in their way from becoming state champions, and becoming the first team to do it in school history.  

The Spartans, led by head coach Greg Motley, lost to Ben L. Smith in the 3A state championship game in 2025.  

A.J. Morman Jr was a freshman.  

Jakari Glaspie was a junior.  

And for KJ Terry?  

He wasn’t on the team.  

Nowhere to be found.  

At least not yet.  

After losing to Southern High School during his freshman and sophomore years at South Granville High School, Terry believed that there was thing to do to stop that from happening.  

For the losses against his eventual team to finally come to an end.  

“If I can’t beat them, I might as well just join the team,” Terry said.  

Terry and Morman’s connection began way before the high school level. The camaraderie was already there, and everything else needed to help fuel a state championship journey.  

It takes chemistry, togetherness and energy to accomplish such a milestone.  

“When I was in ninth grade, he [AJ Morman Jr.] was playing with Team Curry, and I was as well,” Terry said. “Since then, we had a bond, but we just got closer since we’re on the same team. That’s like my little brother for real.”  

The pieces came together for head coach Greg Motley. Motley’s experience at the high school level has spanned for years upon years. A Jackson, North Carolina native who still talks to some of the players he coached in his first ever year on the job, believes that youth sports go beyond just winning games.  

The impact is far greater than that, and rightfully so.  

“My dad used to say, just in life as a grown person, ‘If you find something that you would do for free, then it won’t ever feel like a job,’” Motley said.  

And on this “job”, despite taking some time, Motley will always be known as the head coach who led Southern High School to the promise land.  

To a territory, not many players and coaches get to experience in their life. Why?  

It’s hard. It’s not easy. It takes time and the right pieces for everything to fall in place.  

A year passed by since Southern High School’s state championship loss, all to build up to what would become a season that saw them win 28 times and only lose on three separate occasions.  

That’s a whole lot of winning, to say the least.  

But despite those losses, the team continued to stick it out and build off those moments. And with that, it became another state championship appearance. Another opportunity to make history. Morman, Terry and Glaspie were key contributors. Morman and Terry’s ability to score in their own way, with Glaspie’s presence on the defensive end — throttled Southern on the hardwood floor.  

Though, alongside the sidelines, it was more than just Motley. The assistant coaches were crucial as well.  

“I cannot have picked a better group of people to work with,” Motley said.  

Take Megan McDonald for example, a weight training teacher at the school and a Southern High School alumna, and an important factor in the players’ development as far as their strength is concerned. 

Basketball, to put it simply, can be a rough sport — driving to the lane, bumping your opponent on the way to the rim and then trying to muscle up the ball into the rim for a layup. 

That takes skill, but also brute force too.  

“I just focus on the goal that we all set of what we’re trying to achieve,” McDonald said. “And just pushing them beyond their mental capacity of thinking what they can do. I typically start with fundamentals because I always want them to have correct form, so that they don’t get injured. That’s my main priority.”  

The head coaching experience. The approach toward building the players’ bodies. The key players.  

It’s all there for Southern. It’s the recipe that helped them stir the pot and enjoy a tasty meal.  

That tasty meal being a state championship.  

On March 14, 2026. That’s when those dreams that were close to becoming true a year ago finally came to real life.  

Southern defeated Mooresville by a score of 54-47. The buzzer sounded and everyone went into celebration mode.  

Including, Brandon Hodges, the principal of Southern.  

“I was on the court, and I was absolutely clapping and cheering,” Hodges said. “Yelling, positively, but cheering on and so excited because I felt that the boy’s basketball team finally got what they deserved.”  

After the buzzer sounded, the conclusion of the award ceremony, and everyone packed up to leave the arena with a championship trophy in favor of the team from Durham — the celebration ensued.  

For the players? A gathering at Glaspie’s household.  

“First off, it was a joke at first, but we was just all like, ‘Party at my house,’” Glaspie said. “After we all talked to our parents and stuff, it was most definitely a party at my house. We all had a good time, we came over here, turned up — we just won [the] state chip.”  

For the coaches? A gathering at Motley’s place.  

“All the coaches came over to my house, my family had got some stuff to celebrate really fast and stuff like that,” Motley said.”  

For Hodges? Well, he made sure that the rest of the principals in Durham knew who stood on top.  

“One of the first things I did was to ensure that I text all of the high school principals in Durham, to let them know that Southern was the state champions for men’s basketball,” Hodges said.  

Because who wouldn’t do that as the principal of a state championship winning program? 

Morman, just a sophomore, was unsure about what to do in the moment after the buzzer sounded.  

However, he did have options.  

“At first, I was lowkey like sitting there with the ball,” Morman said. “I didn’t know what to do. I was debating on if I wanted to throw the ball in the air.”  

But Morman decided to partner with coach Amari Hamilton, sprinting into his arms for a hug as the party was only getting started for the Spartans.  

“He was like a big brother to me the whole time I’ve been here,” Morman added. 

Everything had fallen into place that night. The Southern community was there, from players to the students.  

From an outsider’s perspective, it may just be a school from Durham, North Carolina to win a state title.  

For someone like Hodges, who’s still in the early stages of his tenure at Southern High School as the principal saw something else.  

Something meaningful.  

Something that will go down in history.  

Forever.  

“I really saw the hopes and dreams of a multitude of students come true in that moment,” Hodges said.  

That’s how it all happened.  

Southern High School.  

State champions.