Steeped in history but free from its pressure, Independence's 'Big I' brand of football returns
Posted October 13, 2022 9:20 a.m. EDT
Mint Hill, N.C. — Even from the opposite end zone, I could feel the shockwave of Independence High School's cannon in my chest. The Patriots had just scored and, as is tradition, the JROTC "cannon keepers" filled the Spanish-American War relic with newspaper and gunpowder.
The blast catches visitors like me off-guard, but for second-year head coach Darryl McFadden, it's a welcome and familiar sound.
He remembers games when the cannon seemed to go off every couple of minutes — the cannon keepers could barely keep pace with "Big I" scoring.
I assume all visitors to Independence's football stadium do exactly what I did when I first walked in last Friday — look around to see where the Patriots list their historic run of N.C. High School Athletic Association championships. And there they were: seven in a row (2000-2006), with a state record 109 straight wins, displayed proudly on the press box.
There are venues where the school's once-proud tradition is so far removed from present-day that it taunts as much as it haunts. But not here. The stands were lively for homecoming against Providence. The Patriots are off to a 6-1 start, already a lock for its best season since 2015. No ghosts of yesteryear whispering from the treetops.
McFadden was the quarterback of Independence's last two championship teams (2005 and 2006), the final two of those seven. The Big I tradition remains for his players, but the pressure does not.
"When we were here playing with The Streak, that is pressure-filled because you don't want to be the class to lose it," McFadden said. "Half of (my players) don't even know anything about The Streak besides what they see on the press box. We really want them to just focus on building their own legacy and leaving their own mark here."
The impact of the Patriots' run went beyond the Mint Hill school and into the rest of Mecklenburg County. In a classic rising-tides-lift-all-boats example, county schools went from 1980-1999 with just two state titles to 21 from 2000-2021 (14 if you exclude Charlotte Catholic's seven).
It's not that Independence football fell off a cliff, just that other teams from the area eclipsed it on a statewide level. Although it has had six double-digit winning seasons after the title run ended, it's also had nine that didn't meet the mark — five of them netted five or fewer wins.
Throughout that time, McFadden bounced around the area as an assistant coach. Always a proud alumnus, he gained experience and insight from his previous stops (including as an assistant at Independence) and was ready when his turn came.
He's struck a balance of not overdoing the nostalgia while returning the program to foundational principles that had made it the envy of every program in the state.
"It means a lot to me. I care about Independence, I always have," McFadden said. "It's a little more gratifying when you're back at your high school where you graduated and the practice field where you practiced, in the halls, and on the game field that you played on, to be in this position that we're in."
If Butler defeats Charlotte Catholic this week, then there's a chance for Independence to go into the last week of the season against Butler — its old rival and the school it first handed its Mecklenburg powerhouse baton to — for a share of the league crown. It would be the Patriots' first since 2015.
It would be fitting if the game got moved to Memorial Stadium in uptown, the same location where so many of those historic matchups took place because of the smaller seating capacity at both schools.
But it would also be fitting if it were held at Independence, where the cannon could ring out the echoes of a tradition that's been restored.
"Mint Hill has been waiting for Independence to get back," McFadden said. "They show up and they're loud. ... They got kind of tired on waiting for us and now that we're back on the right track, they're super excited for us."
