Come springtime next year, Carter County will have another football team to root for.
The Northeast Wildcats minor-league football squad is under construction, and owner Andy Slagle of the Carter County Sheriff’s Department is excited about the future.
Slagle, who graduated from Elizabethton High School in 2003, ran the Erwin Knights last season. The reason he wants to start another team is pretty simple: “I just love the game,” he said. “I feel like Carter County is a place that is built around football and would be a perfect place to have a team.”
Currently, the Wildcats have 20 or so players on their squad made up of mostly players from the Carter County area but also players from all around region.
The Wildcats will compete in the World Class Football League, a league that was founded in 2013 and features teams from different states.
“There are many high quality teams in this league,” Slagle said about the WCFL. “I’m very excited to see how we can do.”
Leading the Wildcats will be head coach Matt Franklin out of Cocke County. Elizabethton’s Jarred Whitehead, who competed for the Emory & Henry Wasps on the gridiron, will lead the offense as an offensive coordinator. The team is searching for an defensive coordinator, as well as a general manager.
As for a field to call home, the Wildcats are still looking. The Wildcats hope to play at Brown-Childress Stadium, Slagle said, but nothing has been set in stone.
The team will be flaunting the colors green and gold.
“I wanted us to have colors that are neutral in Carter County, so nobody will feel that just one high school is being represented,” Slagle said. “I want this to be a team for everyone in Carter County to be proud of.”
However, for a team like this to be successful it needs a lot of backing from the community, Slagle said.
“We hope a lot of people come out to the games and fund raisers,” he said. “It is really great when a team has backing from the community.”
The team will have workouts in August, and if anyone is interested in playing for the Wildcats they can contact the team on their Facebook page at Northeast Wildcats Football.
With his team taking form, Slagle feels the Wildcats will be a force to be reckoned with inside the WCFL, and one of the reasons he believes that is the rich football culture in Carter County.
“This place just knows how to win when it comes to football,” he said.