From the time an injury derailed his playing days at Southern Alamance High School, Bryson Massey understood his lot in life would be coaching.
It was in his family roots.
His uncle, Ron Massey, was a head football coach for over 30 years. At Kannapolis Brown, Massey won nine conference championships in eleven years and led the Wonders to the 2008 3AA State Championship game, where they lost to Greensboro Dudley.
Bryson grew up going to his uncle’s football games and watched him develop young men in Kings Mountain, Kannapolis and Monroe.
In October 2014, Massey died suddenly of a heart attack while he was the head coach at Piedmont. It was at his visitation in Kannapolis that Bryson learned the value of coaching isn’t how much you win, it’s how much you influence others.
At his visitation in Kannapolis, Bryson stood with the rest of his family to welcome a long line of visitors, former players and coaching colleagues for over five hours. They didn’t leave until midnight.
“I always wanted to follow in his footsteps,” Bryson said of his uncle. “Except baseball was my deal. I’ve always loved baseball and that was my path. He and my father always pushed me. They were brothers and they were really close.”
Massey was formally introduced as the new head baseball coach at Cedar Ridge on Tuesday night. He replaces Mitchell Frazier, who resigned in August after one season to become the new head coach at Eastern Randolph.
This is Massey’s first head coaching job. He’s spent the past two years as an assistant at A.L. Brown. He previously served as an assistant at Graham, North Pitt, and Walter Williams. He was also a student manager at East Carolina University, where he worked with Billy Godwin for three years. He also forged a close relationship with current ECU coach Cliff Godwin.
“We talk often,” Massey said. “We’re pretty close.”
Massey also served as an assistant under Jason Knapp at Williams. Now, the two will be paired against each other on opposite ends of the same town. Knapp became the head coach at Orange in 2018, replacing the legendary Dean Dease.
“Me and Coach Knapp are very close,” Massey said. “He’s helped me out a lot with my coaching career. I have a lot of respect for that guy.”
Cedar Ridge finished 18-6 in 2018 and lost to Terry Sanford in the 2nd round of the state playoffs. With six returning starters scheduled to return, the Red Wolves appeared to be set for a deep playoff run in 2019. However, a month after the 2018 season ended, the school announced they wouldn’t field a varsity football team the following August. That took away their entire middle infield as Jake and Dante DeFranco transferred to Orange. Matthew Kahn, the second starter in the rotation who went 7-1 with a 1.55 ERA, left for Jordan. Head coach Jamie Athas, who lives in Burlington, departed for Walter Williams just as his wife was expecting another child.
Phillip Berger remained and became the first Cedar Ridge pitcher to reach 20 career victories, but the Red Wolves were stripped of its depth and finished 8-12.
With Berger now at William Peace University, Massey sees opportunity in a Cedar Ridge team that will be the youngest in recent school history next March.
“I know baseball is good in this area,” Massey said. “They’re striving to do great things. They want to turn that program around. They want to work hard. There’s a lot of hard workers in that program that want to change the culture in that program. We all want it to be. It’s a great school and a great staff. It checked a lot of boxes for me as my first spot as a head coach.”