Can you build an IMG-like school in NC? Combine Academy plans to find out

Kurt Wessler loves public schools. He graduated from one. He won a state championship, as a boys basketball coach, at Vance High in 2003. He coached, for a long time, at Butler.

But last summer, Wessler decided to make a major life change for himself and his family: he moved his son Patrick, a promising 7-foot center, from Butler High and enrolled him at a private startup in Lincolnton called Combine Academy.

In fact, Wessler eventually moved his family to Lincolnton and took a job teaching at the school.

“I am a faithful and very proud public school servant,” said Wessler, who taught American History and AP World History at Butler. “I (loved) my job. I was absolutely blown away by what I experienced (at Combine), and there are moments where I feel guilty about that, because it’s so different than the model that I’ve been a part of.

“That model works well, and there is nothing wrong with it, but you can’t miss an opportunity to experience great just because you’re comfortable with good.”

And make no mistake, Wessler thinks Combine Academy, for the right kind of student, is a great opportunity.

So what is Combine and who are Goats?

Today, the private boarding school sits on 43 acres of land that used to house a church. There are 150 students enrolled in grades 9 to 12 and in the one-year postgraduate program. Of those, general manager Mat Williamson said, 110 live on campus in dorms.

Combine is registered as a private school with the N.C. Department of Non-Public Education. Williamson said the school is nationally accredited and NCAA approved.

“We’re an SAT test site,” Williamson said. “We have I-20 status (to allow) international students (to attend). Really, the only thing different between us and a lot of private schools in the state is that they’ve signed up for the (N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association) and we have just stayed independent.”

Tuition at Combine depends on the sport you play, but in basketball — the sport that’s put Combine on the national map — students pay between $30,250 to $44,750, though scholarships and financial aid are available.

Combine, nicknamed the Goats, was founded in 2012 by former NBA player Trevor Booker and Jonah Baize, his college roommate and teammate at Clemson.

Baize played on four NCAA Tournament teams at Clemson from 2007-11, and he and Booker always talked about going into business once college was done. So Booker, a first-round NBA draft pick in 2010, began his pro career and Baize focused on building the business when he graduated a year later.

“We always wanted to go into business together,” Booker said. “So we decided to use my marketability and his expertise.”

Finding a home. ‘This is it right here’

Booker and Baize started Combine in a 3,200-square-foot house in Charlotte where they also lived. In 2014, Williamson came on as boys basketball coach and general manager. The program was beginning to grow, but the trio needed more space.

In late 2017, Williamson was looking at the internet at 3 in the morning and found the current site for sale. It was less than an hour’s drive from uptown Charlotte, but was unfamiliar.

“I had to Google, like, ‘Where is Lincolnton, North Carolina?’ ’’ Williamson said. “We visited and, you know the feeling, when you come across a place, and you’re like, ‘This is it right here’? We closed on it shortly after that.”

In three years at the new site, Williamson said Combine has increased building square footage on the property from 80,000 to 140,000. That includes new dorms, and the school has also increased cafeteria staff to handle unlimited servings of breakfast, lunch and dinner for its students.

Baize and Booker, who retired from pro basketball earlier this year, have also been successful in real estate, and Baize said the pair has used some of that capital to speed up Combine’s growth as well as start a venture capital firm, JB Fitzgerald, that has several entertainers and pro athletes on its roster of financial advising clients. The firm also owns a stake in the DC United Major League Soccer team.

Combine also has strong golf, baseball and soccer teams, but the school’s feature sport is its national basketball program, currently ranked No. 16 nationally by MaxPreps. Only No. 9 Legacy Early College (SC) is ranked higher among teams from the Carolinas.

Enter the former UNC and NBA star

Last year, Baize and Booker hired former UNC point guard Jeff McInnis to build a national power out of their high school basketball team. McInnis had long been a successful travel basketball coach with Team Charlotte, an Under Armour-sponsored team he helped start.

In 2015, Team Charlotte won the Under Armour national championship, beating a Team Canada squad with future NBA player Thon Maker.

In his first game at his new school, McInnis led Combine to an upset win over national power Oak Hill (Virginia), his high school alma mater. After a strong debut season, McInnis upgraded the roster for Year 2.

McInnis added Wessler, Hickory Grove all-state guard A.J. Smith, plus a pair of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools stars — Omarion Boderick (Independence) and Jaylen Curry (Vance).

And none of the team’s quick success has surprised McInnis, a second-round pick in the 1996 NBA draft. McInnis played 12 years in the NBA, including with the Charlotte Hornets.

“I don’t want to sound cocky,” McInnis said. “But I don’t think (I’m surprised). I think preparation is key. We prepare and we train the right way for success. The first season, I set our schedule up for failure. I didn’t think we’d win 15 games. I’m dead serious.”

Instead, Combine went 29-7 and lost in the non-affiliated N.C. state finals to a Moravian Prep team out of Hickory that featured Josh Hall, who recently signed a free agent deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And now, Combine wants to keep rising.

“We’re going to try to keep building and keep going, and the main thing is putting these boys in college,” McInnis said. “That’s what we’re doing this for. I don’t care how many games I won or lost, but it’s about making kids better for this year. We’re on track.”

The Face of The Franchise

The star of McInnis’ team is undoubtedly sophomore point guard Robert Dillingham.

Skinny and around 6-foot-1, Dillingham has a quick smile and looks like the guy who might take your order at Chick-fil-A or start your ride at Carowinds. But put a basketball in his hands and, as McInnis said, “Rob is just different.”

YouTube and Twitter are filled with viral videos of Dillingham scoring 40 and 50 points in summer league games. He has a slick handle and a pretty jump shot. He can score effortlessly -- and in bunches.

“He’s a better person,” McInnis said. “Great kid. Does his schoolwork, no problem. Man, I thought I was good back (in high school) but he’s a little different. I couldn’t get 40 every night like this.”

247 Sports ranks Dillingham as the No. 10 player nationally in the Class of 2023. Schools like Florida and Kansas have offered him. North Carolina is among those seriously interested.

Dillingham is kind of “aw shucks” when you ask him about his game, but admits scoring 15 points off the bench in his first high school game — in that win over national power Oak HIll last year — helped him believe in himself even more.

“I was very nervous coming into that game,” Dillingham said. “It did boost my confidence being my first game and playing one of the top teams in the nation.”

Carmel Christian coach Joe Badgett, whose team has won state championships in two of the past three years, marvels at Dillingham’s ability and his future.

“He’s a potential pro,” Badgett said. “One day, Jeff called me as he was getting out of practice and this kid is outside with his hoodie on, in the cold, working on basketball stuff. The gym is closed. I hear Jeff screaming at him: ‘Hey Robert, what are you doing?’

“That’s what separates him. That kid works his tail off.”

With Dillingham leading the team for two more years after this one, Badgett sees no reason why Combine won’t begin to attract national talent like an Oak Hill — or an IMG or Montverde, two national powers out of Florida that annually compete for national high school championships.

He thinks Combine is built for that.

“They take the fluff out of education, as far as the time,” Badgett said. “You look at the kid from Cannon, Jaden Bradley (who transferred to IMG) or look at (HIckory RIdge’s Caleb) Foster (who transferred to Oak Hill). Look at their schedules now. That eight hours of fluff time to fill out a high school day is now four hours of doing your work and the rest of the time you’re working on your basketball game. That’s the advantage of programs like that. You can get a better draw of kids and the development piece is there.”

The IMG Master Plan

Everyone at Combine — Baize, Booker, Williamson, McInnis — believes the school can one day soon become the equivalent of a N.C. version of IMG.

Baize said the school expects to hire former college or pro players as trainers and coaches and to set up its curriculum in a way that allows the athletes plenty of time for their studies and their sports.

Williamson said Combine students take the same core classes as their other N.C. counterparts but that the electives are different.

“They take dual-enrolled college classes,” he said. “They take SAT prep classes, sports performance classes, skill development classes. It’s very similar to a performing arts school where you see dancers, singers, musicians. They go to these schools. They still get the base academics they need, but they get to focus on their craft. It’s the same concept with athletes.”

Williamson said the smaller class sizes also has positive effect on grades, and the test prep has helped some students boost test scores by as much as 150 points. And since 2014, Combine has sent more than 300 players in all sports to college, he said.

Badgett, who once coached with McInnis at Northside Christian, thinks Combine having national success and potentially making the GEICO national finals in New York will be good for all area private schools.

“I would like to see us have seven or eight of the top private schools in the country,” he said. “Jeff can’t take (all the players). We can get the kids who can’t play for Jeff. It should be that feeder school where we all can benefit from it.”

Wessler, who has watched his son become a highly sought after college target, thinks Combine is on the right track athletically — but also academically. Before enrolling, Wessler said he researched Combine heavily.

He didn’t want his son, a lifelong A student, in a basketball factory.

He said he really liked what he saw.

“I believe Combine is designed to be what Northwest School of the Arts is designed for, for those talented in music and theater. It’s what a Stem Academy is, what the Governor’s Schools are or the UNCC engineering school. For students who want to be engineers that may be the best fit in the (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools) system. That’s exactly what this is. It’s a model that can be applied to arts and engineering. Why not apply that to those show talent in athletics?”