North Henderson's Uy in new book inspired by national high school coaches

Later this month, a book featuring 30 high school coaches from across the nation will be hitting bookshelves, and one of those coaches is from Henderson County.

The book, "30 Days With America's High School Coaches", delves deeper into the mindset of a high school coach, and the author, Martin Davis, hand-picked coaches from across the nation for interviews. After contacting heads of state athletic associations and describing his project, he got several recommendations of who to interview.

When it came to North Carolina, he ended up choosing two coaches, and one in particular really peaked his interest: North Henderson wrestling coach Heang Uy.

"I was particularly thrilled to write about Coach Uy, because I'm a native North Carolinian myself," said Davis, a Durham native and UNC-Greensboro graduate.

"What sold me on Coach Uy was not just his passion for the sport of wrestling, but the incredible work he does with his students," Davis later added. "Here's a man who most likely could have moved on to larger schools, maybe even college coaching. But his commitment to his community, and his passion for his athletes, is unparalleled."

Uy said he was honored to be a part of the book, which is already being pre-sold online with Amazon and Barnes & Noble and will be hitting bookshelves nationwide on Jan. 25.

How Uy came to America and how he ended up in the small town of Hendersonville is one of the more intriguing stories in the book. Uy's story is in Chapter 19 and begins with this:

"Sports is known for helping to break barriers. In Hendersonville, North Carolina, Coach Heang Uy is tearing down barriers with his wrestling program: barriers of distrust that exist between locals and immigrants. Uy is an immigrant, as are many of the students who are involved in his wrestling program at North Henderson High School. Over 20 years, Uy has done more than build a winning culture: He’s built a team that everyone in the community — Black, White, Hispanic and East Asian — can rally around."

"“I took the job thinking I’d teach for a few years and move on to something else,” Uy said in the book. “Twenty years later, here I am.”

Coming to America

At the beginning of the chapter, Davis tells how Uy's family came to America.

"In the years following the Vietnam War, a sizeable number of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese refugees were resettled in the United States. One of those refugees was a very young Heang Uy, whose parents braved the journey to bring him to America. They settled in the western part of North Carolina in the small community of Hendersonville," Davis writes.

Uy said this is the second book he has been in. The first was about his experiences of coming to America.

"My niece wrote a book about the story of our family as Cambodian refugees. I'm glad she collected and shared our experiences," he said.

Her book entitled "IF WE DIE, WE ALL DIE TOGETHER: Fleeing Life Under the Khmer Rouge" is available at Amazon.

"After settling down in Hendersonville, Uy grew up and attended West Henderson High School. He excelled both academically and on the wrestling team," Davis wrote.

Uy and his older brother helped lead West to a wrestling state title in 1996. Another member of that state championship team was West's current coach, Michael Connelly. The two were captains of the West team.

"When he left for college, he thought he’d begun his journey away from his adopted hometown. After graduating from Elon University with a degree in History, however, a job opened back home at North Henderson," Davis wrote. "Coach Uy found his life's work early, understood that, and grew in the rich community he now works in. In an age when people want to travel and garner national reputations, Uy is a reminder that one doesn't have to travel far and wide to do exceptional work and make a profound difference in this world."

Uy said his story "isn't the most important one."

"It's that coaches everyday are impacting the lives of kids. Whether people read the book or not, I hope they understand the ways coaches can affect lives. The coaches in my life were some of the most important influences in my life," he said.

The idea for the book

When the coronavirus pandemic hit and businesses slowly began losing business and laying off employees, Martin Davis was a writer at US News and World Report in Washington and his son played high school football.

"The impact his coaches had on his life, at a time when we were struggling to keep him engaged at school, was significant," Davis said.

Davis said when his son left for Marine Corps basic training in 2019, he began reading more widely about high school coaches.

"At the local level, these people receive a great deal of attention. However, nationally, there are few books that capture the tremendous work these people do. Around this time I also started coaching football, also at Riverbend High School (where his son played). Our head coach, Nathan Yates, also featured in the book, told a story about his experience coaching that brought the idea for the book into focus.

"That story became the first chapter that I wrote, and served as the model for how I interviewed coaches going forward. Early on, I feared interviewing coaches and hearing the same stories over and over. It didn't take long to realize that that was not the case. After about the fourth interview, I knew I had a book worth writing," Davis said.

Davis is currently the Opinion Page Editor for the Free Lance-Star newspaper in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: North Henderson coach featured in new book about High School Coaches