‘That’s what athletics are about.’ Charlotte teams help UNC Asheville recover post-Helene

Janet Cone has been athletic director at UNC Asheville for 21 years. She intentionally built a house in an area where, even when the snow and bad weather would come — and it always comes in the mountain winters — Cone knew she could still get to work.

That was until Hurricane Helene blew through Asheville last week, delivering a double-fisted blow of wind and rain like the area had not seen since “The Great Flood” of 1916.

Businesses closed. Nearly 100 lives were lost. The power went out. The water stopped working.

“In the 20-something years I’ve been here,” Cone said, “I don’t think I’ve ever not been able to get work until that Friday. My neighborhood wasn’t bad. There were trees blown all over, but when you came out to the county road and you look to the right, it was like, ‘Well I can’t go that way.’ There just trees and power lines down. Then I looked to the left and it was the same thing.

“All I could do was go back home.”

Like many people in the area, Cone didn’t really know how bad things were.

She couldn’t turn on the TV, although she did find an old transistor radio that could pick up one station. By Sunday, she could finally get a cellphone signal, and one of the first messages she read was from Charlotte 49ers AD Mike Hill.

How can I help you?

“At first, I told Mike, ‘Let me get back to you,’” Cone said. “My first thing was to make sure our students were safe. We were making sure we could get student-athletes off campus.”

The aftermath on campus

When Cone finally got to UNC Asheville, she was able to see the damage, which included a building that houses athletic offices, golf and tennis locker rooms being flooded with water that was, she said, between eight and 12 feet high.

And once she got a head count of her athletes, Cone began to work on a plan — with Hill and other N.C. universities as well as the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, who’d also reached out.

This week, the UNC Asheville swim team went to live and train at Garnder-Webb University in Boiling Springs. Track went to Emory & Henry in Virginia.

But most of the Bulldogs’ teams playing now or training for the upcoming winter sports seasons came to Charlotte.

The men’s and women’s basketball teams moved into hotels near UNC Charlotte. The men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball teams are living in dorms on Charlotte’s campus. The Asheville teams are practicing and training at Queens University and at Charlotte. The men’s and women’s basketball teams will practice at the Hornets’ uptown facility, beginning Thursday.

In all, that’s about 140 athletes on five teams. They will practice here and the teams currently in season will travel for all away games. Basketball starts next month.

“Athletics is just a small part of the story of what’s happened to western North Carolina,” Cone said. “It’s horrible up there, but it’s getting better each day. But it will be a long time before these communities in Asheville and around Asheville recover. But I want people to understand that due to the generosity and hospitality of these college athletic directors and college presidents that it’s allowing our student-athletes to continue to practice and play and have a semblance of a fall semester on a college campus.

“And we’re grateful for that.”

The million dollar question

Chris Thomasson, the Charlotte 49ers’ executive associate athletic director for internal affairs, said he isn’t sure how long the Asheville students will be on campus.

But he said it doesn’t matter.

“Look this is what athletics is all about,” Thomasson said. “We hear so much about college athletics and how we’re turning, more and more, into a pro model, but it really is about helping young people and developing them for life and putting them in positions where they learn and are exposed to life lessons. It makes me feel great as a university and athletic department that we’re able to do this. And we’re excited to do this.”

Thomasson said the Asheville athletes moved onto campus at Charlotte on Monday and have been using the 49ers’ team facilities or campus rec centers for things like weight training and watching film. The Asheville athletes eat in the 49ers’ dining hall.

In a statement provided to The Observer, the Hornets said they have “a long-standing” relationship with UNC Asheville, including hosting the NBA team for training camp and a preseason game.

Beginning this week, the Bulldogs’ basketball teams will use the practice facility at Spectrum Center, including the Novant Health Training Center. On days when the space is not available, the Hornets said they will secure additional facilities for the Asheville teams to use.

“We’re proud to return the favor and host them at our home, especially during this time of need,” the team said in its statement.

‘No playbook for something like this’

There are about 95,000 people who live in Asheville, which is bordered by the French Broad and the Swannanoa, which makes the city and the region susceptible to floods.

And when the city was blanketed by heavy rain, ahead of Helene last week, men’s basketball coach Mike Morrell knew it could be bad.

He canceled a Friday practice and prepared for the worst.

He said the worst of the storm blew through Thursday night and, the next morning, he walked to a bridge that look out over the famous River Arts District near where he lives. Morrell said he literally had to crawl through trees to get there.

“I wanted to see what the river was like,” he said. “They had talked about how high it could get.”

He stood there looking, he said, with about 30-40 people. And when he tried to go back, just a few hours later, the bridge he had been standing on was under water.

“That was the first time, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this ain’t good,’” Morrell said.

Morrell said his players lost power about 7:30 a.m. Friday and he lost it about 30 minutes after that. Phones worked for little while longer, but when they went dark, it was hard to know what was going on.

“It was like you were in ‘The Truman Show,’ or ‘The Hunger Games,’ where everybody can see what’s going on top of you,” Morrell said, “and you don’t know what they’re seeing.”

Morrell checked on his family in Tennessee, also affected by the storm, and then circled back to his players, who by then, had lost running water.

“We had to get the guys out of town, man,” he said. “This is not safe.”

The mother of fifth-year guard Josh Banks — who played at Charlotte’s Olympic High School — drove up and Morrell said she took some guys back to Charlotte. Two other players, Kam Taylor and Jordan Marsh, both from the Charlotte-area, also drove back, taking teammates with them.

By Monday, all of Morrell’s players had all gotten to Charlotte and in the team hotel.

“I told our players there is really no playbook for this,” Morrell said. “You’re asking for a lot of grace from a lot of people in Charlotte. It makes you feel good but it’s really not surprising. I would like to think that we would do the exact same thing. So we’re just inconvenienced right now. That’s all this is. We’re not without power and water the way some people are in western North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia, or people in Florida having to evacuate (due to Hurricane Milton).

“So we’re inconvenienced, but we’re also thankful. It’s probably not the only time in life you’ll find yourself in a situation like this.”