Jeff and Karen Headrick are proud of their son — also named Jeff — and his burgeoning football career. They can rattle off his history on the field from memory.
“Jeff started playing Pop Warner around the second grade, he loves the game, and the game has just been the world to him for a very long time,” Jeff said of his son.
After Pop Warner, the younger Jeff was Defensive Player of the Year at Trask Middle School in 2022, starting on special teams the next year. As a freshman at Laney, he was second-string strong safety and outside linebacker, and in the spring of last year started for the Carolina Recons 7v7, part of a league where seven-player teams hone their skills playing a fast-paced, non-contact version of football.
“This is sort of the elite touch football league, he played middle linebacker and participated against some of the best teams in the state on university campuses, like East Carolina University,” Jeff Headrick said of the “seven on seven” league.
The Headricks said that Laney junior varsity coach Matt Eanes took an interest in their son who started practicing with the varsity as a rising sophomore. They describe their son as becoming a hard-working, successful athlete, humbly saying he was, “at minimum, above average.” Last summer, Karen Headrick said her son was feeling proud of the success heading into his sophomore year at Laney High School.
“So practice started for the season, and for 10 solid weeks, he was team one defense, every practice, every day, they call team one, Jeff's out there. He had a great summer. I mean, his confidence was high. He was loving the game. He was coming home saying, ‘this is going to be my year,’” she said, noting that her son was getting consistently positive feedback from his coaches. The family felt he was well on his way to becoming a star on the Laney Buccaneers junior varsity team.
Then, on the day of the first JV game of the Bucs’ season, the Headricks said things changed unexpectedly.
“And game day one, we go, we're all excited, as parents are, he's excited. He left on the bus. You know, we're texting him. We can't wait for the game. It's going to be awesome. And we get there, and he's on the field,” Karen Headrick recalled. “Well, right before kickoff, they sent the other athlete out, and the athlete said, ‘Hey, coach is going to let me start.’ Well, imagine his shock. He thought it was a joke. He was like, ‘yeah, no, whatever.’ And then, from the sidelines, the coaches are kind of waving him off and shrugging their shoulders, kind of like, ‘I don't know what to say, but we're going to go ahead and do this.’ So you could imagine the shock. We were shocked. We kept saying, ‘what's happening?’”
The Headricks said their son was devastated by the move, having built up a relationship with the coaches over time. And, while they said they encouraged him to advocate for himself to get his starting position back, the surprise benching had obviously impacted his mindset.
“As a mom, I just knew there was something off, and he was just, of course, like any athlete would be, frustrated, devastated, and more than anything, confused,” Karen Headrick said.
“The silent treatment, the money involved”
But there was more to the situation, the Headricks said. For one, they said coaches stonewalled their son’s attempts to find out why he’d been taken off the field.
“So it wasn't just the fact that the coach wouldn't tell Jeff in person that he was no longer the starter, that he sent an athlete in to do it. It wasn't just that. It was in the weeks that followed, we had to teach Jeff to advocate for himself and find out what he did wrong. And he said, ‘Dad, every time I go try to talk to [the defensive coordinator coach], he just looks at the ground. He won't look me in the eye,’” Jeff Headrick said.
The Headricks said their son did eventually get some constructive criticism, but the delay was puzzling – especially given the relationship the younger Jeff had built with his coaches.
The lack of communication also extended to Bucs head coach Luke Little, who – as the Headricks understand it – ultimately made the decision to bench their son. The Headricks said their son had a meeting with coach Eanes, who confided in the sophomore that he’d been the first pick, but that coach Little had decided earlier in the summer that he wouldn’t be starting – but had never told Jeff.
According to the Headricks, Little also wouldn’t talk with their son.
“Talk about iced out, though. Just you know bullying – silence is bullying. When you have a power figure, like a coach that these boys look up to, and he had a [weight lifting] class with coach Luke Little. He went in every day to lift weights, knowing that this coach treated him like this, and the coach wouldn't look him in the eye,” Karen Headrick said.
(The weightlifting class would itself become an issue. According to Karen Headrick, the class, which is required for most varsity athletes, was one of her son’s favorites. But heading into the spring semester, as the Headricks had begun to protest their son’s treatment, the district tried to verbally discourage him from taking it, she said – essentially a form of retaliation, in her opinion.)
It wasn’t long after the first game of the season that Karen Headrick said she heard the family of the athlete who’d replaced her son on the field during the season’s first game had made a significant donation to Laney High School.
The Headricks would later push for an internal investigation by the New Hanover County Schools (NHCS) district.
Assistant Superintendent Julie Varnam requested an audit of the donation. Documents shared by Varnam indicate the $5,500 donation was made on August 7, 2024 – two weeks before the season started.
explained the money went toward “nice attire,” namely shorts and shirts, for both JV and Varsity football players. Varnam told WHQR her investigation concluded that no district policy was violated.
Superintendent Dr. Chris Barnes added that a matching donation was made to a women’s volleyball team to make sure Title IX was violated. (Varnam also noted that while the district does get complaints about donations, few reach the superintendent’s office, and that many donations are also given to athletic booster clubs, which are independent non-profits that aren’t under the district’s jurisdiction.)
Still, the situation seemed like pay-to-play for the Headricks, part of what they saw as a larger cultural problem with the football program.
“You know, it's not just about being benched, being sidelined. That happens all the time in football. It's about the way it happened, the silent treatment, the money involved, all of that,” Karen Headrick said.
A particular point of frustration for the family was that in February, months after the situation had started to escalate, coach Little refused a Laney counselor’s request to meet with the younger Jeff, according to the Headricks.
The Headricks weren’t the only family that expressed concerns or frustrations about the Laney football program. Two other families spoke with WHQR, but declined to go on the record – in large part because their children still relied on support from Laney coaches to pursue their athletic careers, something they were unwilling to jeopardize. Some voiced concerns that Little had played his sons Ty and Kolbe as quarterbacks, calling the program “daddy ball.” (NHCS said this was not a violation of district policy.) Others shared similar stories about their students getting frosty treatment from the coaching staff after falling out of favor for various reasons, and other stories about families who made significant donations to the school or booster program.
Several other families who talked to WHQR about the program spoke highly of Little and the Bucs football program.
Little, who was hired to coach at Laney in 2020, recently announced he was resigning to take a job in South Carolina. In an email, he declined the opportunity to discuss parents’ concerns.
“No thank you, but you may want to get your facts straight, and not just listen to a few unhappy parents, before you do an article. I’ve done this for 25 years at several different places and Laney is a great place with a lot of good people,” Little wrote.
Fred Lynch, Laney’s longtime athletic director, also declined an interview saying “I’ve got nothing to say about it.” He didn’t respond to specific questions about parent concerns, but said, “just because you print it doesn’t make it true.”
Appeal option retracted
As the fall football season wore on, the Headricks escalated their complaints about their son’s treatment.
The family first went to Laney principal Danny Little (no relation to coach Little). In November, they filed a grievance, after which the superintendent’s office said it would investigate their concerns. Karen Headrick said they met with Varnam and identified what they felt were multiple violations of the coaches’ code of conduct.
It’s worth noting the district can only really take action on violations of policy, not personality conflicts or differences of opinion — so when parents file a grievance, they have to specifically point to NHCS rules and regulations. In this case, the Headricks were pointing to the school board’s official code of conduct for coaches, which includes ethical guidelines and over a dozen things that coaches must do.
Specifically, Jeff and Karen Headrick pointed to three main points in the code they felt had been violated:
- Uphold the honor and dignity of the profession in all personal contact with students, officials, athletic directors, school administrators, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA), the media, and the public.
- Be aware of the tremendous influence he/she has on student-athletes and will never place winning above the value of instilling the highest ideals of character and integrity.
- Strive to set an example of the highest ethical and moral conduct with the student athlete, officials, athletic directors, school administrators, the NCHSAA, the media, and the public.
According to the Headricks, the district’s director of student safety, Dr. Rob Morgan, investigated their concerns but reported no violations. The Headricks said Morgan refused to talk to them or share anything about his review.
Karen Headrick also said that while principal Little wouldn't allow a meeting with coach Little, he did arrange for their son to meet with coach Eanes. The Headricks said this was when their son learned Little had made up his mind about not starting him long before opening day, and told them Eanes expressed remorse for the way things played out.
Citing that as additional evidence, the Headricks appealed Varnam’s investigation in December — which both the Headricks and Varnam confirmed, she welcomed (Varnam told WHQR that in any situation she encouraged parents to share more information if they have it). After filing the appeal, the school board voted to hear the Headricks’ complaint, and the family got a phone message from Barnes, which they shared with WHQR.
Barnes laid out some of the process for what’s known as a “mandatory appeal,” meaning the board would be required to hear the Headricks out, and allow them to present evidence – including information provided by other concerned parents. The Headricks felt like because they’d been unable to get all the coaches involved in the same room – or to even talk to them at all – this was an opportunity to cut through the ‘he said, she said’ and get to the truth.
The Headricks chose a hearing date and were prepared for their day in court — so to speak — when in early January they heard from Norwood Blanchard, one of the district’s attorneys, who told them the board had voted again, this time deciding not to hear their appeal.
“He said, ‘oh, we’re sorry, the board has decided not to have the hearing. Sorry for any inconvenience, case closed,’” Karen Headrick said.
The Headricks said they were frustrated, confused, and disappointed. Barnes said he took some responsibility for that, noting that he’d been wrong about the appeal being ‘mandatory.’ But he insisted he had been acting in good faith.
“Here’s part of the interview where I jump on my sword a little bit,” Barnes said. “When I initially first communicated with the family, my interpretation of their concern was that it would be a mandatory appeal. The board, however, voted at the attorneys’ recommendation, that it was a discretionary appeal.”
Several board members did respond to questions about their decision on the Headrick hearing, all either citing closed session or deferring to Board Chair Melissa Mason, who did not respond, and Barnes, who agreed to a full interview alongside Varnam.
As Barnes noted, the situation is difficult for the district to fully comment on, because it involves both FERPA – the federal law protecting student privacy — and state personnel laws, which largely protect information about employee discipline, with the exception of suspensions, demotions, and terminations.
Allegations of abuse and cover-up
Starting in the fall, as the Headricks began to pursue their complaint, they say there was also increasing pushback from the district that they considered retaliation.
In addition to attempts at discouraging their son’s participation in weightlifting class, the Headricks said there was also a threat to discontinue his open choice attendance at Laney — essentially, kicking him out of school. There was also an incident where the Headricks say their son was punished for an excused absence.
The Headricks, who acknowledged they’d earned the scorn of fellow parents and football fans while pursuing their grievance, said the district "weaponized" Ethix360 — the district’s online anonymous complaint portal. According to them, the district directed complaints about them to Ethix360, which unlike email, doesn’t leave a public record.
The elder Jeff was also threatened with trespass by principal Little, the Headricks said. This apparently stemmed from allegations that Jeff Headrick chased and verbally assaulted a coach after a booster meeting on campus. Jeff Headrick said the district had provided no evidence for this claim, noting that there were over a dozen people present, and the campus has security cameras.
The Headricks said as the process continued they met with three different attorneys who, in addition to suggesting they might have a good case, each pointed to the history of alleged corruption and cover-ups — and, of course, the very real history of criminal abuse and civil suits related to that — in the school district, and at Laney in particular. The Headricks began to draw parallels between their situation and the experience of other parents who had gone up against NHCS.
“I don't know that there's a cover-up. We can't prove that, but it looks a whole lot like Clyde Edgerton and Randy Johnson, and a lot of other things that have happened in the past in the school district,” Jeff Headrick said.
Edgerton was barred from school property after he began investigating alleged corruption and racial discrimination in the district’s Spanish-immersion program, eventually clashing with then-Superintendent Dr. Tim Markley. Johnson also took on the administration after the district violated Title IX by failing to protect his daughter from coming into contact with a young man, a student athlete, who had assaulted her (years later, the district admitted it had failed to uphold the law).
Both cases were well documented, but five, even ten years later nearly everyone involved — including Markley, former Deputy Superintendent Dr. Rick Holliday, and former district attorney Wayne Bullard — has left the district. Markley was eventually suspended without pay for attempting to intimidate Edgerton into silence and was under investigation for his alleged role in retaliating against Johnson when he took a buy-out, essentially leaving in disgrace. Holliday retired while both a civil and criminal case was building against him, and it is likely he escaped criminal charges of negligence primarily because the statute of limitations ran out.
For Karen Headrick, what happened to her son was part of the same problem.
“One thing each lawyer told us was the inbred corruption in New Hanover County, and especially at Laney High School, goes back 30 years, and we want to shine a light on that corruption. And I know athletics is kind of untouchable. I know that it's very hard to get anyone to hear your story because they don't think emotional abuse is the same as sexual or physical abuse, but it is. It has long-term effects. And we pay, the taxpayers pay these coaches to train up our young men and women athletes and teach them and be role models for them, and all they're teaching them is to lie, cheat and steal to get ahead. And it's sad,” she said.
The Headricks began explicitly making this connection in their grievance process, including emails to the New Hanover County school board, ratcheting up allegations of abuse and cover-ups. In one email from early April, Jeff Headrick wrote:
As I stated in my previous email, My son has been under attack at Laney High School since the summer of 2024. We have tried to communicate to the coaches about Jeff's abuse without damaging their reputation. It is difficult to make a complaint against men of power.
The school has and will continue to weaponize coaches, their volunteers, and ethix360 to do to my family what they did to Clyde Edgerton. Like Clyde Edgerton and many others over the years, the NHCS will attempt to destroy any family that speaks anything other than positive words about them. As a board member I'm sure you understand what reprisals are. I also hope you are aware that reprisals of any kind go against NHCS policy.
Again, the Headricks were specifically citing NHCS policy, specifically policies 1740 and 4010, which prohibit reprisals against parents (or any other ‘grievant’) for their participation in the grievance policy, and policies 1710, 4020, and 7230, which prohibit retaliation against anyone reporting harassment.
Then, on Tuesday, April 22, the Headricks got an email from Blanchard, the district’s attorney, asking them on Barnes’ behalf to come to a meeting that Friday afternoon at Blanchard’s law office with Barnes and Varnam to discuss their issues.
“This is your opportunity to share the statements, documentation and other ‘evidence’ you reference in the correspondence below with the Superintendent. If you are unwilling to do so, we will consider this matter closed,” Blanchard wrote.
“They gave us pretty much an ultimatum. They said, show up. Show up at this time, on this day, which was three days later, or the case is closed,” Karen Headrick said.
The Headricks said they objected to being pressured, to the short notice, and the location (at a law firm and not at school). Barnes later told WHQR that, though he was CC’d on the email invitation from Blanchard, he hadn't been aware of the ultimatum that had been presented.
Despite their misgivings, the Headricks said they wanted to make their case, feeling like they had proof.
“Well, the proof is, money came in, athlete got promoted, coaches silenced our son and wouldn't give him any positive reinforcement, any constructive criticism, nothing. They continued to push him out, push him out of the team,” Karen Headrick said.
“And then the retaliation from all the above is just icing on the cake,” Jeff Headrick said.
So, they went to the meeting. About 15 minutes before the meeting was set to start, Jeff Headrick sent a scathing email to board members, CC’ing Barnes and Varnam.
“Please believe me when I tell you you are not getting the whole truth from the current Superintendent's office,” Headrick wrote. “They lost their objectivity a long, long time ago in an effort to cover up too many NHCS policy violations to count.”
Headrick attached a document that included a host of allegations of “intense retaliation and harassment from the superintendent and the current board attorneys” and “a cover-up by the superintendent's office” and Barnes specifically. It called for an investigation into Barnes and Varnam for “misuse of ethix360” and “retaliation and harassment.”
The meeting, perhaps not surprisingly, did not go smoothly.
Last chance meeting goes sideways
The Headricks said they did not have time to secure legal counsel, but did bring a friend as a witness, and recorded the meeting. When they got to Blanchard’s office, they saw Barnes in the parking lot, but when they sat down with Blanchard and fellow attorney Brian Kromke, neither Barnes nor Varnam were present for the meeting. (According to Karen Headrick, Barnes was sitting in an adjacent room during at least part of the roughly hour-long meeting.)
Blanchard told them Jeff Headrick’s latest email had pushed Barnes too far, and he was no longer comfortable sitting down with the family, telling them if they had “just waited 15 minutes” before sending the email they probably could have secured a meeting. The Headricks argued that there was nothing in their latest email they hadn’t said at least several weeks earlier.
Barnes later told WHQR things had escalated, but also said his decision was based on policy.
“I think that at that point in time, I do think that things accelerated into a different place where I sort of had to take myself out of the process, with Julie [Varnam] with me,” Barnes said.
Barnes said that he felt the district had convened several “good faith” meetings with the Headricks during the process at the school and district level, but that once the family started making allegations against him and his top staff, he had to step away. As Barnes noted, district policy prevents him from investigating himself or other top administrators.
“It would be incredibly inappropriate for me to meet with them and try to convince them one way or the other, when the after the accusation was levied,” Barnes said. “That's just not a good HR practice, right? So if an accusation is made against me and I meet with the person making the accusation, that's not appropriate.”
However reasonable it was for Barnes and Varnam to be absent, it soured the tone from the beginning of the meeting, leading to a series of arguments, with the Headricks and the attorneys cutting each other off.
Kromke took offense to the Headricks disparaging Blanchard based on his hourly fee, the Headricks took offense to Kromke framing their grievance as “your son didn't get the playing time his parents thought he should get.” Tempers flared repeatedly, but Blanchard – who largely remained composed – eventually got the meeting back on track.
Blanchard unpacked some of the comparisons that Headricks had made between their allegations and past criminal and civil issues in the district, noting that most of the people involved at the time were now gone, and that those currently involved, including Barnes and himself, had nothing to do with their situation. Blanchard noted his kids had been in the district, including one whose teacher had been part of the series of firings for misconduct.
“I had kids in school at that time. In fact, one of my daughters had one of those guys, who got fired, for class. So, you know, I can tell you, I didn't have anything to do with any kind of cover-up or anything like that,” he told them.
As things calmed down, the Headricks laid out their concerns, and Blanchard promised to look into some of them.
One sticking point was when the attorneys asked the Headricks for the names of other families who had shared their concerns. The Headricks hesitated, saying they wanted written assurances from the school board that those families would be protected from the type of retaliation they felt they’d experienced during their grievance process.
Though the meeting was far from ideal, afterward Karen Headrick remained somewhat optimistic.
“I think they're listening. I hope they are anyway, and I hope they're gathering their facts. And I know that the lawyer now has a lot of information,” she said, a week after the meeting.
Uneasy resolution
A month later, the Headricks seem less hopeful. They’ve pulled their son from Laney because of what they see as continuing retaliation against the family. It’s not clear if any other families came forward, but the Headricks said they never got anything in writing concerning protection for those families from reprisals.
While the district declined to comment on coach Little’s resignation, several families – including the Headricks – who spoke to WHQR believed complaints about the football program played a role in his departure. Little told WECT that he was taking a higher-paying assistant coach job in South Carolina that would allow him to spend more time with his family.
Jeff Headrick said, “we would have preferred a suspension or termination, but a resignation will give the kids the opportunity for something better. The fact that coach Little refused a Laney counselor’s request to clear the air with Jeff in February of this year sealed his fate in my mind. I still can’t believe a coach can be that cold.”
However, the Headricks’ concerns had grown broader in scope since the day Jeff was benched from the season opener.
In late April, Jeff Headrick had written in a memo to the school board that Barnes had “alluded to the fact that coach Little would likely receive disciplinary action,” but added that he “strongly disagree[d] that this whole thing even falls on coach Little, solely or at all.”
In June, he told WHQR, “The superintendents and their attorneys who bullied and retaliated against us was not the coach’s fault. Everyone has to be accountable for their actions.”
For his part, Barnes acknowledged it was a difficult situation, but that he’d worked to be unbiased as he responded to it.
“I think at the end of the day, athletic situations are always emotionally charged issues. And the allegation, of course, always is that superintendents are always going to support the coach, the teacher, the whatever. I try to focus on supporting what the right thing is, regardless of where that is,” he said.
Barnes did say he considered it a “resolved issue.”
“I've taken the necessary steps. We've addressed the things I felt needed addressing,” Barnes said, adding that he was hampered by privacy and personnel laws, and couldn’t share more.
“So you know, it is hard because I can't share all the information with you or with the parents, about steps we took, things we did, but I will tell you that the importance of doing it right is important to this administration. I'm trying to be as transparent as I can, because I know transparency has been a thing,” he said, alluding to the uneven track record of past administrations.
To that end, it doesn't appear the administration took any public action – like unpaid suspensions, demotions, or terminations – against any of the coaches involved in Headricks' situation. Varnam specifically confirmed no such public action had been taken against Little.
The Headricks said they’d still like to see some closure to the last year’s events.
“And so to this day, the lawyer asked us, you know, what are we wanting for our son. And we want closure for our son. We want admission that they had violated the coach's code of ethics. We want disciplinary action for coaches that emotionally abuse children,” Karen Headrick said, reiterating that they’d spoken to several other families whose students had been mistreated in the football program. “Not one, not two, not three, we have four or more children you know that they've done this to,” Karen Headrick said.
“We want the punishment to fit the crime,” Jeff Headrick said. “At a minimum, to see if all these [ethical violations] were wrong.”
