Butler High hires familiar face, with state championship rings, as new football coach
Glenwood Ferebee is coming back to Mecklenburg County.
Ferebee once turned Chambers into the No. 1 high school football program in North Carolina. Now he’ll replace longtime Butler coach Brian Hales as coach of the Bulldogs.
Ferebee posted the news on social media Friday.
Ferebee resigned from Chambers in December 2021, after leading the Cougars to three consecutive state championship games and winning two. At Chambers, Ferebee was 39-5, including 14-1 in the playoffs.
Ferebee’s first two teams won N.C. 4AA state championships. Cardinal Gibbons upset nationally ranked Chambers 14-2 to win the 4A state championship in the 2021 final, played in a heavy downpour. The two titles that Ferebee’s teams won were the first two football state championships in Chambers’ school history.
After leaving Chambers, Ferebee worked at Virginia Tech as a high school relations director.
Ferebee recently accepted a job as head coach at Wilson (S.C.) High School, but Wilson athletic director Derrick McQueen told SC Now last week that Ferebee would not be coaching at his school this season.
“(Ferebee) has accepted another job,” McQueen told the publication. “And from what I understand, it will be with Butler High School. I don’t know all the specifics,” McQueen said. “I just know there was another opportunity for him in the North Carolina area and I know he has some family there in that area, and that it’s a little bit closer.”
At Butler, Ferebee will replace one of Mecklenburg County’s most successful coaches.
Hales coached at Butler, as a head coach or an assistant, for 20 years before he resigned last month.
Hales’ overall record as head coach is 131-34. He never had a losing season and never had a team lose more than four games in a season. He also coached one of the best teams this area has ever seen. In 2012, the Bulldogs finished 15-0 with a third NCHSAA state title. That Butler team was recently ranked No. 3 among all teams from the Charlotte area over the past 40 years.
