Southeast Alamance principal earns statewide award for athletic culture

Eric Yarbrough’s statewide honor points to a bigger shift at Southeast Alamance High School: a new campus in Alamance County has built a competitive athletic identity fast, and the principal has been visible in the middle of it. During the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s annual awards ceremony in Greensboro, Yarbrough received the Bob Deaton Principal of the Year Award for a school culture the association described as centered on academic and athletic excellence.

That culture has been taking shape since Southeast opened its doors to first students on Sept. 11, 2023. Alamance County voters approved a $150 million education bond in 2018, including $67 million for the new high school, and the campus was built as a $67 million facility with room for 1,250 students. As the seventh comprehensive high school in the Alamance-Burlington School System and the first since Hugh M. Cummings High School opened in 1970, Southeast arrived with the kind of expectations that can cut both ways. Instead, the Stallions have moved quickly from newcomer to contender.

Football set the tone early. Southeast’s first team finished 8-4 in 2023 and advanced to the third round of the Class 2-A state playoffs before losing at Clinton. That run helped establish that the program would not be starting from scratch for long, and other teams followed with postseason success of their own.

The strongest proof came across the 2025-26 school year. The NCHSAA said Southeast advanced to the state semifinals or better in three sports and recorded state playoff victories in eight different team sports. Girls basketball reached the state championship game on March 14, 2026, before falling to North Lincoln, after winning a state title in the 2024-25 season. Softball and boys basketball each reached regional finals, adding to a run that spread beyond a single program or one standout season.

Yarbrough credited athletics director B.J. Condron, the coaches and the athletes for the school’s rise. Condron, in turn, said Yarbrough shows up, follows the teams and understands what the programs mean to the school. That kind of leadership matters in a place where student-athletes, coaches and families are still building traditions, because it can shape whether a program feels supported, stable and worth investing in.

Southeast’s award is about more than one principal’s resume. It is a sign that a school opened only in 2023 has already made a statewide mark, and that leadership in the hallways and at the games has helped turn a new campus into a real athletic community.