Joe Sharrow is a familiar name around Vance County. Although Sharrow didn’t grow up here, he claims Henderson as his second hometown because he grew here, with more than 10 years working in Vance County Schools and becoming a high school athletic director – first at Southern Vance and then at Vance County High School.

So when Sharrow was named the winner of this year’s Dave Harris Athletic Director Award of Excellence by the N.C. High School Athletic Association, there was no doubt he wanted to make sure that folks in Vance County heard the news.

At the time, the 26-year-old was the youngest AD in North Carolina, and he said he learned from mentors like Ed Wilson and Dave Jennings. They always were there for him, helping him grow in his role as athletic director

When Sharrow left Vance County in 2022 for Jordan High School in Durham, it took little time for him to create a championship atmosphere there.

Now he’s finishing up his first year at Felton Grove High School in Wake County – a place where he’s had to lean on his previous experiences to get things done.

If you’re thinking that Felton Grove High School doesn’t sound familiar, there’s a good reason – it’s still under construction.

The school opened in August 2025, in the general area where Cary, Apex and Holly Springs converge, Sharrow explained to WIZS’s Scout Hughes and “Doc” Ayscue on SportsTalk Wednesday. The school has 9^th and 10^th graders this year and will add a class each year for the next couple of years.

It’s a pretty impressive structure, Sharrow said, with a 4-story parking deck and a 500,000 square-foot building.

Just like workers are physically building the structure, AD Sharrow has had to build the athletic program from the ground up.

And his “blueprints” have presented interesting challenges throughout the year.

The school fielded all varsity sports this year (except football), despite having only freshmen and sophomores.

But Sharrow said he’s already got the feeling that the school will be poised for greatness in the next couple of years. The men’s lacrosse and women’s volleyball teams have been impressive; he predicts one of those teams will win a state championship before the school moves from current 6A classification to 8A in a few years.

It’s been a lot to create a whole athletic program from scratch, but Sharrow said Wake County Public Schools System recognized his leadership abilities from the way he navigated a high school consolidation and then turning around the program at Jordan so quickly.

One of the things Sharrow said he had to do during the high school consolidation was to take inventories at Southern Vance and Northern Vance to determine which equipment to keep and use in the new Vance County High School.

And although combining existing inventories isn’t quite the same as starting from scratch, Sharrow said that experience proved helpful.

“I have inventory lists from Vance County – that’s what Felton Grove was based on,” he said.

“We had to order all of it, but the knowledge was there and that came from Vance County.”

Something else that he took away from Vance County is dealing with a unique mascot.

Felton Grove’s mascot is Galaxy. He’s working with it.

Sort of like how he worked with the Vance County High School Viper.

The Felton Grove Galaxy colors are Columbia blue and red (think Houston Oilers football), and Sharrow no doubt will be loyal to the school’s teams.

But there’s also no doubt, he said, that he’ll always “bleed” Viper green and black and Raider blues and white.

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