KINGSPORT — Dobyns-Bennett athletes Luke Mussard and McKenzie Hauk have accomplished a lot wearing the maroon and gray.
On Wednesday at the school, the two signed to continue their academic and athletic careers, Mussard at Wake Forest and Hauk with Emory & Henry.
MUSSARD CHOOSES DEACS
Mussard — who transferred to Kingsport from Daniel Boone before his junior year — is one of best distance runners to come through Northeast Tennessee in a generation.
Mussard also continued a long line of D-B athletes to attend Wake Forest dating to the days of former basketball standout Bobby Leonard, who played behind Jerry West for a bit on the Los Angeles Lakers.
Wally Bridwell was an all- conference quarterback for the Demon Deacons in the 1960s and Mike Kelly — who roomed with Brian Piccolo at Wake — was of the same era as Bridwell.
Skip Brown was one of the Deacons’ all-time greats and an All-American on the hardwood, and Bill Argabrite won a national golf championship at Wake Forest.
More recently, Ty Hayworth — who coaches the D-B offensive line — was an all-conference lineman for the Deacs.
Mussard holds the D-B records in the cross country 5-kilometer (14:47.7) and the 3,200-meter run (8:59.79). The mark from the track race was just the second instance in Northeast Tennessee history that a runner broke nine minutes and the first in more than 50 years.
Mussard now just lacks records in the 800 and 1,600 — both held by Jim Ailshie — to have all of the school’s hallowed marks.
At last fall’s state cross country meet, Mussard finished third in the Class AAA race, crossing in 15:28.1 after running with the leaders for the first 2 miles.
On the track, he was part of the state championship 4x800 relay squad that clocked a Northeast Tennessee-record 7:50.76 last spring. Mussard, as a freshman, was also the anchor leg of the Daniel Boone 4x800 relay gold-medal team.
“I don’t know this for sure and no one can really call my bluff on this, but I would go pretty far to say that Luke is the only person in state history to win two state relay titles in the same event with two different schools,” longtime D-B track coach Bob Bingham said. “Wake Forest is getting a runner with his best days still ahead of him.”
As a junior, Mussard qualified as an individual for the Nike Cross national finals in Portland, Oregon, becoming the first D-B male runner to do so since Kevin Odiorne qualified for the Kinney (now FootLocker) national finals in 1990.
“One of my goals is to win big races,” Mussard said. “I want to perform to the best of my abilities in big races. The times will come with that.”
Mussard joins a flourishing Wake Forest program whose men won the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2022 and has had several outstanding middle-distance runners the past four years.
“The team atmosphere is unmatched and the guys that I’m coming in with are an elite group,” Mussard said. “This is as close to a professional environment that you can get and get the academic prestige as Wake Forest. The ball is rolling there and something special is happening.
“I want to major in business and finance or something like that,” he added.
HAUK SIGNS WITH WASPS
Hauk was a key cog in the wheel of the Lady Indians’ Class AA golf championship in the fall.
Hauk fired back-to-back 72s and helped the Tribe win its first state title since 1989. She was the individual state runner-up after shooting 142.
“When I went to the (Emory & Henry) campus, I really fell in love with it,” Hauk said. “I wanted to stay close to home and I decided that after I won the state championship.
“I plan on majoring in sports management.”
“McKenzie is the most improved golfer I’ve ever had since I started coaching,” D-B golf coach Bill Darnell said. “She was averaging 88 as a freshman and her average as a senior was a 74.”
