09/07/2026
On this date in local sports history across the Hickory Metro.
September 7, 1962:
Perry Fewell, a 1985 Lenoir-Rhyne grad, was born on this date. The Crameron, NC native attended South Point High School and came to LR, where he played football. Fewell was a college coach for 13 years (1985–1997), working as an assistant at North Carolina, Army, Kent State, and Vanderbilt. He became an assistant coach in the NFL, first for Jacksonville in 1998, but later was an assistant at St. Louis, Chicago, and Buffalo where he finished out the 2009 season as the interim coach. He joined the New York Giants in 2010, won the Super Bowl as the defensive coordinator in 2012, served for two year in Washington and another round in Jacksonville before coming to Carolina in 2019. He became the interim head coach for the Panthers after they let Ron Rivera go late in the 2019 season, and has since joined the NFL's officiating department as senior vice president of officiating administration.