WS Chronicle

Lieutenant Dwayne Little of the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department is Carver High School to the core. Lt. Little has always been an advocate for his alma mater and now he is putting boots on the ground to make a tangible difference at the school as a volunteer assistant athletic director.

“It started in 1995 when I first set foot on Carver’s campus. I was supposed to go to West Forsyth, and I couldn’t do it. My fifth-grade picture is me in a Carver sweatshirt, so Carver has been in me,” Little said about his love for Carver High School. “From my matriculation through high school, winning the state championship and was one of the team leaders on defense, and went off to college because of my Carver coach, this has been like a family.

“It just so happened they needed some baseball stuff for Carver and Winston-Salem State called me up out of the blue and said they had some older equipment they needed to donate and did I know of a place to take it and I said ‘yeah.’  So when I met Dr. Maxwell then, we made a good impression and I saw that she was really here for the kids and I said this is another opportunity for me to get involved with my alma mater.”

Lt. Little says the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department is going to be a part of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System. He says Sheriff Kimbrough wanted the department to be an integral part of helping with some of the social ills.  

“Sheriff (Kimbrough) says it best: social problems become criminal problems if we don’t do something to get involved in them. So we are going to do our part and we’re going to ask and plead for people to get involved with what we are doing. That is not just education, that’s homelessness and mental health issues and more.”

Little spoke to Kimbrough about the opportunity at Carver and Kimbrough jumped at the chance to have the department get more involved with the school. This volunteer position is not paid and as the leader of the community services division of the department, Little will still be able to serve the other schools around the county with the donations and different aspects of his job at the Sheriff’s Department.

“It’s not just a volunteer position, it’s kind of where my life has brought me to,” said Little. “To make sure that everybody has the best that they can to be successful because it was poured into me starting at Carver High School with Coach Keith Wilkes, with Coach Darrell Hall, with Coach Melvin Hardy, Coach Robert Wynn.  

“Those men who just stayed on top of me when I was an angry ninth grader, a stupid tenth grader, a more focused eleventh grader, and an overconfident twelfth grader that they humbled real quick so I could be a successful college student. It took that village and I am just making sure I am solidifying my spot in the village so that I can lift as I climb and do those things of service that need to be done for those kids at Carver High School.”

In his position as a volunteer athletic director, Little will bring in some different models to bring back the old spirit of Carver. Little says with the addition of himself and new head football coach Leon Moore, they are hoping to bring back some of that “Carver Magic.” He says he will assist with bringing in credibility, fundraising and organizational aspects.

“I am not there to take anyone’s job or tell anyone what to do, I am a conduit,” Little said about his new position. “Use me, work through me. I have a Rolodex of resources with my friendships with leadership in Winston-Salem. I am here for the win, but I am here for the work.”

As a Carver graduate, Little says it has been tough to sit and watch the decline of Carver in athletics, but more importantly in academics. He says in Carver’s heyday, they were leaders on the field and in the classroom.

“That’s been part of the toughest thing that I have had to witness,” he said. “Before we moved nearly out of the county, I actually bought a house down the street from Carver near my old neighborhood. I went to the games a lot and it felt like it was starting to trickle down a little bit then.

“It hurts to see it but also like anything in life, I know there is a right, there is a wrong, and there is a why. Shiny things attract people to them and Carver lost some of its shine. Then you have the area around Carver was not the Black excellence as it once was or even the Caucasian excellence out in Walkertown, because you saw Walkertown schools being built and you saw the new Atkins built. You had all these different things come at once and it was like an explosion against Carver.

“Our generation were earners. We went off, we tried to make money, we tried to use our degrees and a lot of us just didn’t come back. I was one of those people who said I wasn’t coming back to Winston, but I came back. When I came back, I came back full force in youth sports.”

Little says he is purposeful in his actions. He knows he can’t do it all alone, so when I posted about his new position on social media, he was hoping others would jump on the bandwagon and lend a helping hand when needed as well.  Little says he needs the help of the community in order to accomplish the goals he has for Carver High School.

One of the first and biggest things Little has planned is honoring the 25th anniversary of the 16-0 football state championship team and to hold a fundraiser not just for football but for all athletics at the school. He says there were a lot of guys from the team who went on to graduate college and became successful in their respective careers. Little’s goal is to try and bring all of those alumni together to be more collaborative and combine all resources toward a common goal, so everyone feels supported.

“The dream outcome is to have a higher graduation rate, higher retention rate, and when you have those things, you have winning in sports,” said Little. “Those things go hand in hand. When you have better behavior and more learning, you have winning in sports.  

“I am not trying to win a state championship next year, I am trying to help the athletes get toward graduation, get the athletes in places where they can be seen, and I want to help them get validated for the clearinghouse. I am trying to help recruit coaches that are going to be there for the long haul and coaches that want to be there for the kids and not just for themselves. I see just bringing the whole school up and I am just going to be another cog in the wheel.”

Little says he likes the vision that Dr. Maxwell has for Carver and its future. He says his goal is to support the administration of the school with all of the resources he has at his disposal.