High school basketball: McDaniel will lead Cavaliers
Published 7:23 pm Friday, October 2, 2026
SPENCER — Quentin McDaniel will guide North Rowan’s boys basketball team in the upcoming season.
McDaniel is the 10th head coach in the program’s history. He follows Herb Liles, who took the head job at Reagan High School after one season (16-10) with the Cavaliers.
McDaniel is a 2005 graduate of Salisbury High, where he played football and basketball. He is a 2009 graduate of Winston-Salem State University. His degree is in sports marketing and management.
He is from a well-known local sports family. His father, Tom McDaniel was a football star at Salisbury in the 1970s. Tom McDaniel and his wife, Judy, have been key people in the Salisbury Parks and Rec’s youth basketball leagues forever and were elected to the Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame for their contributions in 2025.
Quentin McDaniel was raised in an environment where sports and organization were staples of everyday life, and he became an official very early, first at Hall Gym, and then moving up.
“A lot of my story in sports has been refereeing,” McDaniel said. “I was refereeing high school games when I was still a student at Winston-Salem State. I started officiating college games about eight years ago.”
McDaniel worked quite a few CIAA basketball games last winter. He also reffed college volleyball matchups, usually as the line judge.
“Refereeing has kept me around the game of basketball and has taught me a lot about the game,” McDaniel said. “I’ve been organizing teams and organizing tournaments for a long time.”
McDaniel’s son, Emari Russell, is an exceptional athlete. He was the sixth man for coach Jim Baker’s basketball state champion Central Cabarrus team as a junior. He transferred to North Rowan for his senior year and stood out for the Cavaliers in football as well as basketball. He had a tremendous basketball season in 2024-25, averaging 20 points, scoring 41 in his final game for the Cavaliers and playing in the East-West All-Star Game. He got a scholarship to Livingstone College.
Russell redshirted at LC last season. He maintained his focus academically and made the Dean’s List. McDaniel expects his son to get minutes for the Blue Bears in the season ahead.
Quentin McDaniel came to North Rowan along with his son. He was hired as assistant AD and success coach. Jason Causby was coaching North basketball then. Causby had coached Quentin in high school and they had a positive relationship. McDaniel joined Causby’s coaching staff as an assistant.
“Jason Causby put me in a position to coach at North Rowan, and I appreciated the opportunity,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel continued to serve as an assistant to Liles last season. Now he’s been handed the keys to run the program.
“It was important that the new coach be someone that the kids knew and trusted,” McDaniel said. “I know them and they know me.”
McDaniel said about 80 percent of North’s basketball players are currently playing football, but the gym has been open. He hasn’t been idle.
“We’ve been working hard for the last two or three weeks,” he said. “We’ve got good kids and good players. We’ve got some young guys that have a chance to be very good. One of the things I always stress to them is there are lot of ways you can impact a game besides the scorebook.”
North’s star last season, Carter Williams, a 6-foot-4 forward, transferred to Davidson Day and has reclassified, so he’s now in the Class of 2028. He was the Yadkin Valley Conference Player of the Year for 2025-26. That’s a big loss, but McDaniel is confident the Cavaliers still will be good. They just about always are.
“We’ve got to keep working hard,” McDaniel said. “When those lights come on, this is a game that shows everyone what you were doing in the off-season when no one was watching. Were you playing video games – or were you working on your free throws?”