Perhaps it’s becoming old hat to see Apex football do well. In Wake County, only Garner can also claim to 11 consecutive winning seasons.

Even with such recent success, there were a number of mental roadblocks in the way of this year’s Apex team to reach its full potential.

No one in the program had experienced a first-round playoff win, or a win at Cary or a win over Middle Creek anywhere. And no Apex player ever had been in the third round of the playoffs.

With a positive resolve and some brilliant X-and-O’s, our TCN Coach of the Year, Bob Wolfe, lifted those roadblocks out of the way and earned the respect from all his players while leading them a 10-4 season.

Players were always anxious to dump ice-cold Gatorade on Wolfe whenever one of those “firsts” was acheived, and were just as eager to hug him afterwards.

When asked about those Gatorade dumps later, Wolfe always responded that he was “warm on the inside” after watching his team do something it hadn’t before.

Six of Wolfe’s players got scholarships to play football in college. Another will prep a year before playing collegiately.

While numerous coaches treat players like family, it’s hard to find one who does it like Wolfe.

Normally upbeat, Wolfe would pick and choose when to come down hard on a player so he could build them back up again quickly.

Never was this more underscored than in Apex’s win at Cary, where he vented his frustration at quarterback Houston Hawley during the first half, but gave full credit to Hawley for the win in the post-game interviews.

At the end of the season, Wolfe went to bat again for his team, which was written off by some local media outlets after a rocky start. With microphones around him, Wolfe pled for somebody to fully recognize his players and their efforts on the year.

Now, it’s time to recognize him.