Swain sports legacy Cline family

When Zachary Cline was three years old, the minimum age requirement for youth soccer at Camp Living Water was five. Thus started a trend that would continue throughout his childhood: if there wasn’t a team available for him to play on, his father would make it happen. Scott Cline offered to coach a youth team at Camp Living Water, giving his son the opportunity to play with boys several years older than him.

“That just has changed my life continuously, starting at a young age,” said Zachary, now a senior at Swain High. “Whenever there wasn’t a coach or wasn’t a team, he would create a club or a team. He expanded soccer in Swain County. It just set up a good place for me to play, and that helped a lot.”

Scott Cline didn’t play soccer in high school because Swain didn’t yet offer the sport, but his impact on the game in the Bryson City area extends well beyond his work as the current coach of both the boys and girls varsity teams.

He helped create multiple area clubs and travel teams, including WNC United, which was comprised of the best players from surrounding counties. While soccer is the sport of choice in the Cline household, it is prefaced as a vehicle for the valuable lessons and connections that come from sports in general. More specifically, Swain County team sports.

“He would always tell us about how much Swain athletics did for him and how much it impacted life and how it still impacts him today,” Zachary says of his father. “He encouraged us to put ourselves out there and involve ourselves with as many sports as possible because of the bond and friendship you get out of Swain County sports. He taught us that from a young age.”

Scott Cline says watching Zachary shine on the soccer field and daughter Karena, who is in eighth grade, excel in soccer, basketball, and run track and cross country has been as rewarding as any coaching accolade or accomplishment.

“It’s meant a lot to me, for sure,” Scott said. “If you graduate from a school, especially a school like Swain, you take a lot of pride in that school, and seeing these two, they take a lot of pride in being Maroon Devils and I think it plays a big role in a lot of what we do. Over the years, it hasn’t just been these two, but my niece [Chelsea Jones] was one of the players on the state championship volleyball team. We take a lot of pride in supporting all Maroon Devil athletics.”

Cline took it upon himself early on in fatherhood to indoctrinate his children into the maroon-and-white tradition.

“My son was with us when we were at the state championship game for my niece,” Scott said. “We enjoyed going to the football games, to the basketball games, we really just enjoyed going to see all Swain sports because sports play such a big role. Even the soccer games, when the kids were younger we would take them to the soccer games and sometimes they’d get to play at halftime. That was before I was actually coaching at the high school level, but they were able to play at halftime with their travel teams and stuff like that, so they were involved from the very beginning with Swain sports.”

Along with his coaching duties, Cline teaches at Southwestern Community College. His wife, Jessica, teaches at Swain Middle. Most of the couple’s free time is dedicated to carting their kids around the state and region to train, watch, and play soccer.

“He’s given us a lot of opportunities that most people wouldn’t because he does put himself out there for us,” said Karena. “He pushes us a lot and helps us to get better.”

Scott feels lucky to have the opportunity to coach at a school and in an area where high school athletics are so important.

“I think there’s been an increase in support of all athletics,” he said of Swain. “I believe that more and more people are interested in it. Nationwide there might be a decrease in numbers as far as student-athletes at the high school level, but I feel that we have more and more people from the community that are supporting our athletics.”