About the Bash at the Beach Football Jamboree

In 1987, United Carolina Bank hosted the first football Jamboree in Wilmington NC.  Years later, that would turn into the BB&T Football Jamboree hosted at Legion Stadium in Wilmington NC.  The event originally grew to 10 local area teams and became the official kickoff event for high school football in the Cape Fear Region. 

32 consecutive events were held without ever having to be cancelled or postponed.  August 2019, that all changed.  For the first time in the event’s 33 year history, The BB&T Football Jamboree was cancelled because of weather and dangerous field conditions.  Unfortunately, 2018 would end up being the last BB&T Football Jamboree. After the 2019 cancellation due to weather, 2020 was cancelled due to Covid and football not being played in the Fall in NC.  BB&T would try once more in 2021; however, The 33rd edition of the BB&T Football Jamboree scheduled for August 13, 2021 at Wilmington’s Legion Stadium was also canceled. The cause of the cancellation in 2021 is attendance capped at only 30% capacity and the requirement of contact tracing if any positive cases of COVID-19 were discovered. The 2019 BB&T Football Jamboree was canceled on the afternoon prior to play beginning due to inclement weather making playing conditions unsafe. The 2020 event was canceled due to all high school sports action pausing due to COVID-19 concerns.

August 2021, the “Bash at the Beach” was born.  West Brunswick Athletic Director, Coach Jimmy Fletcher and former West Brunswick Coach TJ Spivey had joked in the past that if BB&T ever stopped doing the Jamboree, we should consider bringing the event to Brunswick County.  During a zoom call in August 2021, BB&T decided to cancel the 2021 event so Coach Jimmy Fletcher and Coach TJ Spivey began texting back and forth to see if they could make this event work in 2021 with less than 2 weeks to make it all happen. 

When this decision was made, we had no sponsor, no event name, nothing other than an idea and the passion to make it a reality.  We needed an event name.  So we started throwing ideas out there.  We wanted something unique but would also fit the event and our coastal area.  We begin writing down multiple ideas and seeing what would fit.  We asked family, friends, staff etc.  Finally, we narrowed it down to like 5 event names.  I remember throwing out “Bash at the beach” as kind of a joke and pro wrestling reference from the 1990s.  Once Bash at the Beach was thrown into the mix, the other 5 suggestions went away and everyone agreed that “Bash at the Beach” would be the perfect name for our event. 

Friday, August 13, 2021 would be the inaugural event.  At the time, we were not sure if this would be an annual event or just a one time event.  Our only goal was to get through this one and see how it goes.  The original event had 6 total teams.  Ashley vs north Brunswick.  Laney vs Whiteville and Wallace Rose Hill vs West Brunswick. Tuesday, August 10 we had our first “Media Day” in the cafeteria at West Brunswick High School.  The guest speaker was Bob Sanders who coached in the NFL for 17 seasons.  Overall, with less than 2 weeks to put all this together, we felt like the event was a huge success and we felt like if we had more time to plan we could make this a very special event. 

As soon as the event ended, while the football season was going on, we started working on ideas to make the event bigger and better for 2022.  We wanted to take what had worked in the past and make some small changes to make the event even better.  One of those changes was to give the coaches more input on the rules and style of play for the event.  The purpose of the event is to get teams ready for Week 1 so we wanted coaches to have as much input as possible.  One of the issues with the event over the years were teams in the same conference having to scrimmage each other in the Jamboree.  Former Coach TJ Spivey had an idea to expand the Bash at the Beach to a 2 night event and put the 7 Mid-eastern Teams vs the non Mid-eastern teams.  Coach Jimmy Fletcher agreed and as a result, we became the biggest Jamboree in NC in year 2.  After that was decided, it was time to reach out to sponsors.  The first two sponsors to jump on board were NC Farm Bureau and Focus Broadband who were actually still ATMC at the time.  The timing of the event was perfect for Focus Broadband.  They were going through a rebrand and name change so the opportunity was beneficial for everyone.  NC Farm Bureau has always been a large part of the local community, so their involvement just made sense as well. 

Year 2 was very successful.  TRUIST reached out and wanted to become a major sponsor again as well.  TRUSIT was formerly known as BB&T and they had a rich history with the event.  In year 3 we were able to add NOVANT and Capital Chevrolet as major sponsors as well.  Fellowship of Christian Athletes has been on board since year 1 and they sponsor our media day luncheon.  BSN SPORTS has also been involved since year 1 and they always supply the teams with free t-shirts and other coaching swag.  The vision of this event grew very fast and we are very appreciative of all the sponsors and volunteers that make this event a huge success each year.