Southeast Alumnus Fred Whitfield Honored

State Senator Gladys Robinson, Fred Whitfield, wife Mary, brother CC
Whitfield, State Representative Amos Quick. Seated: Janol Whitfield, Fred and CC’s mother. Photo by Joe Daniels/Carolina Peacemaker.

Southeast Guilford High School celebrated one of its own. An honorary dinner was held on Friday, December 1 for alumnus Fred Whitfield, president and vice chairman of Charlotte Hornets Sports and Entertainment. Approximately 200 people were in attendance, including friends, family, community leaders and school officials.

After the dinner and before the boys’ basketball game, Southeast High School officials named the basketball court in Whitfield’s honor. State Senator Gladys Robinson and State Representative Amos Quick presented Whitfield with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest award for state service granted by the Office of the Governor.

Whitfield, a 1976 Southeast graduate, earned a BBA degree in economics and played basketball at Campbell University. While there, he received All-South and team MVP honors as a senior. He went on to complete his MBA at Campbell while serving as an assistant coach for the Camels and was inducted into the school’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1995. He later earned a Juris Doctorate from North Carolina Central University School of Law, where he was Student Bar Association President.

Whitfield is the founder of HoopTee Charities, Inc, a North Carolina-based nonprofit corporation whose mission is to provide scholarships for disadvantaged youngsters to attend camps and educational programs across the country, and the Achievements Unlimited Basketball School, which has served more than 15,000 kids in Greensboro and Charlotte over the last 38 years.

Whitfield and his wife, Mary, reside in Charlotte.