Frank Maennle Jr. was the head football coach at Andrews High School in 1958, when he led the Wildcats to their first-ever state championship.
He had four sons – Frank III, Steve, Mickey and Jim. Three of those sons would follow in their fathers’ footstep – along with a grandson, Matt – and another would also play a part in Andrews High sports history.
Frank Sr. left Andrews and ended up coaching for a few years at Sylva Webster High School, where he hired one of his former players, Terry Postell, as an assistant. Two years later, according to an interview Postell did with Michael Hughes, they were abruptly fired for no reason.
Postell got a job as an assistant coach at Murphy High School, while Maennle became the head coach at AC Reynolds High School in Asheville before returning to Andrews as head coach three years later. He got to coach Frank III in the years that followed.
Frank III was a pretty good football player, but his first love was basketball. He attended Montreat Anderson College mainly to play baseball, but because of his love for basketball he continued to try out for basketball, making the team during his sophomore year.
He transferred to Mars Hill College to finish his degree and continued to play baseball. Frank III returned to Andrews in 1979 as an assistant coach, where he got to coach his two youngest brothers, Jim and Mickey.
Frank III got an offer from Swain in 1983 to be a basketball coach – or so he thought. He struggled on whether to take the job because he wanted to stay at Andrews at least one more year for Mickey’s senior season. However, Mickey told him to take the job, so he went on his final interview in Swain County with then athletic director Boyce Dietz.
“I had just missed out on the Tuscola basketball job and was told I didn’t have enough experience, even after I had been an assistant coach under coach (Ken) Solesbee for four years,” Frank III said.
“Then I got the offer from Swain after Doug Plemmons left for Cullowhee. I was applying for the assistant basketball coach and thought Swain would be a stepping stone, and I could land a head basketball coach job from there.”
It was understood that not only would he coach basketball, but football, too. He would soon find out what took precedent at Swain during a summer football workout.
Dietz told Frank III he needed to take a walk with him. Dietz put his arm around him and said, “Coach, I want you to know, I didn’t hire no basketball coach.”
Frank III replied, “Coach, if I had only wanted to be a basketball coach, I would have stayed in Andrews cause we’ve been kicking your butt for years. I’m here to coach football, too.”
Frank III stayed at Swain for 30 years as an assistant football coach and head basketball coach, He stayed out of coaching for four years before returning to Andrews in 2017, when he was hired as head basketball coach and coached for four years before becoming athletic director and making his son, Matt Maennle, as head coach. Matt had been Frank’s assistant coach for the previous three seasons.
Steve Maennle graduated from Andrews in 1975, went to Mars Hill and was looked at coming back to Andrews after graduation but could never finalize a position. So, after graduating in 1980, a former teammate from Mars Hill, Rod White, called him and told him that he needed to contact Dietz at Swain County.
He went to work at Swain and stayed there. Dietz hired Steve as a junior varsity football coach for his first three seasons. He moved up to offensive coordinator and was on the staff for two state championship teams. Steve stayed at Swain for 26 years, then finished his career at TC Roberson High School near Asheville.
Mickey Maennle took a job after college, then and helped coach baseball and football a few years in Andrews. He owns an insurance agency in Andrews, so he wasn’t working in the school system.
When asked how he felt when he was coaching against Swain and his brothers, Mickey said, “I wanted to beat them bad.”
He added that if he had to choose between Murphy or Swain to beat worse, he immediately replied with Murphy. Mickey had the distinction of being the last quarterback at Andrews to beat Murphy until 2022, when the Wildcats beat the Bulldogs twice during a deep playoff run.
Matt Maennle, Frank III’s son, played football at Swain and Mars Hill, but said he always had a love for basketball. When he first came to Andrews, he was an assistant varsity football coach, coaching running backs and defensive backs.
After doing that for the first five years, Matt was named head coach of the JV football team. He was named head basketball coach in his fifth year. His most memorable game coaching was in the 2022-23 season, when Andrews defeated Hayesville for the first time in more than 15 years.
Matt rounds out the third generation of Maennles to coach at Andrews High. Since he and his wife just welcomed a newborn son into the world last month, if history keeps repeating, there could be a fourth generation of Maennles coaching the Cats before it’s over with.