By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
As principal at Southeast Alamance, Eric Yarbrough sees a natural bridge between what happens during the school day and what occurs after school for many of the students participating in athletics.
He enjoys being tuned into all of that.
“It’s fun. It’s enjoyable anytime you get to see kids compete,” Yar-brough said. “Just being a sports junky myself, that’s fun. To see those kids get out there. And it makes it better when during the week I can talk to them about games and build that connection to what they’re doing. We can build a better relationship.”
In three years since Southeast opened as the seventh high school in the Alamance-Burlington School System, the Stallions have made major impacts across the state in athletics.
“I always tell people when I’m at a game on a Friday night, I’m not really working. Home games, maybe a little bit. Away games, I’m a fan. That’s the fun part of that.”
– Southeast Alamance High School principal Eric Yarbrough
That’s something that can make a principal proud.
“He’s competitive,” Southeast athletics director B.J. Condron said. “He’s a big fan.”
Winning at a high clip happened pretty much right away at Southeast.
“We’ve definitely had a lot of success quickly, which is great,” Yarbrough said. “B.J., obviously a big piece of that and our coaches and our players. It has definitely kind of got us on the map as a school quickly.”
As a result, Yarbrough received the Bob Deaton Principal of the Year Award, which was one of the major statewide awards handed out during the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s annual awards ceremony last week in Greensboro.
Southeast’s girls’ basketball team won a state championship in 2024-25. During the past year, the team returned to the state finals, while two other teams – softball and boys’ basketball – played in regional finals.
In total, the Stallions won state playoff games or matches in four girls’ sports and four boys’ sports during the 2025-26 school year.
There were questions early in 2023 whether Southeast would compete on the varsity level in the school’s first year. By the fall of 2023, Southeast’s first football team advanced to the third round of the football state playoffs.
In two of the past three years, wrestlers from Southeast have secured the highest place finishers among Alamance County qualifiers for the state meet.
“Quicker than any of us really anticipated coming in,” Yarbrough said of the overall success. “Just our numbers across the board, the number of kids that are participating, which I think goes into what our coaches and Coach Condron do to get kids out and participate.”
His presence at Southeast’s sporting events is a constant.
“He doesn’t miss maybe a game every now and then,” Condron said. “He’s always supporting our student-athletes and he’s mindful of athletics.”
Even better yet, he’s bound to be cleaning up trash after events. “He’s going to be the last person to leave,” Condron said.
Yarbrough has been a teacher and coach at Hawfields Middle School, assistant principal at Woodlawn Middle School and principal at Eastern Alamance along with several similar roles at schools in Orange County.
Southeast’s sports teams have added to Yarbrough’s enjoyment on the job.
“I always tell people when I’m at a game on a Friday night, I’m not really working. Home games, maybe a little bit,” Yarbrough said. “Away games, I’m a fan. That’s the fun part of that.”
