03/29/2024
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By Sonny Jones

There are rivalries between schools.

There are rivalries between siblings.

Rarely are there both featuring the head coaches.

This week, at West Bladen on Tuesday and East Bladen on Friday, the Bladen County high school rivals are scheduled to meet while being led by head baseball coaches who are brothers.

East Bladen head baseball coach Grant Pait, left, and West Bladen head baseball coach Wade Pait

Wade Pait, who is 51 and, much to his surprise, in his first year of a second stint as West Bladen’s head baseball coach. He guided the Knights to a 20-6 record in 2008 during a six-year stint as head coach. He had been an assistant coach for the past several years before being elevated less than a month before the season when new coach Jason Jones opted to step aside.

Grant Pait, who is three years younger at 48, is in his fourth season as head coach at East Bladen after the late Russell Priest retired following the 2019 season. He led the Eagles to the 2-A East Regional championship game in 2021 and the second round of the playoffs in 2022 after having his first season halted after three games because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He took my stat man,” Grant said about Wade’s son, Dalton, who had kept the online GameChanger book the past two seasons for East Bladen. Dalton Pait played baseball at West Bladen.

Such are the battles of a sibling rivarly.

The rivalry started early as it often does among boys when the older brother sets out to show his dominance. Wade would be at the corner of Grant’s playpen and put a mixture of milk and baby powder in Grant’s hair.

“It would make a nice paste,” Wade said, laughing.

The Pait boys grew up along Center Road in Bladenboro, the children of the late Danny Pait and his wife, Nancy. Although Nancy can’t make it to the games any longer, she’s well aware of how the Knights and Eagles are performing. “She knows when we’re playing,” Wade said.

It didn’t take long for the boys to find a love for sports. “If the sun was shining we were outside playing ball,” Grant said.

Grant even built a Wiffle ball field complete with signage. When signs used on the Bladenboro High School gym were being taken down, he got them and placed them around his field.

“We had people coming out Saturday and Sunday playing Wiffle ball,” Wade said.

Both excelled in sports at Bladenboro High School. Wade, who graduated in 1990, was all-conference and all-county in baseball. He played first base as a sophomore and junior and was a second baseman as a senior. He played football for Jake Smith and baseball for Steve Bryan and Gary Barfield.

Grant, a 1993 Bladenboro High graduate, was an all-conference quarterback and team Most Valuable Player during his senior season of football. He was a three-time all-conference baseball player and was a shortstop and pitcher. He also played in the North Carolina State Games with current University of North Carolina head baseball coach Scott Forbes and was an all-state selection on a squad that included former Major League player Trot Nixon from Wilmington.

Both were undecided about their plans after high school. Both worked a time farming with Dawson Singletary. Wade went into education where he spent a year at East Arcadia, moved to Tar Heel High School and went to the new West Bladen High School when Tar Heel and Bladenboro merged in the early 2000s. He currently teaches Animal Science at the school as well as assisting with football.

Grant also worked an out-of-town construction job before joining the Bladen County Parks and Recreation Department in 1998. He currently is the department’s director. He began helping with the East Bladen baseball program eight years ago.

Today, the brothers remain close. Each is looking forward to this week’s games against the other, although they’ve made no side bets on the outcome … at least not publicly.

“It gives me a little bit of incentive to go out there and make our kids play because I know how (Grant) works,” Wade said about the matchup against East Bladen.

“It doesn’t matter what your record is when (East and West) are playing each other,” Grant said. “Both teams are always going to rise up to play a competitive baseball game. I know (Wade’s) work ethic. I know that he’s going to do the right thing and they’re going to (execute) the fundamentals.

“At the end of the day, the players have to play,” Grant said. “(Wade) doesn’t get to swing a bat. I don’t get to swing. Neither one gets to pitch.”

As for Mama Nancy?

“She wants her youngest to win,” Grant said, half-jokingly.

“She wants us both to do good,” Wade added.

“She’d want it to be tied in the bottom of the seventh,” Grant said, “and she’d probably want (Wade) to beat me at his place and me to beat (Wade) at my place.”

It would make for a perfect ending to a sibling rivalry that’s been brewing for almost 50 years.

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