Heilbronn adjusting to life as NMBHS athletic director

By Ruben Lowman

Tony Heilbronn knows how to build a winning culture. 

Heilbronn, the new athletic director this year for North Myrtle Beach High School, was hired after helping to take Darlington High School’s boys basketball program to three consecutive Lower State Championships, winning one, along with several regional championships. 

After building up an extensive resume of accomplishments coaching basketball at Darlington and track at Hartsville, Heilbronn was hired by North Myrtle Beach in April to take over for departing athletic director Joe Quigley, who led the program for 15 years. 

Under Quigley, the NMBHS athletics department has become arguably the best program in the region, so Heilbronn was highlighted as someone who could fit right in and continue the progress. 

Starting his new job in June, Heilbronn sought to get to work quickly and get used to a new area all at once. A few unforeseen challenges were thrown up at first, but he said he’s adjusted quickly to the new set of responsibilities he has on his desk. 

“It’s been good for the most part. I got off to a rough start in July. The second day I was here we had a district meeting going over the track resurfacing project, so I got thrown right into the fire,” Heilbronn explained. “About three weeks into that, they got behind schedule so that was a challenge. Just trying to learn the ropes was a challenge and then you throw COVID kind of ramping back up in August, so it was definitely a challenging first couple months. But I think I’ve settled in pretty good now and I’m comfortable on at this point. I kind of know who to go to for certain things and where everything is getting pulled from at this point, in terms of finances and contacts and that nature.” 

One of the first things he said he realized he needed to do was to create a relationship with NMB’s booster club president, Timmy Vereen, and figure out what parts of the athletics programs were funded by the school and which funding came from the club. 

“Our booster club is really big down here, they support our kids tremendously,” Heilbronn said. “We got our big scoreboard project going on, I inherited that, as well, which is actually under construction. They’re putting the I-beams in so that will be put up next week. So there’s a lot going on.”

The scoreboard the school is installing is a major step for the program, Heilbronn said, and he hopes to use it as a springboard to becoming one of the premier programs in the state. Getting new turf put in next year will help further towards that goal even more. 

“I think it’s an absolutely awesome accomplishment for our program to have something like that. Not too many schools in the state have them, let alone in the lower state,” he said. “So for us it just gives us another leg up in terms of facilities. With us getting that turf, about a year and a half from now, we’ll have a brand new track and turf field. I don’t know any lower state facilities that you can say are definitively better than ours, so for us it’s a pride thing. We want to be the best of the best and to have facilities that are first-class is a way to start.”

Heilbronn was promoted to assistant athletic director for his last year at Darlington, but he has had to learn what leading a major athletic program in the state is like on the fly. He said NMB baseball coach Brian Alderson and football coach Matt Reel have both been huge for him as resources to go to and help get his feet wet to the new job.

“They’ve both been tremendous with me, answering any questions I need, walking me through which direction to go with certain things and learning how things are done here,” Heilbronn explained. 

Along with the assistance of NMB’s coaches, the work put in by Quigley during his decade-plus tenure before Heilbronn took over has helped to make his adjustment period a seamless one.

“Coach Quigley did a fantastic job lining stuff up and getting the right people in place and for me, it was kind of taking over and just don’t mess it up,” Heilbronn said. “He’s got a good thing going, so credit to Coach Quigley because this job is hard enough as it is but the way he had everything lined up and laid out it’s made it as smooth a transition as possible.”

A lot of the groundwork Heilbronn needed to move up to A.D. came from the stability of spending a decade at Darlington himself, guiding the boys basketball team to much success his last three years and learning valuable lessons in leadership and how to build a winning culture. 

“Being the head coach there, you learn how to run a program and how to be organized, how to be structured, how to manage your time and resources,” he explained. “So yeah, it was only one sport, but it teaches you about the same concepts of how to run an entire program. I had my varsity and JV programs that I ran, whereas here there’s 22 different varsity programs. So it’s the same concepts. If you’re disciplined with your time management and things of that nature then it helps carry over to the other stuff.”

“Here, North Myrtle Beach has done a fantastic job of winning across the board. Last year in the region they were the winningest program. So coming in, bringing what I bring to the table and combined with what they already had going and try to build on it from there,” Heilbronn said.

Building the winning culture at NMB has helped student-athletes get noticed more by college coaches and recruiters, as well, leading to more kids wanting to play for the school, further grow the program and ensure the momentum built up is sustained. The current crop of athletes also gets to see firsthand how to get college scholarships and what kind of work they need to put in in order to go on to success at the next level.

“For us, big thing is we want to do things the right way. I know Coach Quigley is big on this, I’m big on it. Run your program the proper way, something you’d be proud of. 

“We’re all about doing things the right way here. From an academic standpoint, to a practice standpoint, to how you conduct yourself on and off the field. We want to do things a certain way and have people look at us and say, ‘That’s the program we want to emulate,” Heilbronn said. 

After moving into administration full-time, when asked if he missed anything about coaching after doing it for so long, he said it didn’t really hit him in the fall because of how busy he was making sure everything was running smoothly and learning the ropes of his new position. However, the pace has now slowed done considerably in the winter with just three varsity sports, right when he would typically begin ramping up his schedule, leaving him with a bit of heavy nostalgia as the winter months have progressed.

“It’s been harder than I thought it would be,” Heilbronn said. “You miss the relationships with the kids. The ins and outs, seeing them everyday at practice, messing around in the locker room before or after practice, the bus trips. Stuff that you think you wouldn’t miss, you miss. Obviously this job is rewarding in another way, but it’s definitely been harder than I thought it would be.”

After such a big move for himself and his family at this point in their lives and his career, Heilbronn said they were still adjusting to life at the beach in different ways, with his wife taking a little bit more time than his youngest daughter to get used to a new city and the faster pace after living in Florence for so long. 

Coupled with their oldest daughter going off to college this year, there has been a lot of change all at once for his family, but they are taking it in stride, Heilbronn said. His wife enjoys coming out and supporting the school’s athletic teams and his youngest daughter loves spending her time at the beach and being around her dad while he works. 

“I think all of us holistically have settled in at this point,” he said.