Former Edneyville and Murphy football coach David Gentry has been selected to the 2026 NFHS Hall of Fame class.
Gentry will be inducted at the NFHS annual summer meeting on June 29 in Salt Lake City.
Gentry was a standout football player at Edneyville and later coached there for nine years. He was then hired at Murphy in 1983 and coached there until his retirement in 2021.
At Edneyville and Murphy, he compiled 426 wins. That mark still ranks 15th all-time nationally.
Gentry collected 361-117-1 record and nine state championships with the Bulldogs in four separate decades. Murphy also won 18 conference championships during that span.
He was named Western North Carolina Coach of the Year (2018), North Carolina Coach of the Year by USA Today (2013), NFHS National Coach of the Year (2013) and North Carolina Coach of the Year (2007)
He has previously been inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame (2025), NCHSAA Hall of Fame (2023), NCHSAA Coaches Association Hall of Fame (2019) and Western North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame (2017).
