For one night at Broughton High School, the final score barely mattered.
The baskets counted, of course. The win counted for the Capitals. But what people in the gym are most likely to remember is something harder to measure: the sound of an entire community rising together for one of its own, and the look on Wade Miles’ face when the moment belonged to him.
Wade, a Broughton senior who is autistic, has spent his high school years doing what managers do — the jobs that rarely make headlines, but help a program function. He’s been a manager for Broughton’s football, basketball, and baseball teams, helping with water, laundry, and whatever else was needed.
To the people around the program, Wade was never just someone standing on the edge of the bench. He was part of the team.
“He’s just a ball of energy,” Broughton basketball coach Scott Wood said. “He’s one of the guys. He may not necessarily get the opportunity to put on a jersey every single night, but he feels like he’s a part of the team.”
The feeling of belonging, of being in the group, is exactly what Wade says high school sports at Broughton have given him.
“I’ve enjoyed being a part of the team and having a good support system with the team, and mainly being a part of a group,” Wade said.
Wade loves sports for the same reasons many other people do, but he says there are particular things that make him a sports fan. He loves the culture. He loves the stories. He loves the numbers, the statistics, and the surprises.
His father, Hart Miles, says Wade has long had a remarkable memory for sports, the kind that earned him a family nickname: “Wade-pedia.”
Sports aren’t just entertainment for Wade. Sports are a connection.
“One of the things that comes with being on the autism spectrum is, a lot of times there’s a social awkwardness, a difficulty in interacting in a social way,” Hart explained.
Sports have helped bridge that for Wade.
“It was a sort of built-in way for Wade to have a social activity,” his father said. “Being a manager on a sports team, like here at Broughton, there’s a built-in acceptance.”
Hart said each team has welcomed Wade “with open arms,” something that meant as much to the family as it did to Wade himself.
By the time basketball season rolled around, Wade, now a senior, had a question for his head coach.
Could he play on senior night?
Wood already knew the ask might be coming. Wade’s eligibility had been approved, and when he came into the coach’s office, he didn’t undersell his dream. Wood asked him what he wanted to get out of the experience, and Wade’s answer was classic.
“He came back with me and said, ‘I’d like to play around 10 or 15 minutes, start the game,” Wood recalled.
It was an ambitious answer, and one that made Wood smile. The coach explained that Broughton’s seniors had worked all year for their minutes, but he also wanted to find a way to make it work.
Wood offered Wade a starting spot and the first possession of the game.
“Coach, that would be amazing,” Wade said.
The plan started to take shape.
Wood checked with the coaching staff at Athens Drive, Broughton’s opponent on senior night. Athens Drive was on board.
Wood said the first time Broughton played Athens Drive that season, he made the ask, got the “yes,” and later announced the plan to the team in the locker room. The reaction was immediate.
“Our whole locker room went crazy,” Wood said. “(Wade) was just fist pumping with excitement the whole time.”
There was just one detail that needed polishing: the shot itself. Wade had a favorite move, but it wasn’t the one the coaches wanted.
“He loves a hook shot,” Wood said.
The Broughton staff had to gently steer him toward a simpler goal.
“It’s okay to just make it. Let’s just focus on layups, layups, layups.”
From that point forward, they practiced the bounce pass, they practiced the finish — over and over, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes ten, until Wood felt sure Wade would catch and score.
The team took it seriously, too.
Fellow seniors Hudson Fitzgerald and Rocco Sampson were part of the planning. The Broughton players went over the play in practice and knew exactly what the goal was.
“We knew he was going to get a bucket that first time on the first play of the game,” Fitzgerald said. “We drew up the play for him. It was very serious.”
“(Wood) drew it up in the locker room and showed us what we’re gonna do,” Sampson said. “We were gonna take it seriously.”
By the time senior night arrived, Wade had some butterflies, but he knew the plan. They had practiced it many times.
“I was nervous before the game,” he said, “but then after I settled in, I was ready.”
The play unfolded the way it had been imagined. Wade got to the low block. He caught a bounce pass. He scored the layup.
“It felt awesome,” Wade said. “It was also awesome to see the crowd go nuts when that happened.”
For many senior night stories, that would have been enough. Wade got in. Wade scored. Everybody cheered.
Wade didn’t expect more. His family thought he had his moment, and they were grateful.
But Holliday Gymnasium, one of the most storied high school basketball venues in North Carolina, wasn’t done yet.
The story wasn’t over.
‘It was not in the cards’
Broughton’s basketball team was strong this season, finishing second in the CAP 8A Conference.
As the Caps’ lead grew in the fourth quarter, the student section started chanting for Wade to return.
“Wade. Wade. Wade. Wade.”
“Let’s go, Wade. Let’s go, Wade.”
Hart said people had been chanting for Wade much of the game. Family friends had shown up. Wade’s brother, a student at NC State, brought a big group of his friends. So did one of Wade’s childhood friends, who now attends Wake Forest.
Everybody wanted one more moment.
Wood said a second appearance wasn’t the plan.
“Truthfully, it was not in the cards,” he said.
But sports have a way of leaving the script. Wood looked at his staff and started thinking through how to make it happen. He felt the buzz shift after Wade’s layup. This wasn’t just a nice gesture; it had become the emotional center of senior night.
The players felt it too.
“When he did get in the game, I knew something was going to happen,” Fitzgerald said. “I knew it was meant to be.”
With about 30 seconds left, Wade checked back into the game.
Hart remembers seeing the coaches talking on the bench, then Wade standing up, and the crowd erupting. There were no guarantees at that point; this had not been practiced. There had been no coordination with Athens Drive’s staff ahead of time.
Broughton had the ball underneath its own basket along the baseline. Wade rolled out behind the three-point line, and teammate Sam Freeman delivered the pass. Wade caught it and shot.
“As soon as I caught the pass, I was like, I’m gonna throw it up and hope I don’t miss,” Wade said.
The ball hit the rim. It bounced multiple times. It hit the backboard.
“I was hoping it would go in,” Wade said. “Please go in.”
It dropped. The shot was good.
The gym lost its collective mind.
“It was overwhelming with joy,” Wade said.
Sampson said he stood up the moment the shot left Wade’s hand.
“I was just excited,” Sampson said. “I was like, I hope it goes in … Everybody was going crazy on the bench, all of our coaches, all the players. It was just a really good moment for everybody.”
Fitzgerald said the memory will stay with him, too.
“It was probably not even just the best moment of Wade’s career; it was probably the most special moment of my career,” Fitzgerald said.
Hart was trying to process something that felt unreal. He laughed to himself at first.
How could Wade, who had not played organized basketball in years, step into a high school game and make a 3-pointer?
But Hart says what he will remember most was not the shot itself. It was the reaction.
The students tried to storm the court immediately, but school staff held them back until the buzzer. Then they rushed out, surrounded Wade, and lifted him up on their shoulders.
Hart said Wade was celebrated “in a way he’d never been celebrated.”
There was something hopeful in that moment for Hart.
“What it made me feel like is the kids today, they’re doing just fine,” he said.
Wood came away with a lesson of his own. Coaches get trapped in the grind of the season — wins, losses, details, the stress of building a program. But moments like this clarify the impact of high school sports.
“It’s about having fun,” Wood said. “It’s about enjoying the time with your peers. It’s about building relationships … We want to build everlasting relationships and everlasting memories for a lot of these kids.”
Sports have allowed Wade and his teammates to form relationships.
“He doens’t just act like he’s one of us; we treat him like he’s one of us,” Sampson said.
That sentiment helps explain why this moment landed so powerfully in Holliday Gymnasium that night. It was never just about a basket. It was about someone who had invested years into his community, receiving proof that his community saw him back.
For Wade, sports had given him structure, friendships, and a sense of purpose. He says being around the program taught him “how to be part of a team” and “how to get the job done.”
Senior night gave him something else: a memory he can return to for the rest of his life.
Hart said that is the part Wade will carry with him most — the love, the support, the celebration, the feeling of being embraced by people who knew him, and by people who maybe didn’t know him at all.
Hart told his son, “Whenever life feels hard, just watch the video of that moment, and the smile will come right back.”
Wade has a simpler way of explaining it.
“I told them, it’s one of the best days of my life,” he said.
