Donovan Varner and Korrin Wiggins both knew Scottie Montgomery long before he was the head coach at ECU.
Varner and Wiggins were teenagers, one in Miami, the other in Durham, when Montgomery was selling a downtrodden Duke program as an assistant coach.
Even then, they noticed something special.
“He always had the juice, the sauce or what the young kids now call the swag,” said Varner, a former Duke wide receiver who’s now a graduate assistant under Montgomery at ECU. “He was always straightforward, professional but at the same time could relate to the kids. I think that’s a great character trait that Coach Mo has.