The Uwharrie Wampus Cats have named Jayson James as the team’s new general manager ahead of the franchise’s second season and first as a member of the Southern Collegiate Baseball League.

James is from a baseball family and has experience working with three baseball clubs in past roles. He also works for his family’s insurance business as their digital marketing manager.

The China Grove-native served as team broadcaster for the Boone Bigfoots, now in the Coastal Plain League, during its inaugural season in 2021. In 2022, he served as public address announcer for the Statesville Owls, a team in the Wampus Cats’ new league. While in college at Appalachian State, James served as a general intern for the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers.

“I feel beyond blessed and excited for the opportunity to work with the Wampus Cats as general manager,” James said. “I’m looking forward to the success I know we’ll have as a team, and I’m excited to help grow the team and make sure it’s a staple in the community for years to come.”

James is also no stranger to the local baseball community. He knows many of the players signed to this summer’s Wampus Cats team personally because they grew up with his younger brother, J.D. James, who is currently a first baseman at Caldwell Community College. In addition to having spent a lot of time in the Albemarle area growing up and for work, James knows the Badin Lake community well, too.

“We’re very excited to have someone plugged in with the area baseball community and someone who is passionate about working for a growing team,” said Wampus Cats president Greg Sullivan. “Like us, Jayson sees a lot to like with baseball in Stanly County and can help us make our collegiate wood-bat club into a major community asset.”

James replaces Jerry Min, who served as general manager in 2023 before stepping down this offseason.

“We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Jerry for his passion, dedication and effort in our first season,” Sullivan said. “We thought he did a fantastic job. Jerry mentioned he has nothing but smiles when thinking about the players, fans and sponsors for last year’s team and we expect we’ll see him come out to some games. Having more than 6,000 fans come out for home games in our first year was a great foundation.”

The Wampus Cats are busy at work for the upcoming season. The team expects to announce its 2024 schedule in February and the season is expected to begin in late May like last season.

“We’ve been working on bringing in the best players we can this offseason, working on some upgrades with Albemarle Parks & Recreation, and Jayson and I are reaching out to our sponsors,” Sullivan said. “We can’t wait to build on the momentum we started last year and have a lot of big plans for this summer. It’s going to be a lot of fun again.”