Born in Gaston County, Sewell's family moved to Cleveland County while he was in middle school. In 1976, he joined the first-ever wrestling team at Crest High School under Coach Coleman Hunt. Sewell was team captain in each of his three high school seasons, never missing a practice. After graduating from Crest in 1979, he went to Chowan Junior College wrestling for two seasons before transferring to UNC Wilmington. Sewell earned a degree in Health and Physical Education from UNCW in 1984. He began his coaching career at Hoggard High School in 1982 as a volunteer coach in a successful program that boasted a 48-match win streak. In 1984, he accepted a teaching position at Laney High School, inheriting a program that, at the time, had a 5-year, 55-match losing streak. The losing streak ended during Sewell's rookie season and, over the next 12 seasons at Laney, he built one of the state's premier wrestling programs. Sewell's teams captured eight conference championships, four district titles, three regional titles and a state championship in 1992. Laney also finished as state runner-up in 1991. Sewell's career dual team winning percentage was 86%. He was named conference coach of the year five times, was North Carolina Coach-of-the-Year in 1992 and was also inducted into the Laney Hall of Fame in 2017. Sewell served on the Board of Directors of both NC USA Wrestling (1991-1996) and NC AAU Wrestling (1994-1999). Sewell coached four state champions, 25 state place winners, and had 10 of his Laney athletes wrestle Division I or II in college. Sewell retired from coaching in 1996, but he has continued serving wrestling in numerous capacities over the past 20 years as a volunteer, a mentor to other coaches, state chairman for the National Wrestling Coaches Association (2005-2010) and by assisting the state tournament staff for the past 15 years. Currently Sewell is an assistant coach at the University of Mount Olive, joining the UMO wrestling staff in 2020.