Robert Yates has a firm but fair assessment of the state of the football program at Little Rock Central High School. The football is on the brink of back-to-back winless seasons, and appears at an all-time low in terms of productivity and talent.
It’s unfortunate for a program that earlier this decade fielded two state championship teams (including a semi-final playoff win against a heralded Springdale team featuring Mitch Mustain, Damian Williams, Ben Cleveland, Bartley Webb and coached by Auburn O.C. Gus Malzahn), and another 10-0 team that lost in the first round of the playoffs.
I played for Central coach Bernie Cox during the 1994 and 1995 seasons. Our teams weren’t very good, although we made the playoffs my senior season (we lost to Cabot in the first round). Being a soccer player, I somehow ended up on the football team as the punter and kicker. It turns out I didn’t do either very well, but strangely remember enjoying some of it.
Honestly, I never got to know Coach Cox that well. Being the kicker’s a lot like being the equipment manager. You’re expected to show up and do your job, but quietly with little to no effort or attention from the coaches. That was fine with me. I was sixteen and I didn’t know any different.
Three weeks ago I was out of town preparing to become married by sitting around with friends, drinking beer and watching football. My friend, Rex Nelson, was sitting in for me on my radio program, and when I sleepily called into the show to check on him he told me the news that Coach Cox was retiring. We talked about it on the air, and I remember saying that Coach Cox, like so many other influential Arkansans, will be remembered fondly and with admiration.
Of course, I don’t know if that will be true. In some ways I think I was defending what I feared might happen: that the last two seasons would tarnish the public’s view of himself and of his career, which includes 271 victories and 7 state championships.
Last week, I exchanged e-mails with a small group of friends about the Central season. As with all things like this, the discussion quickly turned to speculation about the new coach. I have no insight into who will get the job. I heard from someone that works close to the program than Ron Calgagni is interested. Josh Floyd (Shiloh Christian), Kevin Kelly (Pulaski Academy) and Rick Jones (Greenwood) would be inspired choices, but they have a good thing going where they are.
Tonight Central plays Bryant. I don’t see any way that the Tigers win, which means another 0-10 season. I hate it for the players, especially the seniors, whose career is likely to end with another loss. Hopefully they enjoyed some of it, absorbed the life lessons football can teach, and developed some lasting friendships along the way.
Hail to the Old Gold.
[...] football season ended last night with a drubbing by Bryant. 0-20 in the last two seasons. Ouch. My reflections on playing for Central coach Bernie [...]
Blake, Thanks for the post, but I think you might have missed how off Robert Yates’ article was regarding the reasons for the decline.
While sports articles such as his surely produce as many opinions as readers, I fully believe almost all of Yates’ points could have been easily countered with more research, reporting, and information. I’ll go through a few of these points quickly now:
Film: Yates could have interviewed the Coaches and found out that the team watches film of other teams each week complete with scouting report analysis, and that regular film exchanges occur with other coaches. The author allowed a quote to go unchallenged on this point.
Special Teams: Yates has watched practices and knows that the percentage and emphasis the coaches spend on special teams is proportional to the other aspects of the game. The poor special teams results are just as likely a product of execution, performance, and the players, instead of the process of coaching. Yates could have quoted a player or coach on the point of how much time is spent on special teams. Further, LR Central has never had strong special teams relative to the rest of the 7A, even when they were winning in 2003 and 2004.
Seven-on-Seven: Central had actively participated in seven-on-seven leagues and tournaments the past several years, and to characterize their lack of participation in a few major tournaments as evidence of their decline is to miss the bigger picture. 7-on-7 has steadily grown in the past ten years and, while Centrals summer program isn’t as robust as Conway’s or Cabot’s, it is much more structured than any other LRSD school. The coaches have run these teams very successfully and, additionally, Yates knows that Central deals with a much different demographic of player that is much harder to transport to organized summer activities than, say, Cabot. Yates could have quoted a Principal or LRSD administrator on this point.
Coaches not working Hard: The Coaches are absolutely devastated after each loss and Yates could have quoted many parents on this point. He allowed an anonymous parent to swipe a broad brush across all the coaches’ efforts.
Offense: This is the only substantive critique that merits in-depth analysis and Yates could have restricted your reporting or analysis to this point. He could have given context to the shift to passing offenses in the 7A by writing on Conway’s new Coach and how the passing of Northwest Arkansas have finally reached Central Arkansas. These obvious, but nuanced, points weren’t touched upon.
Some points Yates could have highlighted and placed more emphasis upon are:
Transfers: This is a key point and Yates could have interviewed more parents on it.
Losing begets losing and quitting: Even if starting or high-profile players quit, a better inquiry would have asked if the rate of these departures were historically abnormal and looked into the circumstances of each instance.
Recruiting: The real blockbuster story of high school football this year is the move towards more overt types of recruiting. A series of in-depth reports on out-of-district transfers would get to the heart of winning and losing in high school football in Central Arkansas.
Nature of Central high/LRSD demographics: Central is in an extremely competitive market for talented players that only gets more competitive each year. Further, to compare Central to other LRSD schools with lessor schedules that will not play Central is unfair if those qualifying factors are not included.
I really think the real story has to do with off-the field issues that don’t belong in the sports section. Further, the process by which Yates wrote the article, as demonstrated in the article, clearly betrayed frustration on the part of the author. It was obvious in his writing that there was much frustration with the lack of comments on the decline. I don’t know the degree to which this frustration influenced the conclusion that Central has a shocking lack of preparation, but the real shock is how a normally sound high school sports section ran with such a piece, especially the week of Coach Cox’s last game.
Thanks, Chris
Mr. Burks – - It’s not my desire on intent to accept or refute Mr. Yates’ assertions. Each player and former player – including you – is going to have a different perspective which is influenced by many things, including the win-loss record during that time. I’m not sure if you’re relying on your own experiences or specific accounts of the past two seasons when you refute his points. Regardless, I spoke to several sources I consider to be very close to the program and unabashed supporters of Little Rock Central and the program. None of them took issue with the facts alleged in the article. You can take that for what it’s worth. The rationale behind the printing of the article was timeliness. Central was on the brink of going 0-20. As sad as that is for all Central players, coaches, alumni, etc. it’s newsworthy. The lack of comments, I believe, is because lots of people respect coach Cox and viewed as disrespectful to him to comment about the decline. If coach Cox chose not to comment, it’s reasonable that no one else close to him and the program would. – - BR
Blake, Thanks and I understand your points about the timeliness and the lack of commenting. I also see what you mean by perspective, but I really think the article could have been done much better. Essentially, I object that it was a fair article as you characterized it. It is not that I objected to an article on the decline, it is just that I think better reporting would have given a more balanced picture.
I agree that it is possible to not take too much of an issue with any specific facts alleged, but any such story is much more than a collection of technically accurate statements. For example, if I went outside once today it would indeed be a fact that it was cloudy today, but it is also indeed a fact that it was a sunny day today for nearly eight hours.
It may be indeed technically accurate that players aren’t provided with scouting reports printed off from computers as they are by coordinators at SEC D-I schools, but it would not be accurate to conclude that there is a “shocking lack of preparation” because no such scouting reports exists when coaches are purportedly spending hours reviewing tapes and coaching players on the tendencies gleaned from such analysis.
To break this point down further, the author concludes in his own writing that there is an obvious shocking lack of preparation and to support this point he quotes a parent who asserts that the team is not provided with a scouting report on other teams. The author then adds in his own words that such scouting reports are standard at all levels of such organized sports.
There is no need to do any more research to run the quote on the scouting report from the interview with the parent, but for a sports news or analysis piece to then conclude that there is a shocking lack of preparation and also give context to such an assertion requires that the journalist have other information or sources on this point.
The easiest way to do this would have been to ask another Coach or parent: Do you still exchange tapes with LR Central? Do LR Central coaches still scout your games? Do players still watch film on other teams? Do coaches still coach on other teams tendencies?
If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then it would be inaccurate and not a fair accounting of all the facts to conclude that there was a shocking lack of preparation because players are not given printed off scouting reports on each team. If the answer to these are no, then I’ll be happy to be wrong, but these are the appropriate questions to judge such preparation by.
I think my analogy about technically accurate facts holds true over each of the major points of the article. Whether 7-on-7 or special teams, the article zeroes in on a point that full reporting would have given context to and proved to be unfair or inaccurate.
Lastly, assuming one doesn’t agree with my quibbling over the facts above, I’ve had the opposite reaction in my limited conversations amongst those I consider to be close to what the article covered about the coaches effort. The few I’ve talked to don’t think it is accurate that the coaches have not been trying hard the last two years or that they “checked out.” Admittedly, this quote is from a parent and not an assertion by the author, but is nonetheless held up as evidence to support the analysis of a shocking lack of preparation. I would be curious to know if what you are hearing supports or refutes this fact from the article.
Thanks, Chris