Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

The weather had finally  turned from the daily blistering daytime with its almost suffocating sultriness to a comfortable August evening with a light breeze. William Hardiman’s three-hour practice session would now be a little more bearable for his Little Rock Parkview Patriots.

Bearable only by a little, though. Though the difficult summer had momentarily let up, Hardiman wouldn’t.

One young well-developed player, who will go nameless here but likely will have his name in print several times over the next three years for his football exploits, pushed a tire end over end around the Parkview track. He’d left his uniform out of its locker, breaking a rule. Round and round he went. He finally got relief, but two others took over the tire routine. When they stopped, their attention didn’t turn toward the evergreens lining the slopes around the track, but rather to the field where Hardiman and his staff worked their first-team offense from one goal line to the other as moonlight was taking over.

Hardiman accomplished last year what few thought possible, directing Little Rock Parkview to eight wins and into the 6A playoffs, challenging Jonesboro and West Memphis for the top of the 6A-East standings. Most high school followers have considered Parkview’s glory days of the 1970s and early ‘80s to be something never to be repeated now that the school is a magnet for arts and science students. The Charles Clays, Darryl Masons and Keith Jacksons of the world now seem to matriculate to North Little Rock or to one of the area’s private schools before they head on to a Division I college.

Parkview hasn’t been bereft of talent all these recent years, mind you. Mark Winston was recruited by D-I schools, and Jamaal Anderson turned his rail-thin body of a wide receiver into that of a first-round NFL draft choice in 2007.

Lack of numbers, lack of line depth and not enough speed, though, are usually the reasons given why Parkview can’t add more championship hardware to its trophy case, unless the sport is basketball (and how many title-winning basketball coaches around the country have to also coach football, as Parkview’s Al Flanigan does?)

Hardiman, however, put a team on the field that, while lacking in size and depth in its lines, competed well enough. It’s obvious watching a Parkview practice how that’s accomplished. Sure, it takes players, and Hardiman has a handful of good ones, sure to put on a good show in the Arkansas High School Kickoff Classic on Aug. 31 against county rival Little Rock Mills. But it also takes hard but fair discipline, which is in full force on this evening.

Kicking drills take up the whole field and the entire team, before shifting to fundamentals for linemen and backs and tacklers, and then the top units get their chance to hone their assignments 11-on-11 (no tackling to the ground this night) with a couple of weeks left in preseason camp. Other players watch patiently. There is no lollygagging around; attention is focused on the field. It doesn’t appear anyone wants to feel the coach’s wrath. But when it’s over, he’s the type of coach to put his arm around a player’s shoulder and offer encouragement.

Parkview was the winningest school in the Little Rock School District last year. When Sam Goodwin or John Kelley was coaching on John Barrow Road, that would not have been strange to hear. But in 2009, Parkview didn’t even have any competition for the distinction. The district foursome of Little Rock McClellan, Little Rock Fair, Little Rock Hall and tradition-rich Little Rock Central combined for three wins.

Enrollment shouldn’t be a factor in the LRSD. Where numbers have fallen, the schools have been reclassified to play similar-sized programs. Coaches in the LRSD have to go the extra mile these days, though, to interest students with athletic skills into playing football and convincing them how their program might benefit their lives.

Little Rock Central changed coaches in the off-season, hiring away Ellis “Scooter” Register from private Little Rock Catholic. Register already turned one LRSD program around in the 1990s when he brought McClellan to the precipice of winning a state title. McClellan should be better this year under Anthony Chambers, who was part of Parkview’s last great run in the 1980s under John Kelley.

However, Hall and Fair had interim coaching situations in the spring and stability is always a question when players aren’t sure who’s in charge.