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Saturday, December 1, 2007
It’s a Girl Thing!
Western Arkansas, AR
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Northwest Arkansas has dominated girls basketball for many years, but area coaches are seeing signs that rest of the state is using the same methods to play catch-up.
Girls basketball in this part of the state has dominated the past two decades.
Consider there have been 23 state championships won by girls teams and only five won by boys teams since 1985 in all classifications. Add in that, three of the boys’ five titles came last season, and it’s been even more lopsided in the girls’ favor.
“You have to go back and not only look at the state champions,” said Fort Smith Northside coach Rickey Smith. “But look at the state runner-ups and state semifinalists and you’ll see that Northwest Arkansas has had two or three and sometimes all four of the teams in the state semifinals.”
But why has it been so dominant?
Coaches like Smith, who won his fifth state title at Northside last season, point to a variety of factors such a quality coaching, youth programs, administrators and summer teams.
It’s led to millions in scholarship money and the current crop includes premier players such as Fort Smith Southside’s Chelsea Jones, Northside’s Marian Kursh, Van Buren’s Erin Gatling, Greenwood’s Chelsea Black and Samantha Gray, Rogers’ Amanda Gibbons and Morgan Hook, Shiloh Christian’s Megan Herbert and Huntsville’s JoBeth Williams and Johanna Teneberge.
As far as programs, Northside is among the elite in the country. They’re one of eight high school teams in the nation sponsored by Nike. They fly to play games as far away as California. They even have their own film room.
In 2000-01, Northside finished No. 3 by USA Today with its only loss coming against top-ranked Linwood (High) Calif. Smith, entering his 14th season, has had an amazing 44 players play college basketball.
“We try to run our program like it’s a college program,” Smith said. “I’m very blessed to have great junior high coaches and AAU programs that have implemented our style of play. So by the time they get to me, they’re all really skilled players who know and understand our system.”
Smith said it helps playing in events like the 11th Annual Tournament of Champions, which runs Dec. 6-8 in Fort Smith. He said it’s among the “top f5 girls tourneys in the country” and this season it will host both Fort Smith teams, Shiloh Christian, Incarnate Word High out of St. Louis, Blue Valley North out of Overland Park, Kan., Hoover (Ala.) High, Norman (Okla.) High and Hickman High out of Columbia, Mo.
On the other side of town, Fort Smith Southside coach Sherry White also has five state titles under her belt during stints at Harrison and Hot Springs. She said players make the difference.
“Kids are just more focused here in Northwest Arkansas,” White said. “I don’t know if it comes from their parents or what, but it just seems like girls basketball has been a bigger deal up here than it has in the South and Central parts of the state … But they’re catching up.”
Down south of Southside High, Greenwood coach Clay Reeves is widely considered a pioneer of taking girls’ hoops to the next level. Reeves, a 17-year veteran who also coached at Greenland, has coached in the state championship six times, winning three.
Reeves raised the bar during the summer months by sending his players to team and individual camps. At Greenland, his teams from seventh grade to seniors might attend 10 or more camps per summer.
“Players spend more time at it and that’s why they’re always getting better,” Reeves said. “And I don’t blame them. I would rather spend my summer playing games in a camp than just coming to the gym to work out.
“So the credit, in my mind, goes to the kids. Whatever time is required, they put it in.”
On down the River Valley, another pioneer is Van Buren coach Merrill Mankin. He’s in his second year with the Pointers after taking two years off when he retired from Southside after 29 years of coaching. During his 11 seasons with the Rebels, his teams were in the state title hunt every year, winning an amazing 228 games.
“In the ‘80s and ‘90s, girls basketball really took off,” said Mankin, who also coached boys basketball while in Texas for 12 years. “That’s when girls started playing at a high level of AAU ball in the offseason where the boys had been doing it for years.
“Now, the athletes in the Central and Eastern parts of the state are starting to do the same thing, so it’s slowly starting to level the playing field.”
Prairie Grove fourth-year coach Kevin Froud also credited offseason programs, pointing out the All-Star Sports Arena in Springdale at helping development.
“There are always games going on up there and a lot of our kids play there,” Froud said. “It’s like anything. If you do a lot of it, you’re going to get better.”
Repetition and more venues in most every major town is also why Rogers’ coach Preston Early said girls basketball has improved starting at a young age.
“There’s just so many great youth programs,” Early said. “Plus, premier coaches in the state are up here and they’re really committed to having good programs. Almost all of them have played for a state championship.”
The girls’ program at Farmington grew so popular a few years back that the student body even launched a sarcastic “Brad Blew for Governor” campaign. Blew nominated former Fayetteville coach Mary Francis Kretchmar?? and Siloam Springs’ coach Debbie Sharp, among countless others, as key cogs in elevating the game.
Like the others, Blew also said year-round hoops opportunities has played a major role in staying a step ahead for so long.
“Girls here just took advantage of it a little quicker than the rest of the state,” Blew said. “Now, I think Central Arkansas is in line to do some good things with the private schools and some of the others catching up, but we were the power of high school girls basketball for quite a while.”
Blew and most every coach said 46-year coaching veteran Charlie Berry of Huntsville was instrumental in instilling hard-nosed girls basketball. Of course, the classy Berry instantly returned the compliments.
“I may be tooting our own horn, but we’ve had excellent coaches,” Berry said. “There are so many good programs now. You used to could pick out 10 games down our schedule and count them as wins, but everyone has good programs. I’m not sure I can count one.
“You’re not going to out-coach people now. You’re going to have to outplay them or just have to have better players to beat them.”
Along similar lines, Fayetteville coach Bobby Smith said coaching as much as anything makes girls basketball special.
“It’s such a pure sport,” Smith said. “In some ways, the boys’ game is getting so remarkably athletic that the floor is almost not big enough … It’s almost like we need to go to 4-on-4.
“But girls basketball, it’s still X’s and O’s. There’s some creativity, but it’s about a team game because it depends so much on discipline and structure and teamwork.”
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