Phone Ban On Saturday

Pea Ridge coach Mark Laster has banned quarterback Kip Kelly from calling him on Saturdays. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

There's no question of Kelly's skill and potential as a quarterback. There's even less a question about his love of the game.

"Kip is the type of guy who spends his weekends like a coach," Laster said. "If we're not working, we'll sit there and watch three or four college football games. He's kind of the same way. He's always calling me and text messaging me saying, 'Hey coach, let's run this. I saw this play.' He only sends me text messages on the weekend. I had to tell him, 'Kip, I'm not answering my phone on Saturday.'"

So what if Laster's text messaging bill is a bit high? He said it's better than not having one at all. In fact, it wouldn't be that bad if the rest of the Blackhawks caught on.

"You want all your kids to do that," Laster said. "I've threatened my kids about designating two games every weekend to watch and having a test on it on Monday. It's so they'll learn."

Dedication like Kelly's is necessary for success for any quarterback, but especially at Pea Ridge.

Laster took over at Pea Ridge last season and completely revamped the Blackhawk offense. A Dead-T team for years, Laster installed a more wide-open, Spread offense like many other teams in Northwest Arkansas have done.

Pea Ridge stuck with running the ball in the first couple of games, but the Blackhawks opened up their offense against Shiloh Christian when Kelly threw for almost 400 yards. Then disaster struck when he broke his arm the next week against West Fork, knocking him out for the entire season.

"He did such a great job and we were starting to come around, but he broke his arm against West Fork," Laster said.

"He really only has a game or two last year of experience. He's not like Caleb Ramsey at Gentry who had a whole season under his belt. Kip only had a game or two of Spread, drop-back offense. He's still in the learning process.

"That's another thing. Last year was our first year to go in that. All he's ever done is hand the ball off. Going into a totally different offense scheme is something. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to try and learn. He wants to learn. That's always good when you have a quarterback who wants to learn."

Specifically, Kelly must learn to better approach the game. He's got to know when to pass it, when to keep it or even when to pack it in, go down and hope for better the next time. It's a delicate balance for a player who Laster said has extremely high expectations and a wide range of responsibilities when it comes to Pea Ridge's success this season.

"We're trying to focus on what his responsibilities are on the field," Laster said. "I think Kip tries to take too much on. He tries to make things happen sometimes when, really, he's just got to sit back and let things happen.

You've got to go with what you can control and stop it at that point. But he'll be OK."