LITTLE ROCK — Preparing to man the P.A. for a baseball game, Norphlet High School football coach Doug Means was in the field house when Arkansas State University assistant J.B. Grimes arrived.
“Well, I guess it is true isn’t it,” Means said to Grimes.
The day before, somebody at ASU called to give Means a heads-up that Grimes would be visiting the small football-playing school that is easy to miss between Camden and El Dorado. Nobody can remember the last time a Norphlet player received a Division I scholarship. Therefore, Means told a caller: “I didn’t believe it (the visit) would happen.”
Such disbelief must have been the prevailing sentiment at many of the state high schools that are not regular stops for coaches searching for talent.
Extremely well-organized by recruiting coordinator Casey Woods and head coach Gus Malzahn, the ASU blitz included all 215 football-playing schools in the state. Just before the nine assistants departed Jonesboro in a well-orchestrated send-off, there was a brainstorming session with Grimes, John Thompson and the others with tentacles throughout the state. The session yielded a slew of recommended contacts.
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Each coach’s itinerary included Woods’ detailed Mapquest of how to get to each and every destination.
Grimes did a maximum of six schools in one day, starting at 7 a.m. and finishing up around 5 p.m. Usually, the visit lasted a while — a quick in and out could be misread as a coach simply meeting an obligation, and that is no way to create relationships or renew old ones, the goal of the master plan.
Often, his travel time was 20 to 30 minutes.
“You had to be rolling,” Grimes said. “There was not time for a sit-down lunch.”
Occasionally, there was a battlefield adjustment. For instance, he was supposed to leave Camden and go to Smackover, Norphlet and Junction City and overnight in El Dorado. When he found out there was no motel room in El Dorado, he skipped Norphlet, went to Junction City, and then stopped at Norphlet on the way back to his motel at Camden.
Brandon Hall, who has an Oklahoma background, was assigned Lonoke High School where Grimes’ sister-in-law is the guidance counselor. Along the way, Grimes’ inside info included a tout on Craig’s Barbecue at DeValls Bluff.
Hall also had Forrest City, and Thompson advised him to download mood music to his iPad. The tune was an instrumental from the late 60s called “The Horse,” the Mustangs’ fight song.
At Fordyce, Grimes met an assistant coach who went to Fort Smith Christian High School with Malzahn. Dean Jackson visited Murfreesboro and Nashville, where Grimes’ wife’s family owns the local newspapers. At Junction City, the coach is David Carpenter, son of the late Ralph “Sporty” Carpenter. Grimes and Little Rock Central coach Scooter Register were college teammates at Henderson under “Sporty.”
Thirty years ago, David Carpenter was a volunteer at Arkadelphia High School, where Thompson was an assistant.
The Arkansas connections go on and on.
Thompson’s dad was once the high school coach at Hughes, same as Malzahn. Thompson’s assignments included Rivercrest, where the head coach is Kelly Chandler, a three-sport opponent when both were in high school. There’s more. Thompson was not quite old enough to have a driver’s license when he delivered groceries from a place in Marie. Chandler’s family owned the grocery.
Grimes and the others collected names for 2014, 2015, even 2016, compiling a database of young men to keep up with.
In February, ASU signed 11 players from Arkansas and Malzahn is on record as hoping the number grows.
“… We are big believers in Arkansas high school players and and Arkansas high school coaches, so this is where it is going to start for us in recruiting,” he said.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.