This is the third and final story on the Rotary Club of West Pine Bluff’s 10th annual Hooten’s Arkansas Football kickoff luncheon, held Thursday at the Pine Bluff Country Club.
Nearly all of Matt Garriott’s coaching career has been spent in southeast Arkansas.
Stops in Dumas, DeWitt, Monticello and Star City have helped the Fayetteville native build strong relationships with other coaches. While in high school he was mentored by a coach who would later join the regional fabric, going from Fayetteville Bulldog to White Hall Bulldog.
“Coach (Daryl) Patton is a staple in high school football in this state,” Garriott said, having graduated in 2006, two seasons before Fayetteville’s first state championship. “He’s a future hall of famer. Just the amount of coaches who have coached under him who are head coaches now and coordinators now, it’s just unbelievable. That legacy is going to be felt for years to come.”
Garriott is now trying to build his own championship legacy with another team of Bulldogs at Star City. He was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach June 25, succeeding Chris Norton, now principal at Perryville.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Garriott credited principal Lezeme Winn and current Rison Coach Chris Vereen, whose father Charlie led White Hall throughout the 1990s, with bringing him to Star City in 2021 after a stint on Randy Harvey’s staff at Monticello.
“The one thing I take from Coach Harvey, and it’s the same thing with Coach Vereen, it’s loyalty,” Garriott said. “You never questioned if that guy had your back or not. That’s big, especially in coaching, because everybody’s got a voice with social media, and at the end of the day, you knew that guy had your back.
“The one thing with Coach Harvey, he always coached us coaches. Every day, you knew once you got into that office, whether good or bad, he was going to have a message for you, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach.”
Vereen and Garriott jelled from the start at Star City, the latter said, adding Vereen coaches with toughness, tenacity and “your hair on fire.”
Garriott’s coaching career didn’t begin on U.S. 425. Following two years as a graduate assistant at Missouri’s Evangel University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 2011, he journeyed down south to Dumas – his wife Jessica’s hometown – and also worked in Bauxite and DeWitt before moving to Monticello. Mark Courtney mentored Garriott as a young coach at both Dumas and DeWitt.
At Star City, the players take to Garriott’s toughness and intensity quite well.
“He has changed it a lot already,” senior center Tommy Dutton said. “Our head coach before wasn’t really a loud person, and he would more talk to you about how to do your job. But with the new coach, he’ll yell at you, make you mad, make you be at your best.”
And that’s just fine with Dutton and his classmate, safety Layton Wharton.
“Last week we were at a team camp, and I messed up on a play, and Coach G was like, ‘If you don’t do your job, you’re going to be off the field,’ and he knows I didn’t want to be off the field,” Wharton said. “He motivated me to lock in and do better.”
Garriott said Dutton and Wharton exemplify what being a Bulldog – of the Star City variety – is all about.
“They’re tough. They’re disciplined. You don’t have to worry about what they’re doing on and off the field,” the coach said. “They’re yes-sir, no-sir-type people, yes-ma’am, no-ma’am type guys. So, everything I would want my children to watch and grow and emulate, they are.”
Northwest and southeast Arkansas are different economic climates, but both have rich championship history in football. The Fayetteville region continues to grow and constantly build new structures while the principal cities are almost totally connected to each other. Here, highways and backroads link smaller communities, and Garriott has no problem with the slower pace.
“At times, you feel like you’re stuck, but (that’s) when you’re coming from northwest Arkansas,” he said. “This is home now, and I learned to love it. This area of the state is like one big town. Everyone is connected in some way. When I go back home to see my family, I can’t wait to get back down here.”