Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

7/12/2010 at 12:00am

The city of Springdale might collect football championships like other teams collect bruises. Shiloh Christian Coach Josh Floyd said it’s not what fans see on fall Friday nights that separates this pigskin-crazed community.

“Between Springdale High, Springdale Har-Ber and Shiloh, if you come here in the summer, it doesn’t matter if it’s 7 in the morning or 7 at night,” Floyd said, “somebody’s playing football.

“It’s pretty impressive.”

Floyd should know. He attended “every Springdale Bulldog game there was” as a boy in the 1980s, starred as a quarterback at Shiloh Christian in the 1990s, and has won three state championships in the last four seasons as the Saints’ head coach.

Floyd’s path also crossed that of Chris Wood, who guided Springdale Har-Ber to its first state championship last season. Wood was an assistant at Shiloh Christian during Floyd’s playing days, and that was no accident.

Wood set his sights on coaching in Springdale while he was a student at Arkansas Tech because it was so evident how serious and committed the community was when it came to football.

“They have a vision and an understanding of what it takes to be successful,” Wood said.

The Williams Way

Though the Springdale High Bulldogs won state championships in 1925 and 1944, Jarrell Williams generally is credited with weaving football into the fabric of the community during his three-plus decades as coach. Springdale won four state championships — in 1968, 1969, 1982 and 1989 — under Williams, and earned a reputation for cranking out physical, hard-nosed teams.

Wood said that style remains the “one core principle” of football in Springdale, regardless of the school.

“That was the standard long before there was a Shiloh Christian or a Har-Ber,” Wood said. “Jarrell Williams taught a tough brand of football, and that’s where everything started.”

“Yeah,” echoed Floyd, “it starts with that guy.”

What Williams started has only mushroomed since he retired after the 2000 season. Springdale High won another state title under Gus Malzahn in 2005, and Shiloh Christian has a total of six championships since 1998.

Malzahn was the head coach of the 1998 Saints, Wood was the offensive coordinator, and Floyd the quarterback. Wood eventually succeeded Malzahn and won the 2001 state championship.

Wood has been the only head coach Har-Ber has had in its four-year history, scoring a runner-up finish in 2007 in addition to last season’s championship. And while he conceded a few worries about “the unknowns” involved in starting a new program, he never worried about the local talent pool.

“If you live within these city limits,” Wood said, “you know the boys are going to play football.”

A Football Future

Wood now hopes the artificial-turf practice field at Har-Ber will be “the centerpiece” of a new stadium. The Wildcats and Bulldogs currently share a stadium — Jarrell Williams Stadium, in fact.

And while such a decision ultimately will be up to voters, it seems imminent in a community that prides itself not just on its high school teams, but the Kiwanis Kids Day program for students in first through sixth grades.

“Football is one of the big pieces of the puzzle that makes up Springdale,” Wood said.

It’s also representative, Floyd added, of the city’s blue-collar approach.

“It’s hard to totally explain. The town of Springdale just loves the game of football,” Floyd said.

“I think it starts with the work ethic in this town. There’s a lot of hard-working people that live in Springdale.”

That attitude and the way it translates onto football fields doesn’t figure to change anytime soon. Even though Springdale High saw many of its would-be players reassigned to Har-Ber when it opened, the Bulldogs advanced to the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.

At Har-Ber and Shiloh Christian, meanwhile, championship expectations remain the norm.

“I don’t think until you get away and you go to some other places — and I went to college and coached in other places — you don’t appreciate it,” Floyd said. “Football is very, very important to the town of Springdale.”

That much is evident not just on game nights, but during the dog days of summer, too.

 

Tagged: Springdale High School, football, Josh Floyd, Chris Wood, Jarrell Williams, Springdale Har-Ber, Shiloh Christian, Gus Malzahn