By ROB PATRICK
Circumstances can sometimes turn the least likely course of action into the most logical path to take.
Mark Smith had every intention to be back on the job in Bryant as head basketball coach as the opening of school approached.Sure, the 2008-09 season had been frustrating as the Hornets were unable to make their third straight trip to the Class 7A State Tournament, suffering more than their share of hard-to-swallow losses.
But frustration was not new to Smith nor the Hornets particularly since joining the powerful Central conference in the state’s highest classification.
And, yes, Chad Withers, who had served as his assistant — or co-head coach, as Smith said — since he arrived in 2002, had left in the spring to take his first high school head coaching job at Glen Rose.
But Smith was looking forward to working with Jim Pennington, a former head coach at Hot Springs, who was hired as his new assistant.
A phone call from a friend, however, started Smith thinking.[more]
“I found out that Coach (Mark) Hall at Bauxite was leaving,” he recalled. “A good friend of mine who was an assistant coach called me and told me that they had asked him if he was interested in the job. He said he didn’t want to move again. He just called to tell me that.
“I called Coach Hall and asked him what he thought about the job and just how he felt about Bauxite and asked him why he was leaving,” Smith continued. “He was leaving to go back home to Prescott. His parents are still there and they’re in bad health so he felt like he needed to go back home. He said it wasn’t an easy decision at all for him but he had an opportunity to go back. He said he felt like he had the program on an upward swing and, for the last two years, they certainly have been.”
The spark of interest Smith had, began to grow. After seven years of coaching in the rugged, physical, athletic Central conference, perhaps a change would be good.
“He was kind of surprised that I was interested in the job,” Smith said of his talk with Hall. “He talked to their administration and they called me asking if I’d come talk to them.
“I talked to (Bryant athletic director) Coach (Tom) Farmer about the situation and asked him if it was possible for me to get out of my contract this late in the year because, if not, there really wasn’t any reason to go and talk to them,” Smith related. “He said I probably could and there wouldn’t be that much of a problem with it.
“So I went over and talked to Bauxite. I told them I’d think about it and the next day I called and told them I was interested but still wasn’t sure because (Bryant superintendent) Dr. (Richard) Abernathy was out of town at the time and it was all a matter of whether he would let me out of my contract.
“I had the weekend to think about it and I talked to a lot of different coaches and friends and family and they all felt like it was really a good move, that, right now, it would probably be the best move for me.
“I felt like I kind of needed a change. It was an opportunity for me to coach at a program where it’s on the rise and also where I wasn’t going to have to move. The timing of it was just really good.”
With no hesitation, Bauxite hired him.
“It’ll be a challenge,” he acknowledged. “They’re moving up in classification next year but I’ve been used to a challenge the last seven years so I don’t think it’s going to be anything any more drastic than what I’ve seen before.”
Ironically, the situation was similar when Smith came to Bryant from an impressive stint at Benton Junior High.
“Bryant was going from the South to the Central,” he recalled. “And really, there was not a long line of people that wanted the job because of that fact. The AAAAA-Central was, I guarantee, the best conference for basketball ever assembled in Arkansas. There were no easy games in that conference, Parkview, Hall, Central, North Little Rock, Conway — it was just everybody.
“Unfortunately, we lost a lot more than we won but I felt like we really competed for the most part and I’m really proud of what we did at Bryant,” Smith continued. “I don’t have any second thoughts about going there, no regrets. It was an opportunity for me to be exposed to senior high basketball at the highest level, in the best conference. I was fortunate to have a bunch of good players and good guys, and to make long-lasting friendships from doing that.
“It was certainly fun coaching with Chad,” he said. “He and I had a lot of fun. We worked well together. We were able to accomplish some things. We made the State tournament twice. We put together some competitive teams. There were times when we got beat pretty bad but I felt, for the most part from start to finish, we were pretty competitive.”
Bryant’s best season under Smith and Withers was the 2007-08 campaign when the Hornets went 15-13 but were just a few points away from 20 wins. The team made it second straight State tournament appearance that season, losing a tough game against Rogers in the first round.
Last season, with just two starters returning, the Hornets went 7-19.
