PEA RIDGE — Well, football season has come and gone, although it stayed a lot longer than has been the norm over the past few seasons.
The 2012 season was an unmitigated success. We had all hoped it could have and would have been even more successful, but compared to the sports pundits pre-season prediction of a “probable” 5-5 season for our ’Hawks, things went well.
The game with Heber Springs last week brought out the odd fact that both teams were undefeated on the road for the 2012 season.
While the ’Hawks went 5-0, Heber is 6-0 and is playing on the road at Hardy this week as they take on Highland. Heber Springs won but one game at home this season, going 1-4 at Panther Stadium. The ’Hawks, on the other hand, were 5-2 at home, not as good as their road success but still good.
Since the Panthers are a low seed, they will have to play road games all the way to the state finals if they make it that far. That just might work in their favor.
Two teams from the 4A-1 are still in the mix, making the final field of eight teams in the quarterfinals. Prairie Grove came from way back to defeat the Pottsville Apaches 34-28 last Friday.
Ozark crushed the first round upset victors, Mena, in a 33-12 shellacking in a game at Ozark.
This week the Tigers will play host to Nashville in another stern test for our district winner. In the other game, Ozark will travel to Booneville to take on a teamit whipped in the non-conference battle earlier in the season. The winners of these two games will have semifinal berths next week.
Basketball season is upon us
Usually, there is a bit of time between seasons but with the lengthened football season in 2012, the basketball games began the very next day with the ’Hawks invading Rogers last weekend.
The hardwood boys and girls will be playing and working out through the holidays as is always the case.
As always, the fall schedule will involve mostly nonconference games along with a pair of tournaments. Both teams will play in the old Benton County tournament which turned into the Northwest Arkansas tournament when it got harder to field a slate of teams. The boys will travel to Washburn, Mo., for the annual Holiday Tournament. The tournament itself is quite unique as I have pointed out in the past, with larger fields coming in for the fray recently.
“Good-bye” to Blackhawk Stadium
The loss last week marked the last time that Pea Ridge High School will tee it up for a high school football game.
First built in 1963, the field was put into use just after a little company namedWal-Mart started up their business over in neighboring Bentonville. The field was quite marvelous in 1963, especially for a school as small as Pea Ridge was back then.
When I came to Pea Ridge in 1998, I had a time finding the place at first. I had never visited a football field that was hidden down an alley before. Most times, folks can find school football facilities by just driving by the high school and looking for lights.
The field has played host to hundreds of high school football contests as well as junior high and elementaryaged match-ups over the years. It has been a place where past generations come to look upon the kids of the up and coming. Not just a few of the players have had dads or even grandpas suit up for battle on the field some used to call the “Pea Bowl.”
The seniors who went out on the field Friday following the end of the game were a most fitting bunch to say “good-bye” to a place as important as the field has been to the community around. Perhaps the largest senior class to play for Pea Ridge, they were a remarkable group to remember the place by.
The aforementioned Wal-Mart went on to become the world’s largest retailer and its power and largesse touches the least and most among us. While not growing along the lines of a Wal-Mart, Pea Ridge schools have made rapid and marked improvement, of their own especially over the past couple of years.
My first experience as a teacher in the system here was being told that I wasn’t going to have a room to teach in and that I would have only $100 to budget for art supplies for the 400 students I had at that time.
There were quite a few other things that I didn’t think were the best of ideas on how to run things but as we were all told, “it’s the way we’ve always done it.”
Firmly believing that if you only do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got, I have always believed there’s a better way to do most anything if only folks would pursue alternatives. The run of success enjoyed by the school here since the short tenure of Dr. Roland Smith then followed by our current leader is nothing short of phenomenal.
Whether it relates to athletics, academics or just student involvement, Pea Ridge schools have a lot to be thankful for in this holiday season. Not many schools can come to be considered a “school of choice,” but that is what Pea Ridge has become. While our enrollment climbs steadily, there are many more who would like to enroll here if only they could.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 8 on 11/21/2012