Shiloh School, the private school and former conference member in Springdale, will be returning to the 4A-1 District this fall, but they will be doing it without their longtime head football coach and athletic director Josh Floyd.
Floyd has resigned to take the head coaching job at Hewitt-Trussville High School, located on the northeastern edge of Birmingham, Ala. The school is a relatively new one in one of the fastest growing areas of the south. A large school, it is in the state's 7A classification.
Although Floyd would not release the details of his contract, school board officials said previously said that they were prepared to make their new coach the highest paid one in the state. Being a state that places a very high premium on successful football coaches (note University of Alabama Lou Saban's status as highest paid coach in the U.S.), it would be safe to say that Floyd's new contract will be considerably higher than the one he will be leaving behind.
News outlets in Birmingham lauded Floyd's ultra successful career at Shiloh, winning four state titles in his 10-year career along with being nationally ranked at times. What they failed to mention was that Floyd's boys haven't won a playoff game in four years, and that their last year in 4A saw them finish fifth in their conference.
Perhaps the biggest reason the officials were so enamored of Floyd's prospects is his association with Auburn University coach Gus Mahlzahn. Most of the stories in the Alabama press about Floyd's hiring mentioned Mahlzahn's name prominently. Floyd was Mahlzahn's quarterback when the Springdale school won several of their titles. Voted the NCAA National Coach of the Year, Mahlzahn's popularity in Alabama is sky high and I tend to believe that Trussville board members think that Floyd can replicate his former mentor's success.
What no story mentioned is that Floyd's penchant for recruiting star players off area high school football squads eventually led to a radical rule change concerning player transfers adopted by the Arkansas Activities Association. The way that Shiloh obtained many of the star players they had in the glory years under their present coach would have gotten them heavily sanctioned in any other state in the union. The new rule requiring transferring players to lose a year of eligibility severely damaged Shiloh's ability to entice players to abandon their own schools.
With recruiting much more difficult, and returning to play in a district with a history of conflict with the school, it was a good time to move on. Floyd's boast a few years ago that they were going to move up to 5A because they were good enough to win on any level has had disastrous effects on the school. Outside of boys baseball and girls volleyball, other Shiloh sports have done poorly, and the move to 5A more than doubled student travel time.
A new coach will be hired for Shiloh and he won't have a lot of time to prepare for the upcoming season. Hopefully, the new coach could be a fresh start, and could lead to a new era in the relations between public schools and private. As a former coach myself in a private school similar to the one Springdale, I can see both sides of conflicts arising from public school/private school competition. As it happens, the place I coached (Jefferson Christian Academy) was just a few miles from Trussville.
Perhaps, when public schools and private/Christian schools meet for future athletic competition, fans can all agree that the Lord really doesn't care who wins a ball game. The Lord, I believe, does care about the behavior of the participants and the attitudes put on display.
First ever volleyball youth camp
While there have been youth football and basketball camps at Pea Ridge High every summer for as far back as most folks can remember, this summer will see a new wrinkle on the camping menu. With incoming junior Ashtyn Mondy serving as director with high school coaches supervising, the first ever Lady Volley'Hawks camp will run from July 22 through July 24.
Open to any girl students who will be in next year's third grade through seventh grade, the camp will comprise of three two-hour sessions on consecutive days, starting at 5 p.m. and ending at 7 p.m. The camp will coincide with the youth football camp which will be going on at the same time.
The stated goal of the camp is to "Introduce the young members of the community to volleyball before they will be eligible to participate with the school in the seventh grade. Volleyball teaches students the importance of teamwork, positive attitudes, communication skills, and how to overcome obstacles."
The camp has 100 openings which will be filled first come first served. T-shirts will be provided participants but proper sizing won't be guaranteed after July 11. Forms are available in school offices and all interested girls in the appropriate grades were given forms last week.
For information, contact program director Mondy at 479-330-1163 or by email at [email protected].
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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].
Editorial on 06/04/2014