Senior to be Philip Brown is a super. Don't expect to see his name listed on the "Incredibles 3" credits, but you can see his name on the 2019 Super Teams 4A Football list that was released by Hooten's Arkansas High School Football Guide last week.
Brown has been selected as an Arkansas 4A super team offensive lineman, one of the five best among the 48 schools in the Arkansas 4A classification. Brown, 6'1" at 275 lbs., has been tabbed by head coach Stephen Neal as the Blackhawk's best blocker. With a team that will be heavily invested in the pass attack this season, great blocking linemen are prerequisites to success. Brown is also no slouch in the classroom as he carries a 4.1 grade point average on a 4-point scale. He was an All-Conference selection last year in the 1-4A.
Prairie Grove's Hayden Black was also voted onto the offensive linemen Super Team with wide receiver Truitt Tollett named to the supers representing Shiloh to round out our district's selections.
Though Arkadelphia's Cannon Turner is a consensus selection as the top quarterback in 4A, two of the other six best quarterbacks in the state hail from the 1-4A, with one from the Ridge. Senior Tate Busey was a selection as well as Shiloh's Eli Reece. Busey is 6'2", 170 lbs. and averaged nearly 200 yards per game total offense per game in 2018.
Samuel Beard made the 4A state unheralded all-star list, rated as one of the top two running backs in the league along with Tristan Updegraff. Beard was a first time starter last season and has picked up some more speed after participating on the track team this spring.
Two Blackhawk defenders made the all-star list to bring the number of athletes receiving special mention in Hootens to five. Linebacker Luis Reyes (6'1", 210 lbs.) created a lot of havoc last season at linebacker and is the best kickoff performer in the conference if not the whole state. Linebacker/defensive lineman Adam Trammel has something few linebackers and likely no lineman ever get, and that is a gold medal in state track and field sprint competition. Trammel was the leadoff man for the fastest 4x100-meter relay in the state last spring, and he will bring that explosive speed to bear when pursuing opposing ball carriers this fall.
As mentioned earlier, the Blackhawks will be going to the air a lot this fall and the 'Hawks have two seniors, a junior and a sophomore that will provide targets for Busey to throw passes to. Hunter Rains, senior, (5'8", 150 lbs.), Cole Brown, junior, (5'10", 170 lbs.), Trevor Blair, sophomore, (6'0", 165 lbs.) and Brayden Ralph, senior, (6'3", 205 lbs.) will all be catching passes and scoring during the course of the season.
More on the Blackhawks roster as the summer progresses.
Hawks pegged into the
top 20 to start season
The Pea Ridge football team was voted into the seventh spot on the Hooten's 4A preseason rankings.
Defending state champion Arkadelphia is picked to defend their crown even though they lost considerable talent through graduation last spring. Shiloh was picked as the third best team behind second-place Nashville. The other team from the 1-4A to be placed into the Top 20 was Prairie Grove who debut in the 16th position.
The Hooten's rankings are compiled by a team of pundits, but the conference predictions are a result of coaches voting this summer. The 1-4A coaches voted Shiloh the team to beat in 2019 with Prairie Grove the runner up and Pea Ridge in third place.
Prairie Grove finished last season with their first losing record in many, many years at 5-6. They were fourth in the league in 2018, losing to Shiloh, Pea Ridge and Lincoln with only nine of 22 starters back, it may seem strange to rank the Tigers so high. Prairie Grove has been so good for so long, it may seem to the district coaches that last year was an aberration and the Tigers we used to know will come back in full force. Maybe, maybe not.
Surprising Lincoln lost only to Pea Ridge and Shiloh in the regular season and are seeing the results of a renewed commitment to their athletic programs in the Washington County school. They rank 24th state wide and fourth in the 1-4A.
Gravette finished seventh last season in the 1-4A, with their new head coach leaving the school after school ended in the spring. They won but one game last year with one of the smallest rosters in some time. They may lack size and speed so things may be tough for them this fall, but they have had a very competitive program for many years so maybe they can get it going again. They have been picked fifth for 2019.
Berryville has one of their highest preseason conference rankings in some time, coming in at sixth. They went 4-6 last year and start this season ranked 36th in the state 4A. Gentry had a hard year in 2018, going 3-8 but whipping Gravette 26-0 to grab the fifth playoff seed. They have the seventh place prediction in the conference but have a 27th ranking in the state polls.
Forlorn Green Forest is ranked as not only the worst team in the 1-4A, but also the worst team in all of 4A, with a 48th ranking. They won but one game in 2018, a 1-point win over West Fork. The Tigers did not score a single point in the conference season until the last quarter of the last game the season against Berryville. The Tigers return but three starters on an offense that could not score in 2018 so the 2019 season could be a bleak one for the Carroll County team.
Betsy Ross a racist?
Something odd happened last week.
Nike Shoes were set to release a specially made AirMax shoe in patriotic colors with the Betsy Ross American flag stitched into the heel.
Several thousand of these shoes were in stores, set to retail for over $100 each. However, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick announced that the shoes were racist and represented slavery because of the Betsy Ross flag on them.
To the historically challenged, Betsy Ross was a seamstress in Philadelphia, a city in the British colony of Pennsylvania.
She was a Quaker, a member of the very first group of people to call for the abolition of slavery. The Quakers went on to care for and educate lots of runaway slaves who made it into the northern colonies were slavery was not legal.
Kaepernick was backed up in his statement by many news outlets, with MSNBC even declaring that the Ross flag was symbolic of evil like Nazi swastikas or the KKK.
What?
There was no United States at that time as the independence had not been won. Ross was no more a racist than Martin Luther King, so what gives?
What is even weirder, the "hated" Betsy Ross flag was used to decorate the podium area of a fairly recent presidential inauguration. Trumps? No -- for Barack Obama.
Like lemmings over a cliff, there are now countless Americans who are now screaming for the elimination of the flag and who are openly claiming that the U.S. is an evil country.
Kaepernick was the person who started the practice of disrespecting the flag by kneeling during the National Anthem. He said he did so only to call attention to the racism in our country and that he was not disrespecting our country. It seems he lied, as he now openly admits he despises the U.S. and all it stands for.
There are high schools and colleges who have begun removing American flags so as not to offend anyone. A recent presidential debate was held on national TV without trace of any American flag within view.
The recent Fourth of July celebration held in Washington, D.C., was blacked out by every major television news outlet save one. The celebration highlighted the histories of the United States armed forces and spotlighted a number of Americans who had been of service to the country in time of war.
Kaepernick's antics have earned him the adulation of most news organizations as well as an $80 million dollar contract from Nike.
It pays to denigrate one's country.
The United States has its problems as it is full of humans. Things could always be improved but as "bad" as it is -- it is still the greatest country to have ever existed.
We don't have millions of people risking life and limb trying to sneak into this country because it is such an evil place.
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Editor's note: John McGee, an award-winning columnist, sports writer and art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, writes a regular sports column for The Times. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports on 07/10/2019