It is very hard to think about the current state of Forrest City athletics without thinking about Bill Baxter.
Baxter, originally from the Paragould area, attended school and graduated from Greene County Tech, where he played basketball. Tonight, Baxter will be inducted into the Forrest City Athletic Hall of Fame, which he himself helped form and nurture, even though he never thought he would become a member.
The induction banquet begins at 5 p.m., at the Forrest City Civic Center.
"I never thought much about it," Baxter said. "It's an honor to be joining some of the greatest athletes ever assembled in one section of the state. There is so much history and tradition in athletics here in Forrest City. The Hall of Fame idea was born from those thoughts and it just seemed like a natural progression."
Baxter first laid eyes on a Forrest City basketball team as a ninth-grader at Greene County Tech, not knowing then that he would be the Mustang's future basketball coach.
Beginning with the 1971-72 season, Baxter succeeded James Laws and coached the Forrest City Mustang basketball team for the next eight seasons, qualifying his teams for the state tournament each year. His first Mustang team finished second in the state tournament, losing to the Marvin Delph-led Conway team that year coached by C.D. Taylor.
While at Forrest City, Baxter had the privilege to coach such players as Dudley Parker, Robert Lee Steward, Arthur Banks and a young man named Terry Burgess, who would go on to play collegiate basketball under Cliff Garrison at Hendrix.
In 1978, Baxter left coaching after receiving an opportunity to enter the insurance business. He remained in Forrest City.
Baxter has served on the Forrest City School Board and has continued to help coach in the city's Little League program, church basketball leagues, AAU basketball and other areas.
In 1996, he returned to the sports limelight agreeing to serve as athletic director for the Forrest City district. It was during his tenure as athletic director that Baxter started the Rumble on the Ridge basketball tournament, which has become known nationwide and helped organize efforts to build a new athletic complex and a new gym when the original Sam Smith Gym, a place where Baxter played and coached burned in early 1998.
"Those projects wasn't just because of me," Baxter
said. "Projects of that kind of stature require the efforts
of a lot of people. I get a lot of credit, but without the support
of the Forrest City community and businesses, those ideas would
have never got off the ground."
Had it not been for a bad break at Houston, Forrest City's Verlond Brown may have enjoyed an NFL career.
Brown has been called one of the greatest football players ever to wear a Forrest City Mustang uniform.
Brown, who passed away in 1999, will be honored posthumously tonight, when he will be inducted into the Forrest City Athletic Hall of Fame.
A 1987 graduate of Forrest City High School, Brown played football for then coach Clinton Gore and earned All State honors, not only on the football field, but also as a track athlete.
As a Mustang football player, Brown was named the Player of the Week several times. He played alongside 2000 Hall of Fame quarterback inductee Rusty Trail.
During Brown's senior football season (1986), the Mustangs finished 7-3 overall and 4-1 in the conference. The team lost to Little Rock Catholic in the first round of the Class AAAA state playoffs.
Brown was a member of the 1985 Mustang football team that finished unbeaten at 10-0 and held the state's top ranking going into the postseason.
Posting some of the best state times in the 100 and 200-meter sprints, Brown was undefeated in the 100-meter event during his senior season and lost only once that year in the 200-meter event, that defeat coming in the season-ending Meet of Champs.
Following graduation, Brown attended Coffeyville Junior College in Coffeyville, Kansas before earning a football scholarship to the University of Houston, where he thrived as a receiver in the Cougars' famed "Run and Shoot" offensive attack first under head coach Jack Pardee and then for a season under John Jenkins.
As a junior, Brown was the NCAA Div. 1 leader in receptions and receiving yards. A broken ankle sidelined Brown and coming back for his senior season, he was never quite the same.
"After the injury and the surgery to repair his ankle, his production fell off quite a bit," said Brown's older brother Rev. Pernell Brown of Forrest City. "He finished out the season and he even walked on with the Phoenix Cardinals. But, I don't think he ever fully recovered from that injury. Physically, he may have been 100 percent, but mentally, he may not have been completely over it."
Brown made it to the final round by the Cardinals before being cut which essentially ended his football career.
Brown worked until his death in 1999, leaving behind two brothers
and three sisters and one daughter, Akira.
Certainly, Michael Gray, Pat Mitchell, Clifton Blanchett and Terry Brown could all enter the Forrest City Hall of Fame based on their own their individual athletic accomplishments.
Tonight, however, the four men will be enshrined as a single unit for one single deed.
In 1977, Terry Brown, Michael Gray, Pat Mitchell and Clifton Blanchett set the state record -- which still stands -- for the mile relay.
Led and influenced by Hall of Fame Coach Eugene Rooks, the four Forrest City track and field athletes ran the mile relay in a blistering time of 3:14.7 seconds at the Meet of Champs in Hot Springs.
It was a new state record eclipsing the old mark of 3:16.9 set by Little Rock Central in 1968.
Coaches with strong mile relay teams generally had state-of-the-art track and field facilities and equipment along with AAAA size student bodies from which to pull their athletes," Blanchett said. "At the time, Forrest City was a AAA school with no facilities whatsoever. That fact remains today."
Under Rooks, the junior and senior high boys track teams traveled together and would compete at the same track meet. Rooks carefully over saw the development of both track programs.
Gray, Mitchell and Blanchett started running track together as eighth-graders in 1973. The trio twice were the AAA-East Junior High Conference and State Champions 1973-74.
As eighth graders, the trio competed alongside such ninth graders as Daryl Finny, Darrel Edwards, Ivory McKnight, Ulysses Beard and Leroy Jones.
Gray and Blanchett went on to win five straight state championships -- two junior high and three senior high titles. Mitchell won four -- two junior high titles and two senior high titles.
Mitchell sat out his sophomore season wanting to focus on football. In 1976, the trio was reunited when Mitchell rejoined the track team.
After the dust settled from the 1975-76 season, the trio remained with Coach Rooks and went on to win three consecutive state championships. At each track meet, Gray, Mitchell and Blanchett each ran six events and added Terry Brown in the relays. The relay team was ranked seventh nationally in 1977.
After 27 years, many say the quartet's mile relay record time may never be broken.
It's a big night for the Forrest City Mustangs.
Surrounded by the annual Forrest City Athletic Hall of Fame ceremonies, the Mustangs will welcome a winless Searcy Lions team to Sam Smith Stadium for the fifth Hall of Fame Game which, over the past week, has now turned into a very key AAAAA-East Conference showdown.
The Lions are most likely the best 0-4 team around. certainly one of the most talented.
The Mustangs played much better than the final 24-7 loss to No. 3 ranked Jonesboro indicated last Friday. The Mustangs held the lead at the half and forced the Hurricane into staging its fourth consecutive, second half rally.
Into their third full season in Class AAAAA, the Lions made the state playoffs a year ago, finishing in a tie for fourth in the AAAAA-East.
After losing much of the strength to graduation, the Lions return only three players on each side of the football.
Senior quarterback Chris Bryant and running back Adam Robertson have been the go-to duo on the field this season.
The Mustangs are trying to fend off some minor injuries to several players, including Michael Holland and junior quarterback Marcus Fair, who was thrust into the starting role when senior quarterback Ben Horton went down in a preseason scrimmage game.
Senior running back Terrance Ware has been the Mustangs' main weapon while John Scott Carroll has been the leading receiver for the team through four games.
Forrest City stands seventh in the conference in points scored while Searcy is eighth. The Mustangs defense has allowed four more points than has the Lions' defense.
The Mustangs are 3-1 in the previous four Hall of Fame football
games.
The Palestine-Wheatley Patriots are at it again.
The team led the state in rushing yards a year ago. As of this week, the Patriots are leading the state in scoring with 206 points through four games.
No other state team in any classification comes close.
More importantly, the Patriots are 3-1 overall and 3-0 in the 6AA Conference, which puts them on top of the league by a full game over Barton, 2-0 in the conference.
The two will meet next week.
But first, the Patriots have to turn their attention to tonight when they travel to Elaine for what will probably be another notch on the team's state scoring, record setting pace.
Elaine, at 2-2, may be a little better than the Patriots' past two opponents -- Augusta and Marvell -- but not nearly as talented as Barton will be next week.
So the Patriots can only hope that tonight's game will have some similance of competition.
Combined, Elaine and Augusta are 0-6 and have scored only 42 points combined and have given up 259.
For the second straight week, the Patriots have totaled more than 500 yards of offense with the bulk of that coming on the ground and being led by brothers Fred and Antonio Leak, fullback Brad Barton and tailback Rashun Barnes.
Elaine has relied on the brother tandem of Trent and Cyrus Moss on the offensive side of the football. The brothers do have some speed but probably not nearly enough to counter Palestine's defense.
The Panthers will start several sophomores on each side of the football while the Patriots are senior laden along the lines and in the skill areas.
The Hughes Blue Devils did all they could do last Friday against a talented Harding Academy team, keeping the game close through three quarters.
In the end, the arm of quarterback Zack Tribble and the running of Kreg Kell was too much for the under-manned Blue Devils in the 27-13 conference loss.
"What can you do," said Hughes coach James Wright. "We probably don't even need to be on the same field with them. They have athletes from any and everywhere."
There is some light at the end of the tunnel tonight.
The Blue Devils have a chance to right their ship tonight against a winless Augusta team and get back on the plus side of the win column.
Hughes stands fourth in points scored in the 6AA Conference with 106 while the Red Devils have scored just 36 points. The Red Devils have not scored more than 14 points in any of their first four games.
At 1-1 in the conference, A Hughes win tonight would get the Blue Devils back into position to secure a postseason playoff berth.
Headed into tonight's schedule, Harding and Des Arc are tied with 2-1 conference marks just ahead of Hughes. Des Arc is open tonight and Harding has winless Marvell.
As is the case each week, the Blue Devils will have to hold on to the football tonight, an area in which the team has struggled. With a legion of talented backs, the Blue Devils have the quick strike capability, even with a young and inexperienced line.
Augusta will throw dual quarterbacks Justin Ellis and Clayton Ashby and junior running back Patrick Nevels at the Hughes defensive unit.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
WEST MEMPHIS -- Forrest City needed to protect the football going into Thursday's junior high conference matchup against West Memphis West.
It didn't quite work out the way Head Coach Rich Trail had hoped as the Junior Mustangs lost four fumbles in a 14-0 loss to West.
If there was an upside to the four tunrovers, it was the fact that none came on the center-quarterback exchange or on the toss sweep, which has been a problem in past games.
"I think all four fumbles came at the end of good, hard runs by our backs," Trail said. "You know they were just fighting for the extra yardage and sometimes the ball pops out. You can't fault the kids for that."
West scored early in the first half from the five after a pass interference call against Forrest City on a fourth and eight gave West Memphis a new set of downs.
The Junior Mustangs got into West territory several times but never closer than the 20.
"I thought we outplayed them," Trail said. "Our kids played hard and they played well most of the game. We needed to hang on to the football and we didn't and they took advantage of our mistakes."
The Junior Mustangs fall to 1-3 for the year.
In other conference matchups Thursday night, Jonesboro Annie Camp shut out West Memphis East 35-0 and Jonesboro MacArthur dropped West Memphis Wonder 32-8.
The Hughes Junior Blue Devils downed Elaine 28-20 Thursday to get to 2-1 overall.
Tommy Smith scored three touchdowns to lead Hughes while Richard Burnett added the final score. Melvin Sims added two extra point conversions.
Hughes led 14-8 at the half.
Elaine scored off a blocked punt and a fumble recovery
The Forrest City Mustang golf team ended its regular season schedule Thursday playing in a four-way match at Paragould.
The Mustangs finished with a team score 189, just five strokes behind Wynne at 184 and 12 strokes behind co-leaders Paragould and Greene County Tech, both finishing at 177.
Forest City's Matthew Howton and Nehemiah Stephens led with rounds of 45 while ZachJones finished at 47. Doug Drake fired a 52 and Steven Holmes carded a 54.
Katie Ramsey finished at 55.
Ramsey will play in the AAAAA-East Girls' Conference championship Tuesday at Mountain Home while the boys will play in their half of the conference tournament Thursday at Mountain Home.
*Jonesboro seniors Willie Little, Stephen Cox and Klayton Seyler came through with strong rounds as Jonesboro fired a team score of 294 to top Conway by 8 strokes to win its fourth straight Hurricane Classic golf title Thursday at Jonesboro Country Club.
West Memphis' Jordan Payne fired a 68 to earn medalist honors for the second straight year while Conway finished second (302) and Batesville (307) third in 13-team field.
Little eagled No. 16 to finish at 1-over 72, for second individually, while Cox and Seyler each shot a 73, followed by Nathan French's 76 and freshman Joseph Boone's 81 in the play-5, count-4 format.
Batesville's Meagan Cockrill carded an 88 to lead the Lady Pioneers in a runaway in the girls' division. Batesville shot a 270 to win by 24 strokes over Searcy while Jonesboro finished third with a 301.
Jeff Campbell of Conway shot an even-par 71 to finish second individually while Joseph Branstetter of Batesville, Little and Matt Monday of Greenwood fired 72s. Cox and Seyler finished tied for sixth. Highland finished fifth.