WESTWARD YO!

When the Bentonville Tigers run onto the field at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock on Saturday afternoon, they will proudly carry the 7A-West banner.

Figuratively, that is.

“I think that is important as a member of the conference,” Bentonville head coach and Greenwood alumni Jody Grant said. “I don’t want to be the one that blows that one. It’s most important selfishly for us, our program, and I want these kids to be able to finish the thing out but as our conference as a whole it is important.”

The mighty, mighty West has won every state championship in the state’s largest classification since Springdale’s powerhouse Bulldogs won the title in 2005. That’s 12 straight, and it’s one of the most remarkable runs in the history of Arkansas high school football.

“There’s no doubt about that,” former Springdale head coach Jarrell Williams said. “That’s been outstanding for us up here.”

Saturday, Bentonville will play North Little Rock, the undefeated 7A-Central champion, at noon for the Class 7A title.

Southside’s upset of Little Rock Parkview in the 1983 championship game is still regarded as one of the biggest upsets in Arkansas high school football history, but the West really started flexing its football muscle in 1987, exactly 30 years ago this weekend, when Northside and Southside met for the state championship at War Memorial Stadium.

There was a big movement to try to get the game relocated to Fort Smith in 1987. Fort Smith athletic director Bill Stancil offered the Arkansas Activities Association $10,000 of the gate receipts to move the game to Mayo-Thompson Stadium. The state championship games were only moved to War Memorial Stadium from various sites four years before for all classifications so the AAA was determined to play the game in Little Rock, the new home for the state’s championship games.

The next year, Northside and Southside again met for the state championship, again in Little Rock.

“There were some really good teams in northwest Arkansas, and some really good coaches,” said Bob Gatling, who coached Southside from 1982 through 1988. “I really didn’t think about how (central Arkansas) teams dominated at all. I just knew if we could get out of our conference and get into the playoffs, you had a pretty good chance.”

In 1989, Springdale and Northside played for the title, making it three straight years for the West to command control of the state’s largest classification over especially the teams from the central part of the state.

“The 80s, we started competing against them,” said Williams, a Fort Smith High graduate, who coached Springdale from 1965 through 2000. “We beat Pine Bluff one year in the playoffs, and we couldn’t come close to them for a while.”

Those three teams were coached by legendary coaches; Joe Fred Young at Northside, Gatling at Southside and Williams at Springdale.

“Jarrell Williams was at Springdale, and Bobby brought success to Southside, and we stayed competitive at Northside,” said Young, who coached Northside from 1981 through 1998. “Those three teams were the ones that really kicked it off. Bentonville was just a place in the road. Rogers had been real good under Blackie Bond in a lower classification but hadn’t been that good. Charlie Cooper brought prominence back to Rogers. Alan Fahring at Fayetteville had been good, but it was the combination of Northside, Southside and Springdale that got it started.”

Basil Shabazz and the Pine Bluff Zebras broke the three-year hold for the West in 1990, but Southside and Springdale made it an all-West final again in 1991.

Southside repeated as champs in 1992 with a win over Pine Bluff, who was just starting to make its own dynasty with a three-year run of championships in 1993, 1994 and 1995.

In 1996, Van Buren ended Pine Bluff’s three-year run with a 34-13 win over the Z’s in the second round and then beat Northside two weeks later for the state championship.

Southside won it all in 1997 before Little Rock Fair’s great team with Cedric Cobbs won it in 1998.

Northside returned to the state championship game in 1999 and won it, before Cabot beat Southside in 2000. That year, Cabot beat Northside, Springdale and Southside in successive weeks in the playoffs, prompting Cabot’s veteran coach Mike Malham to say, “What we did going through Northside, Springdale and Southside is bigger than winning the state championship. It’s been a hard three weeks playing three tough teams.”

Bentonville was a surprise state champion in 2001. The Tigers were unranked in the preseason Associated Press poll before going undefeated and earning its first No. 1 ranking in week eight. The next week, Bentonville was bludgeoned by Russellville, 32-6. Bentonville won its next five games and the championship.

By that time, Northside, Southside, Springdale, Van Buren and Bentonville had all won state titles.

Southside won another championship in 2002, but Little Rock Central gave central Arkansas its last great run of teams with state championships in 2003 and 2004. The West was even shut out of the championship game both seasons with West Memphis earning the spot opposite of Central. Other than ’93 and ’94, it was the only two-year span that didn’t include a West team in the finals.

Gus Malzahn’s great Springdale team of 2005 started the West on the current run, and the West hasn’t looked back.

While the population shift certainly has contributed to the shift of power, it might also be a decline of the emphasis on sports in Little Rock. Hall, Parkview and Central ruled football in the 1970s and early 80s. Young knew all about football in central Arkansas. He played at Conway and was the head coach at Central.

“They were all good when I was down there,” Young said. “There wasn’t a second thought about the schools in northwest Arkansas other than Northside. Society changed. We had the flight out of the Little Rock area. They went to Bryant, Benton, Sylvan Hills, Cabot and to the private schools. They didn’t run out of athletes and they weren’t poorly coached; it’s just that they spread out from those Little Rock schools.”

In the early 1970s, Little Rock Catholic, Subiaco Academy and Harding Academy were the only private schools in the state that played football under the Arkansas Activities Association. Now, there are countless private schools.

Also, in 1987, the interstate highway from Alma to Fayetteville was approved. The $458 million project was completed in January, 1999, along with the state’s only highway tunnel.

“What really put things over the top is when the population corridor from Interstate-40 to Kansas City came in,” Young said. “There was such an influx of people into northwest Arkansas.”

With that population shift due to big companies and jobs came tax dollars.

“There’s been a commitment to athletics on the part of the schools in northwest Arkansas and the Fort Smith schools,” Young said. “Anytime you have that commitment, you have facilities, equipment and the support.”