Mount Ida's new mission: Third straight trip to finals

For your halftime entertainment, both bands performed when Bearden played at Mount Ida in the Class 2A football playoffs Friday night. Cold weather, to be sure, but with the music piping hot.

A sophomore trombonist played a rousing solo as Mount Ida opened its segment with "Don't Stop Believin'." Then came a rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that sounded good to the ears and to which I added a "Galileo" or two at the appropriate time. My blood ran cold (not really) when the host school's band finished its session with a 1980s chart topper, "Centerfold."

Although getting in free with a lifetime Arkansas Activities Association pass, I thought about throwing something in the kitty just for the halftime show. Thanks for the free lineup card and popcorn, by the way, and more for the musical tribute to Journey, Queen and J. Geils Band.

It was not called Preston Stidman Field (perhaps nothing more than Lion Stadium) when your correspondent here lugged a bass drum on that hallowed ground in 1972. Then a senior at Glenwood High School, I remember that both the quality of play and field conditions that night left something to be desired. If it had been a horse race and played at Oaklawn Park, the track would have been rated muddy.

If memory serves me correctly, it would be three more years before Mount Ida, which started football in 1968, would make the state playoffs. The 1980 Lions played a semifinal home game but had the misfortune to oppose a Danville team led almost single-handedly by future University of Arkansas quarterback Brad Taylor.

Those were the days when Mount Ida coach Preston Stidman, for whom the playing field is named, spoke in reverence of "the Barton Bears," then the gold standard of Arkansas small-school football, and coach Frank McClellan. Stidman pitched a fit after an Arkansas Gazette writer mentioned his team's ongoing success one year but threw in a line about "another freebie" sure to pad the record. The outcome fooled the Gazette writer and enraged the head coach.

A Hot Springs native who attended Ouachita Baptist University, Stidman and I talk football (horse racing, too) whenever we get the chance. We did so again Friday night with Stidman, on a press-box visit, putting in a word for Triple Crown winner Justify as Horse of the Year. Still, after all this time, I know better than to bring up a 1986 Mount Ida home loss to Glenwood that especially galled the head coach.

So many Stidman Field memories, including a Garland County school that will remain nameless loading the buses at halftime of a game long since decided. Once, Mount Ida drew a southeast Arkansas team in the playoffs, thus prompting a call to coach Jon Watson, who would bring Bauxite a state championship. Watson's team had made quite a turnaround that year and I asked the head coach if new players were responsible. "Nobody," he said, "moves to Gillett, Bob."

The Bearden-Mount Ida game last week marked a rematch of the 2007 Class 2A state final, a thriller won by the Lions. "That one wore us out," said coach Mike White, whose team did not inhabit War Memorial Stadium again for nine years but now hopes to visit Little Rock for the third consecutive season.

Mount Ida's 2016 team also reached the summit, which surprised some insiders because so many sophomores handled the ball and the best chance for a title run, it was thought, would come when they were juniors. The Lions sailed through the 2017 regular season undefeated but came out flat in a finals rematch with Foreman, a conference rival. That stinging setback defined the mission for the 2018 Lions (9-2), who started with 15 seniors on a 20-man squad.

"Beating Foreman and going 15-0 were our goals," said quarterback Cade Jackson, the head coach's nephew and who, since third grade, has caused Mount Ida opponents to "fear the veer" offense.

Foreman (8-1) had other ideas, winning a midseason rematch at home against the Lions. White's team then lost a close game to Gurdon (9-2), prompting some to wonder "what's wrong with Mount Ida."

Not much that I can see, although a key injury or two could be catastrophic to the Lions, whose 13 freshmen promoted to the playoffs lack the experience (and especially the size) to make immediate impact. Injuries can bring down any small school, although the numbers problem at Mount Ida is so acute that the Lions might resort to eight-man football next year.

So, as Jackson, Jonathan LaGrange, Gage Dyer, Tyler Hamilton, Luke Fiorello, Kirklyn Sorrell, Oscar Pinedo and other Mount Ida seniors complete their careers, kudos are in order for a football program that does things right and has for a long time.

Friday brings a second-round game at Hector (7-3), which has had two weeks to prepare as the No. 1 seed from the 2A-4 conference. Getting back to Little Rock won't be easy for the Lions, but the Mount Ida band sends this message: Don't stop believin'.

Sports on 11/14/2018

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