FOUNTAIN LAKE -- After just 5 1/2 months as the head football coach at Fountain Lake High School, Brandon Barbaree tendered his resignation at 7 a.m. Friday, having never coached a single game.
The Fountain Lake School Board voted in a special-called meeting Friday evening to accept his resignation, which consisted of a three-sentence letter of resignation "for personal reasons."
"He had the full, full, full -- I don't know if I can spell it strongly enough -- full support of the school board, the administration and the staff," athletic director Marc Davis said Friday afternoon. "I wish him the best going forward."
Fountain Lake superintendent Dr. Michael Murphy said that Barbaree's resignation "is a tough situation for our school community."
"We met with the coaching staff today as a group," he said. "After our meeting at 5 p.m., we will communicate the situation to the community at large. Hopefully, we will find a replacement next week."
Davis said he wanted to dispel any rumors that Barbaree, who began working for the district on Feb. 1 after he was hired in a Jan. 31 school board meeting, was encouraged to resign. He was to earn $64,903.95 in his first season.
"It says in his letter that they are personal reasons," he said. "It has nothing to do with us trying to get rid of him."
In Thursday's regular school board meeting, several members of the audience spoke to the board regarding the football program -- both in a negative and positive light.
"I don't personally got a kid on the football field, but evidently there is some stuff going on up there," said Kenny Kizer. "It's my understanding that we've lost over half of our senior high football team. I commend you guys that are actually still on the team and have stuck it out, but I feel that there's a problem up here that might need to be addressed.
"I think we're failing those kids up there. It's not all about just academics. Athletics plays a big part in these kids lives, too, and in our community. It brings our community closer together whenever we're all up here at basketball, football and volleyball games and everything else. Without those sports, you're not going to have the community input up here."
"Not all of our kids are going to be able to go to college on academics," said Gina DeArmon. "My son's one of them. He's generally smart, but I'm a single mom. I'm going to need that football scholarship or whatever, even if it's just for money peace. ... These kids, none of them have the aspirations to go to college on a sports scholarship. None of them do. They don't think they can make it because it's Fountain Lake. Nobody ever goes to college from Fountain Lake on sports.
"These kids, they just really need someone to look up to. They don't have anybody they can look up to right now, except the four coaches we've had since they were in peewee. When you've got kids who were in peewee and who are seniors and are walking off the team, there's a problem. It's not with the kids."
Junior running back Asa Westerman also spoke during Thursday's meeting, noting that the problem is the athletes, not the coaching staff.
"We can talk about the administration and the coaches all we want, but I think it comes down to the root of the mindset of our kids right now," he said. "It's that they don't want to be up here. It's not all the coaches. It's a lot of kids who don't care anymore. And I can vouch for a lot of our coaches that are doing a great job, that have been tough on our kids and weeded out the majority of our team that can't handle playing football anymore because they're having to be pushed to do things.
"There may be stuff up higher, but I think the root of it is the kids. I don't think that you can put everything on a coach whenever the majority of our coaches are doing what they're supposed to do. I think a lot of it is the kids, and that's unfortunate."
The head coaching position will be vacant until a decision is made to replace Barbaree, Davis said, noting that the decision on a head coach will not be made until next week or later.
"We have not hired anybody yet," he said. "We are going to try to do that as soon as possible. We want to keep the kids at Fountain Lake first."
Dr. Murphy said that the district hopes to have a new coach selected "the first part of next week."
"We wanted them to be able to process the reality of the situation," he said. "We'll come back together on Monday and look at it. We realize that we can't wait weeks on this. We'll look internally and externally, but with the time situation, we'll probably have to go internally.
"Word travels fast in Arkansas though. My secretary said that we got a call from someone in Springdale [for the position]. I've also communicated the situation to the Garland County superintendents and the superintendent at Benton."
Davis also spoke to the loss of players on the Cobras' football team.
"We had several kids move off," he said. "We had one kid who had a knee injury, and he had to quit. We had three kids -- starters -- who moved off, out of state with their families. Our numbers were not going to be good anyway. If we had 32, we would be a special ball club, but everybody is down."
Davis mentioned that several other schools around the state are having problems with numbers on their football teams, including Nashville. Reports have indicated that the Scrappers' football numbers have dwindled from around 98 in spring football to under 50 at this point.
The Cobras' Purple and Gold scrimmage was still held Friday night at Allen Tillery Field under the direction of the six remaining Fountain Lake coaches.
Sports on 08/17/2019