Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame
Aw, snap: Rochelle starred as UAM QB once he got a handle on ball.
First in a series profiling the nine newest members of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. Induction ceremonies will be held March 3 at the Statehouse Convention Center.
It wasn’t the type of start Sean Rochelle wanted for his football career at the University of Arkansas- Monticello in August of 1985.
Rochelle, a freshman quarterback from Elkins already wondering if he could cut it as a college player, kept fumbling snaps the first week of two- aday practices. Finally Carl Preston, the Boll Weevils’ veteran offensive line coach, had seen enough.
“Coach Preston stopped practice and he goes, ‘ Elkins, let me explain to you how it works here. When you drop a snap it’s only one person’s fault,’ ” Rochelle recalled recently. ” ‘ Can you guess who that is?’ I said, ‘ Yes sir, I can.’
“He said, ‘ That’s right, it’s
your fault. Repeat after me. It’s never the center’s fault. It’s always your fault.’
“‘ I tell you what, Elkins, the next time you fumble a snap, we’re just going to stop, circle up and watch you do up- downs.’ ”
Rochelle fumbled the next snap.
“Coach Preston didn’t miss a beat,” Rochelle said. “He goes, ‘ Let’s go.’
“Everybody circles me and I’m doing up- downs in full pads.”
After practice Rochelle asked every center to stay late and help him work on snaps. They all agreed.
“I just took snaps and took snaps and took snaps,” Rochelle said. “I don’t know if I ever fumbled another snap.
“Coach Preston was showing me tough love and I needed that to get better. It’s a great memory.”
Rochelle ended up taking a lot of snaps for UAM.
He served as a backup quarterback as a freshman, then became a three- year starter and led the Boll Weevils to a 26- 9 record.
Rochelle’s senior season in 1988 is etched in UAM lore. The Boll Weevils won the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference championship and made their first NAIA playoff appearance. He was the AIC’s co- offensive player of the year.
UAM inducted Rochelle into its Sports Hall of Fame in 2006 and retired his No. 14 jersey in 2015.
On March 3, Rochelle, 49, will be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame during a banquet at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock.
“It’s happened because of more people than I can ever name,” Rochelle said. “When I think about it, it becomes overwhelming.
“You hope you’ve told everyone who helped you how much they’ve meant to you.
“As I get older, I think about things like that. Do people really get the difference they’ve made in your life? Not just, hey thanks, but without you, I could have stumbled and gone in a different direction.’ ”
One of Rochelle’s UAM teammates, offensive tackle Buck James, said it’s not a surprise his quarterback is going into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
“To me, it’s a no- brainer,” said James, who is now head football coach at Bryant. “I think the Hall of Fame has got to have guys like Sean, who always did it the right way, whether he was in the classroom, the dorm, on the field or at a party.”
James said Rochelle, a two- time NAIA Academic All- American, reminds him of another quarterback known for his leadership skills.
“I can honestly say Sean was kind of Tim Tebow before there was Tim Tebow,” James said, referring to the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner at Florida. “The thing Sean has is a gift to make everybody around him better. He lifts them up.”
Rochelle rushed for 1,692 yards and 31 touchdowns and passed for 2,893 yards and 14 touchdowns in three seasons as UAM’s starting quarterback.
“Sean was the backbone of their offense,” said Harold Horton, who went against Rochelle as Central Arkansas’ head coach. “He didn’t have great speed or great quickness, but he was smart and he was tough and he got the most out of his athletic ability.
“When he tucked that ball away and turned up that field to run, he went north and south and he was hard to bring down. As a passer, he didn’t throw a real tight spiral, but he had a nice touch.
“I had a lot of respect for Sean as a player.”
James said Rochelle brought a lineman’s mentality to playing quarterback.
“He’d run over people if that’s what he needed to do,” James said. “He wasn’t a quarterback that was going to run out of bounds.
“He was willing to take a tough hit and never say a word even if he was looking out of his ear hole.”
Rochelle rushed for touchdowns of 63, 1 and 26 yards in UAM’s 20- 13 victory over Washburn in the 1988 NAIA playoffs.
“Sean basically took over in that game,” said Mark Laster, who played fullback for the Boll Weevils and was Rochelle’s roommate. “I don’t know if he made even one mistake.
“Most of the time when you watch a big game, the team that wins is going to play as well as the quarterback leads. That’s what Sean did for us.”
James said Rochelle sometimes would hit blocking sleds with the linemen or shave his head like they did to build team unity.
“As I’ve coached and gotten older, I’m more impressed by the things Sean did when he was 19 or 20,” James said. “He was a breath of fresh air.”
Rochelle was a graduate assistant for Coach Ken Hatfield at Arkansas and Clemson and earned master’s and doctorate degrees from the UA. He served as UAM’s defensive coordinator for three seasons and spent five years at Azusa Pacific University, where he was chairman of the department of exercise and sport science.
Rochelle had many administrative roles at Arkansas, including a stint as coordinator of academic support.
During a trip to Indianapolis for the 1999 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Arkansas Coach John McDonnell introduced Rochelle to the families of several Razorbacks, including the parents and sister of Matt Kerr, a two- time NCAA champion in the steeplechase.
Caroline Kerr, who ran track at Alabama, made an immediate impression on Rochelle.
“I remember seeing Caroline with her parents and saying, ‘ Yeah, that’s a family I probably need to meet,’ ” Rochelle said. “Caroline might blame Coach McDonnell for the introduction, but I give him all the credit in the world.”
Rochelle and Caroline were married in 2003. They live in West Fork and have three daughters: Abby ( 10) Ellie ( 9) and Lilly ( 4).
Being able to spend more time with his family, Rochelle said, was a big reason he resigned as president of the Razorback Foundation — a job which required a lot of traveling — to go into private business.
Rochelle is now an account executive for Premier Concepts, a Bentonville- based company that represents vendors who want to grow their business with Wal Mart.
“Sean has tremendous people skills,” James said. “If you’re sitting in the corner, he’s going to make you try and feel like a part of the room.
“I think that’s carried over into what he’s done as a coach, an administrator, a business person, a fund- raiser. He has the ability to tap into people to help them be successful.”
Rochelle is on the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame board of directors, so he knew his name was added to the ballot this year.
“It’s kind of hard to process,” he said. “Then when I heard I’d been voted in, that was surreal.
“I remember thinking, ‘ Are they going to count the votes again to make sure there wasn’t a mistake?’ ”
Laster, the director of communications for the Pea Ridge School District, said there’s no reason for a recount.
“Sean’s very humble, but the people that know him the best and have been around him for a lot of years, we know why he’s going into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame,” Laster said. “He’s very deserving of this honor and I couldn’t be more proud of him.
“I just smile whenever I think about it.”