Senior post player to call it quits
QUITMAN — Quitman had never won a state championship in anything, but after this year, Reagan Rackley has a ring for each hand.
And despite having opportunities to play collegiately, pending the end of softball and track seasons in a few weeks, she’s satisfied to see her competitive athletic career come to an end.
“People who play college basketball have a pure love for the game,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong — I love the game — but there was so much more that made me love it so much. Playing for everyone in Quitman — I’ve been here my whole life. I know every single soul here, and the girls I’ve played with, I’ve played with every year. I played with them at recess.
“That’s what makes it fun, those relationships. I just realized it wouldn’t be the same playing college basketball. So I pretty much knew before the season that this was going to be the end.”
Rackley, a 6-1 post player who also ran cross country for the Lady Bulldogs, is the Three Rivers
Edition Girls Basketball Player of the Year. •• • When Rackley was a freshman, new coach Tim Hooten moved her and her classmate
Maggie Webb up to the Lady Bulldog varsity squad. Team numbers just about required it.
“They weren’t really ready to be there, but you do what you have to do as a coach to make the team,” Hooten said. “I moved her up and threw her in the fire, and she bought in. She went to work and has been a tremendous leader.
“She’s always been the best in her class in basketball, not only physically, but somebody they’d look up to as a leader. When somebody would complain, she’d tell them, ‘If you don’t like it, you can quit. But if you stay, go to work.’”
The Lady Bulldogs responded. In Hooten and Rackley’s first season together, they won 19 games, triple the total of the previous year. In her sophomore season, Quitman went 23-9 and reached the state tournament; in her junior year, the Lady Bulldogs made it to the Class 2A state semifinals during a 29-3 campaign. Last season, they went 33-3 and won the school’s second state title — its first in basketball.
“Every year we became more successful as they grew into it and learned the game,” Hooten said.
Rackley, who averaged 12 points per game for the season, ended on a high note, scoring 21 points and pulling down 12 rebounds in the state final against Hector. For her performance, she was named MVP of the state-championship game.
“Not only to win, to be part of the first team to win, but to be MVP, I don’t know — I still haven’t found the words,” Rackley said a few weeks after the season ended. “I don’t know if I ever will. It’s an amazing feeling, very humbling.”
Prior to Hooten’s arrival, the Lady Bulldogs had not been a powerhouse.
“We knew Coach Hooten had gone to the state
championship multiple times before (out of state), so he knew what he was doing, and I think that was part of the reason we bought into it,” Rackley said. “We knew his success, and we had that faith in him to lead us to that same spot.
“But playing for an oldschool guy, it was definitely a change for us. Like our whole work ethic — everything — had to change.”
Coaching boys, Hooten had won two state titles in South Dakota and another in Idaho. But he had only coached girls for one year prior to his arrival in Cleburne County.
“Reagan is one of the girls who was quite nervous about me coming to Quitman,” Hooten said. “She knew I was old-school, and she had seen me coach.
“But they were very hungry. She wanted that championship. That was her goal.”
Hooten started a crosscountry program at Quitman and required his basketball players to participate.
“It wasn’t an option,” he said. “Reagan hated every day of it, but she bought into what we were doing, and she saw the results. She bought into my mental-toughness program and my physical-training program.”
Said Rackley of the cross country: “I hated it a lot. It’s just harder on a big girl, you know. But I did it. And it was worth it, too.”
Because there were some freshmen with faster times, she didn’t run at the state meet in November, but she collected her first championship ring after the Lady Bulldogs outpointed Acorn by 20 points.
“That was pretty awesome,” she said. “The reason why we started cross country was to stay in shape for basketball season, and then we were good at it and capable of winning state. We totally weren’t into it, but we ended up pretty good.”
Basketball, on the other hand, is her love.
She had started playing peewee ball in the fourth grade,
following in the footsteps of multiple family members.
“My roots are pretty deep in Quitman,” she said. “Quitman ball — that’s the best ball.”
And that feeling was partly the reason why she decided not to play collegiately, despite interest from, among others, Central Baptist College in Conway and Lyon College in Batesville.
“I decided not to play because basketball is going to come to an end someday,” she said. “A lot of people ask me, ‘Why don’t you play basketball to help pay for college?’ I just said, ‘I can pay for it academically.’ A lot of my time has been taken up by sports, and I’d like to end my career at Quitman, the place I love, playing for the town I’ve been a part of my whole life. It just feels like a good stopping place. It’s time to just move on.
“I realized college basketball wouldn’t be the same, and I’d
rather end my career with that state championship at Quitman.”
Admitting that trying to settle on her future is scary, at press time she said she planned to study at Arkansas State University-Beebe before transferring to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. She has a 4.0-plus GPA and is an honor graduate.
“She’s accomplished what she wants to in basketball,” Hooten said, “and she realizes how hard you have to work to be a champion.” Rackley agreed.
“We couldn’t have finished more on top,” she said. “It just means a lot to not only be a part of that first team to ever win state, but also looking back on all the work and time we put in — how much it was worth it all.
“It’s just a great feeling to know all that work was successful.”