Search for a coach nears four months
Athletic success is woven into the fabric of North Little Rock High School.
The Lady Charging Wildcats have won three girls state basketball titles in the past decade. The boys basketball team just captured its fifth championship in the past nine years, putting the program at 15 all-time, a mark topped by only one school.
The Charging Wildcats football team has played in five consecutive Class 7A title games. Their most recent championship came in December 2017, the start of an academic year in which North Little Rock became the first school in state history to sweep a classification’s football and basketball titles.
That victorious run feels like a distant past as the school tries to hire its third football coach in three years.
Then-football coach Jamie Mitchell is gone, resigning after five seasons to pursue opportunities out of state. So too is his successor, J.R. Eldridge, who left North Little Rock in January after
he guided the Charging Wildcats to a state runner-up finish in his only season at the helm.
With the start of next season now closer than the end of the football program’s most recent campaign, North Little Rock is well into the fourth month of its most recent coaching search.
“I’m always concerned that we’re going to be able to sustain the success because five years is pretty stout for 7A,” North Little Rock Athletic Director Gary Davis said. “It’s not like we’re underachieving. One of the reasons we win is because we have athletes that buy into what we’re doing.”
The process to replace Eldridge began in mid-January when Class 4A Farmington announced him as its next head coach. On Jan. 20, Davis told the Democrat-Gazette in an email the school was beginning its coaching search and added that offensive coordinator Geo Milam and defensive coordinator Chris Kizer would lead the Charging Wildcats’ offseason workouts in the interim.
Since then, Milam left North Little Rock to join Eldridge at Farmington — he was announced as the offensive coordinator in late April — while Kizer also is no longer at the school.
The formal job posting for Eldridge’s vacated position went live on the North Little Rock School District’s career page March 11 — nearly two months after Eldridge’s announced departure.
NLR Superintendent Greg Pilewski said in an email the delay in posting was a consequence of his “vacancy review and position control process to ensure accountability of all positions in NLRSD.”
Pilewski, who was hired by the district in August to replace Bobby Acklin after a little more than two years, explained the process was part of his 100-day plan for the district, which he detailed last month after discovering a “toxic” culture and “alarming” academic trends upon his arrival.
After a lengthy period between Eldridge’s departure and the initial posting of the coaching position — which remained open for applications from March 11 to March 21 — it was taken down after an alleged clerical error failed to disclose teaching requirements would be asked of whomever landed the job.
The district attributes the misstep to an honest mistake. Pilewski did not accept individual responsibility, but said in a phone interview “that is within our responsibility as a district, which is why we [later] advertised it properly.”
While 13 applicants were confirmed by the district in a March 23 report — including current assistants Blake Pizan, Clint Reed and Randy Sandefur, along with Jacksonville Coach Maurice Moody — they all had to reapply when the job was posted again April 5 after North Little Rock’s spring break.
That posting was labeled as “Secondary Teacher/Head Football Coach” and summarized the primary requirement as “instructing students at the secondary level.” It also included the responsibility of “coaching student athletes, in-game strategies and techniques to prepare them for athletic competition.”
Applications were accepted for another 10-day period, ending April 15. The task of selecting a new head coach then fell to a committee that included Davis, North Little Rock High School Principal Scott Jennings, other high school administrators and community members to interview candidates.
The commitee interviewed several candidates, but it’s unclear how many received a second interview with Pilewski.
After the second 10-day application window and interviews, the job was posted for a third time Friday — the second such instance in which the teaching requirements were listed — and was open for applications through Tuesday.
When asked why the job went live again after conducting several interviews, Pilewski responded in an email: “In an effort to remain consistent with our policy, we have re-advertised the Teacher/Coach position.”
North Little Rock’s next school board meeting is May 20, but Pilewski declined to say whether he would have a candidate to present at that time.
North Little Rock administrators have surpassed the time it’s taken to find a replacement in recent years.
When Mitchell resigned in late January 2020, the Charging Wildcats needed two months to bring on Eldridge. Before that, they took a bit more than three months to hire Mitchell — although the prior coach, Brad Bolding, was not fired officially until 2 1/2 months after he first received a letter of termination.
Other Class 7A schools also have not required as lengthy a process this offseason. Little Rock Central, which competes in the same conference as North Little Rock, replaced former coach Kent Laster in seven weeks from a pool of 27 applicants when Laster departed for a job in Texas.
North Little Rock, on the other hand, has kicked off spring practice without a coach. Its five remaining assistants are jointly leading offseason workouts, per Davis, who expressed consternation regarding the void.
More specifically, Davis said he feels an added responsibility to the juniors and seniors who will be under their third coach in as many seasons.
“They see it in the college ranks, they see it in the pro ranks, they know coaches move,” Davis said. “It’s my job to find them the very best coach I can.”
At North Little Rock, a program that stands as one of the state’s best in recent years, nearly four months without a presence at the top is a long stretch.
The district’s superintendent doesn’t view it as a problem.
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Pilewski said when asked why the process has now stretched several weeks past the end-of-April timeline Davis suggested April 5. “It’s just the process and procedures that we’re going through, it’s taking a little bit more time than we anticipated.”