Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
TIM HOOTEN
QUITMAN HIGH SCHOOL
WHY HE WON:
State championships are a big accomplishment for local sports programs, and for Quitman, its championship drought ended in the 2016-2017 school year after one coach didn’t just bring home one state title, but three.
Tim Hooten has been coaching girls cross country, girls basketball and girls track at Quitman for the past four years, and this season, those teams all took home the Class 2A state championship in their respective sports. These are the first state championships in Quitman’s history.
“I felt great for the kids, just because it had never been done at our school,” Hooten said.
For his success in building up these sports programs, Hooten has been named the 2017 All-Arkansas Preps Coach of the Year.
“I’m ecstatic,” he said. “I think it’s a tribute to my kids because they’re the ones that do the work; they’re the ones that spend the hours. I’m just the one that puts the template out there and helps motivate them to be successful.”
Hooten’s players praised his coaching ability and the lessons he has taught them about teamwork, discipline and perseverance.
“He demands for us to always do our best and to work hard,” senior Reagan Rackley said. “He’s a very good coach; he knows his stuff.”
Hooten came to Quitman after coaching at Bigelow for a year. He said that even while coaching at Bigelow, he was aware of the potential of the student athletes at Quitman, but they needed direction and motivation to be able to pull off a championship.
“I was just frank and up-front with the girls and told them, ‘Look, your reputation out in the rest of the world is that you guys can’t win the big one,’” he said. “That’s what we started working toward.”
Hooten said that being direct with teams is part of his coaching style.
“I really believe if you talk about the elephant in the room, if you analyze what your weaknesses are, that you can improve,” he said.
With more than 40 years of experience, Hooten has had a career that spanned multiple states. In high school, he played football, basketball and baseball and
[Earning this recognition is] probably as high an honor as you can get in the coaching profession. It’s a huge honor to me. It speaks to the accomplishments of my kids, because without them buying into my philosophies, it would never happen.”
ran track. He began his career in South Dakota after graduating from South Dakota University, where here he played football. From there, he went to Idaho and eventually returned to his home state of f Arkansas to coach at Bigelow. He said he decided to get into coaching after seeing his younger siblings playing sports. He thought there were areas where his siblings’ coaches could do better.
The progress Hooten made with the girls basketball team is dramatic. In the 2013-14 season, the team’s record was 19-12. The next year, (2014-2015) the team improved to 23-9 and fell in the first round of the state tournament. In 2015-16, Hooten led the team to a 29-3 record, and the team made it to the Class 2A state semifinals. This season, the team had a 33-3 record and won the Class 2A state championship.
Hooten said one of the things he enjoys most about coaching is the life lessons that sports can teach his students. He emphasizes to his athletes that personal responsibility is a big part of being a team player and that personal success and failure are all dependent on a person’s actions.
“It isn’t always that everybody else has to change. Sometimes you have to look in the mirror, and you’re the one who has to change because the problem isn’t in the system; it’s in you,” he said. “I think a lot of our society has forgotten that.”
Hooten said he’s most proud of his ability to help sports programs win championships. He said that every program he has taken over had not won a state championship in basketball before he got there.
Gary Rieck, Quitman’s athletic director, said he watched Hooten while he was coaching at Bigelow elow and saw how disciplined his teams were. Rieck said Hooten was a consummate professional who was persistent with his coaching but always great to the students on and off the field.
“He’s a good guy who works hard,” Rieck said. “He’s relentless. He’s an old gym rat, basically. He lives in the gym, cares about his athletes and does a great job in the classroom when he teaches.”s.”
Quitman High School Principal Michael Stacks said Hooten is “the real deal.” He praised Hooten ten for his honesty with the students and for his work ethic.
“He’s 20 years older than I am, and he can outwork me on most days, and I pride myself in worki workinging hard,” Stacks said. “He goes above and beyond.”
Stacks said one example of Hooten’s dedication is the girls track team. This was Hooten’s first year yeary to coach the team, which had never been competitive in the past. Hooten was able to turn the team around and produce a state title.
“[The“[ The athletes] know that if they’re going to compete and work for him, they’re going to havee to give 100 percent, or he’s not going to have it,” Stacks said. “There’s no guessing involved. They know what they are getting into when they join his team.”