Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Bishop steps down at Green Forest
The 4A-1 Conference will now have two new coaching faces next fall as Green Forest head coach Bobby Bishop recently announced his retirement from coaching in Arkansas.
Bishop, however, isn’t leaving coaching for good.
He will be headed to East Newton,
Mo., where he was a head coach from
2010-11. Bishop will be the Patriots’ running back coach in the fall and an assistant track coach in the spring, with an emphasis on coaching hurdlers.
Bishop said he hopes his hiring at East Newton will be official any day, but he will remain at Green Forest until his contract ends June 30.
“It’s something I have been thinking over for the past 6 months,” Bishop said. “I also went to a retirement meeting back in the fall, and I felt it was time to slow down a little bit.
“I see a lot of positives in going up to East Newton and helping out a good young coach. I like the area up there, but Green Forest is my hometown. This still was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Bishop caps a 26-year career in coaching and teaching in Arkansas with his retirement. He started coaching basketball and baseball at Eureka Springs, then went to Berryville for a while before he left teaching for a while.
After a 9-year sabbatical, he returned to Berryville as an assistant under Doug Scheel in 2005, then was promoted to head coach the following year and held that position for 4 years. Following his two years at East Newton, he returned to Huntsville and worked as an assistant under Tommy Tice before taking over at Green Forest in 2015.
“I’ve worked under three coaches — Ronnie Clark, Doug Scheel and Tommy Tice —who were all important in my life,” Bishop said. “So I was pretty fortunate to do that.
“It was difficult leaving Green Forest. I have lived here since I was 22 and kept up with them all during that time. I still have family there, and it’s hard to leave the kids. With Green Forest only 10 miles from the Missouri border, I had hoped for a spot where I could drive back and forth but I just couldn’t turn this down.”