Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Lengthy career started at Northside
The Prep Rally: Best in the West series will highlight the all-time best players in western Arkansas as selected by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
FORT SMITH — Fred Perry is home again.
The former Fort Smith Northside linebacker is up early to work with a pair of athletes before the summer heat consumes the River Valley. There are weights to lift and sprints to run.
But Perry, the former star linebacker for the Grizzlies, knows the greater picture isn’t just about speed and agility.
“Being in pro football, you’re in the media’s eyes 24/7,” Perry said. “That’s why I wanted to come home and mentor a lot of players around here. I had to take a couple of backroads to get
to where I needed to go, but I got there.”
Perry spent 12 seasons as a hybrid defensive end/linebacker in the Canadian Football League, where warm July afternoons became cold and snowy by the middle of October.
A little 97-degree heat seems inviting, almost welcoming.
“My wife (Tammy Montgomery) is from Canada,” Perry said. “She was tired of the cold.”
Before the cold, before the player dubbed “the sack master” left his mark in the CFL, Perry was an athlete with unlimited natural ability.
“I was a senior when Fred was a sophomore,” remembers Travis Biggs. “His sophomore year, he was kind of banged up so we had to do some things to get him well. Around week five he recovered enough to start playing, and we moved Jerry Tripplett to defensive end.”
Biggs, now the assistant superintendent for Alma Public Schools, took Perry under his wing.
“First, I had to learn and Travis helped me a lot with the plays,” Perry said. “I had Jerry Tripplett; I had all these older guys to mentor me. It took me a minute to get going, but once I got going, I got going. I tried to be as versatile as I could.”
Biggs and the older players knew that bringing Perry up to speed would add a tremendous player for the Grizzlies.
“Fred and I had a great relationship. He was a raw, stud athlete,” Biggs said. “After he understood the game in high school, he became an exceptional student-athlete. So many people used to call Northside ‘linebacker high.’ We had some good ones. Cameron Fleming and Darius Cummings were seniors when I was a sophomore, and they did for me what I later did for Fred.”
Fleming and Cummings were good, too.
But they weren’t Fred Perry. “Ryan Solly was the next (good linebacker) after Fred,” Biggs said. “At Northside, you had an All-State Superteam linebacker for about 15 years in a row. With the 5-2 defense we ran, everything was based around the linebackers making the tackles. That helped non-stud athletes like me to still be productive.
“In my lifetime, though, Fred Perry is hands down the best defensive player Northside ever had.”
Former Northside assistant coach Gary Branch agreed that Perry took the position to a different level.
“We had a good run on linebackers, but Fred kind of set the standard for those guys to follow,” Branch said. “You could tell he had the talent. He just kept developing. He set a good example for years to come.”
Branch, now retired and living in Oklahoma, seemed to bring out the best in Grizzly linebackers.
“Coach Branch was an awesome coach,” Biggs said. “With him doing it for so long, and his knowledge, it helps you on the college level. We had so many that came through; it’s crazy how many. I still look at Northside as a linebacker (high) school.”
Perry said the work ethic Branch instilled was the difference.
Longtime Grizzlies coach Joe Fred Young said often used Perry on special teams to return punts, Branch said.
“We were playing up at Rogers one time,” Branch said. “We got to Alma and it was snowing. By the time we got to Rogers the field was covered; you couldn’t see the sidelines. During the game, he returned a punt for a touchdown and made a really wide turn. I’m pretty sure he was out of bounds but they (officials) didn’t call it.
“You couldn’t see the lines — just his footprints.”
Perry said Northside was successful because coaches cared. That started with Young.
“Playing for Joe Fred, he gave us a lot of knowledge,” Perry said. “The thing you learn from him, it was more of a family with us. We could joke with the coaches; it wasn’t all serious. Joe Fred Young, his knowledge of the game took me a long way. I was blessed to have the people in my life like coach Young.”
Perry credited his family for providing the guidance and stability he needed.
“I had a great relationship with mom and dad,” Perry said. “She was there to make sure my education was right. She was a teacher, too. My dad taught me so many trades on and off the field. Even to this day I still learn from him. We all hang out and have fun.”
Patricia Perry taught school for 35 years. Donald Perry retired from Whirlpool after nearly 40 years, Perry said.
“He had long days. He would come home and throw the ball around and work on cars and work on houses,” Perry said. “My dad is a Jack of all trades. I’ve learned so many trades from him.”
Perry suited up for his first Boys Club team when he was 5.
“I was big for my age,” he said. Judy Manning worked at both the Jeffries and Stephens Boys club, where she slipped him through before first grade. Perry later coached youth teams with Manning in the 1990s.
Perry’s older brother, Rodney, played at Westark (now UAFS) and Missouri State before becoming a basketball coach. Two years later, Rodney Perry started the Springfield Rockets’ AAU program and was named national AAU Coach of the Year after leading the team to the 1995 AAU national championships.
Rodney Perry, who just completed his first season as an assistant at UMKC, has coached 16 NBA players, including present stars Trey Young (Atlanta Hawks) and Michael Porter Jr. (Denver Nuggets).
Perry, who graduated from Northside in 1994, followed Fleming to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in Miami before transferring to Southern Arkansas, where he became the Muleriders’ first-ever first-team All-American.
At 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, Perry had the skills to play at the next level. But he didn’t get much of a look, if any, from elite Southeastern Conference schools.
“They (recruiters) were trying to tell me a little bit of everything. It just fueled me even more,” Perry said. “I had some (coaches) tell me I wasn’t big enough, I wasn’t fast enough. I cracked my knee my ninth grade year at Darby. They told me I wouldn’t be able to play football no more, because one leg will be longer than the other. But by the grace of God, it healed. I have that same pin in my knee to this day.”
Branch said coaches often get caught up in measurements and watches instead of focusing on a player’s desire.
“They’re (recruiters) are always looking for someone stronger, bigger and faster,” Branch said. “(But) you can’t measure a guy’s heart. I feel like he could have gone to a bigger school.”
After two seasons at NEO, Perry signed on at Southern Arkansas.
“When I first went down there, it wasn’t nothing but a cow pasture,” he said. “Adam Pendergrass and some other local players, but it felt like home. Now, it’s grown so much, it looks like a DI school.”
At Southern Arkansas, Perry was named to four first-team All-American teams, All-South Region selection, first-round all-conference and the Gulf South Conference’s Player of the Year his senior year.
He wasn’t just an all-world linebacker, either. He made his way back to special teams as a punt returner, without the snow.
Mostly, Perry preyed on quarterbacks. He finished his two-year reign with SAU with 158 tackles, including 30 for loss and six sacks. He was just getting warmed up. Although he had a couple of tryouts in the NFL, first with the Ravens and later the Falcons, Perry played 12 seasons in the Canadian Football League, including a threeyear stretch with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. In 2007, he helped the Roughriders capture the Gray Cup, the CFL’s Super Bowl. The Roughriders beat Winnipeg (23-19) on Nov. 25, 2007.
In 2006, Perry posted 47 tackles, including 14 quarterback sacks. He had 70 tackles and eight sacks in ‘07.
Returning to his native Fort Smith brings a smile to Perry’s face. Tammy likes it, too.
Canadian winters can be unmerciful, especially on the prairies of Saskatchewan, where the north wind howls across the open prairie.
“Thirty-five degrees here is nothing,” said Perry.
His real reason for coming home is to give back to aspiring athletes; to teach them right from wrong. There is a difference, he said. “That’s what I want to relate to these kids; have fun while you can,” Perry said. “Once you go to a pro level, it’s a job. It’s a different ballgame. You have to be accountable for your actions. You have to practice what you preach every day.”
Perry’s lengthy CFL career included a three-year stretch (2005-07) with the Saskatchewan Roughriders — an organization founded in 1910, nearly 10 years before the famed Green Bay Packers of the NFL.
Perry, 45, also spent time in the XFL and the wildly popular Arena Football League.
“I had to live so many years in that microscope,” he said. “(But) a lot of pro players understand, too, that’s how you get played. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind closed doors.”