PB Zebras making first trip to Rumble
Usually during a normal day, Pine Bluff basketball coach Billy Dixon wears many hats. Some of those hats, he likes to wear and others that he would just as soon not have to wear, but he does.
Not only is Dixon the head boys basketball coach he is also the athletic director, an assistant in other areas of the Pine Bluff School District.
Pine Bluff, aside from hosting and playing in their own King Cotton Classic basketball tournament, usually during the Christmas break, will be making its first trip to Forrest City to play in the Thanksgiving weekend Rumble on the Ridge boys tournament.
Needless to say, Dixon is excited to be bringing his Zebras team to Forrest City with the opportunity to play in what he calls "notably one of the highestlevel tournaments that happens in the state on a yearly basis. A lot of coaches and people are familiar with the Rumble, obviously, we are," Dixon added. "Pine Bluff has known about the Rumble for several years but this year is our first invite, because you have to be someone notable to get that invitation to the Rumble. And I guess we have finally done something notable enough to earn the invite. Maybe, because we won state last year and the overall success we had last year, that might have something to do with our getting an invite to the Rumble. The tournament always reaches out to and wants to bring high level teams in for the three-day tournament. And I guess they feel like we bring another high-level program to stay consistent with what they bring in each year."
When asked about starting a new season each year, Dixon said his Zebra teams traditionally start out slow “and if you look at our record on the front end of the season, you will understand what I mean," Dixon added. "The way our schedule looks right now, we were actually hoping we would get to come and play in the Rumble. We found out within the last few days that a few of the games that we had on our schedule are not going to happen. And that could mean our first game of the upcoming season could be our first game at the Rumble. That is a scary thing to come into that level of competition. Right now, we expect to be decent this season, but we still have about eight guys who are still in the football playoffs, who will contribute to our basketball season this year. If our football team gets past the first round of playoff games and moves into the second round, we won't have those eight young men at the Rumble."