Johnny Wilson of Sheridan
Football commissioner introduces youth to the game
For most of his life, Johnny Wilson has been a successful football coach, teaching the game to hundreds, if not thousands, of players over the years. His teams have won games and championships, and Wilson has never seen a dime from his coaching career.
“All the coaches volunteer their time. I’m now commissioner, as well as an assistant coach, and I’m a volunteer, as is our board,” Wilson said, talking at a picnic table near the football field across from the Sheridan Recreation Center. “The league has a seven-member board who volunteer their time to run the Sheridan Youth Football League, and six of them have no children playing in the league.”
The youth league in Sheridan this year offered 160 youngsters in Grant County, ranging from first-graders to 11-year-olds in the sixth grade, an opportunity to learn and play football. The league has no affiliation with any schools, and it is organized much like Little League Baseball.
“Nobody gets turned down,” Wilson said. “Everybody gets on a team and gets to play.”
The players just beginning at ages 6 and 7 play flag football, running with two colorful streamers hanging from their belts. When a defensive player snags the flag, the play is called dead. Starting in their thirdgrade year, the teams play tackle football.
The teams play 10-game seasons, starting the Saturday after Labor Day and ending the last Saturday in October, Wilson said. “Then the teams play a tourney that can last three weeks.”
Along with being commissioner, Wilson is also the assistant coach of the Sheridan Blue team. The league’s teams are named either Blue, White or Gold, the colors used by the Sheridan High School Yellowjackets. The games are played on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights, then on Saturday as well.
“Generally, each team plays one game a week,” Wilson said, “yet trying to play 10 games in eight weeks, we sometimes double up.”
When not playing other Sheridan teams in their own league, they play teams in East End and Redfield. After the regular season, the teams expand to other leagues, playing teams from Malvern, Lake Hamilton and other areas, Wilson said.
He is an assistant coach for his brotherin-law, Bobby Ratterree of Sheridan, which is why a person who lives closer to Pine Bluff is commissioner of the league.
“I have been a coach here for 14 years,” Wilson said. “Then someone said something about my experience, and when I was voted to the board seven years ago, I was also made commissioner.”
Wilson said working as an assistant coach and as commissioner runs smoothly, but if a problem came before the commissioner concerning his own team and his brother-in-law coach, Wilson knows what hat he would be wearing.
“If he did something that was brought before me,” Wilson said with a chuckle, “he would be in trouble.”
The 61-year-old Wilson started coaching football when he was 17. That was a big year for the young man. He graduated from high school, got married, started working at the Cotton Belt Railroad around Pine Bluff and became a volunteer coach.
“My two nephews were playing for a league in Pine Bluff, and their father asked me to help coach,” Wilson said. “In all, I have coached on and off for 32 years.” He has coached in Sheridan for 14 consecutive years.
He worked on the railroad as a brakeman and switcher from 1971 until 1988. By then, the railroad was part of the Union Pacific system.
“I didn’t like being gone from home so long,” Wilson said. “My mother had purchased a pet store in Pine Bluff in 1968, and my wife, Gwen, had worked in the store since 1971, so when my mother wanted to retire, we purchased the business from her.”
Wilson said he enjoys operating the pet store. He said a large part of his business is pet grooming, but the store also sells animals, including poodle, Pomeranian and Shih Tzu puppies.
“The grown dogs, the parents of the pups, are our pets,” Wilson said. “We try not to get too attached to the pups, but that is hard to do, so it is hard to sell them sometimes.”
It is not surprising that Wilson gets attached to the puppies being raised at his home and store — he admits he is a real softy.
“I do cry a lot,” he said. “I am tenderhearted about a lot of things.” Including coaching football. “I will be trying to encourage the kids along and give them a pep talk, and I’ll start to cry,” Wilson said. “The kids will notice and laugh, but I love the game and them, so it happens.”
The commissioner had to take a few breaths as he explained, remembering some of those times and the emotions he experienced.
“I never yell at the kids,” Wilson said. “I might shout out if they are running a great play, but I never yell about them doing something wrong. I talk to them about what they should have done and tell them to do their best.”
He said talking with the children on the field works best for him. This year the Blue team, coached by Ratterree and Wilson, was undefeated in the regular season.
“I keep hearing that kids are different today than they were in the past,” Wilson said. “They are not. It is how they get treated. I enjoy being associated with the kids from when they are little to the sixth grade.”
Wilson said there are stars. He said coaches can quickly see the more athletically gifted children as early as the first grade, but what is most important is what they do with that talent and what they learn.
“I think our best award is for the most improved player,” Wilson said. “It is someone that is not the best player on the team, but who tries and is becoming a better player. It makes them feel more a part of the team, even if they are not playing a lot, and they try even harder next season.”
In his role as commissioner of the league, Wilson said the season never ends.
“We have meetings starting about three months before the season starts to get up games and dates,” Wilson said. “During the season, we make sure the field is ready and that we have the referees. We use the same officials as the high school uses.”
The league also buys some new equipment each year.
“We get good stuff; we want the players to be safe,” Wilson said.
As the season goes on, the games attract the coaches of the school teams.
“The coaches come, mostly to watch the sixth-graders who are going on to junior high, but they watch all the ages,” he said. “We have had players go on to college at Arkansas State University, and several have gone to Louisiana Tech that went through our program.”
Wilson said this will be his last year as commissioner and probably his last as a coach. He said he wants to spend more time with his wife and travel around the country.
“I want to travel around and look at the leaves, and I’m away a lot of the autumn,” he said. “I am a deer hunter, yet being at the games takes a lot of the season. It’s time.”
He said he often meets former players who learned the game from him.
“They have all gotten so tall, and they look down on me,” he said, “but they thank me and say how much they enjoyed playing with me.”
Perhaps the quiet tones of a tenderhearted coach could catch on in the higher levels of football as well.
Staff writer Wayne Bryan can be reached at (501) 244-4460 or at wbryan@arkansasonline.com.