Patton takes over at new high school
The newest high school in Arkansas has landed one of the state’s top football coaches to start its program.
Daryl Patton, a four-time state championship coach, was hired Wednesday night as the first head football coach at Little Rock Southwest High School, the Little Rock School District announced in a news release.
Patton, 51, won four Class 7A state championships at Fayetteville (2007, 2011, 2012 and 2015) in 13 seasons and has been at Bauxite for the past four years, where he’s helped
rebuild the Miners into a Class 4A playoff team.
While Patton, who graduated from Bryant in 1986,
said he has enjoyed being at Bauxite, the chance to lead the Gryphons was too enticing.
“It’s an unbelievable opportunity to make a difference and help build a program from the ground up,” Patton said in a telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday night. “It’s a beautiful facility. There’s great support from the administration.
“I talked to my wife [CJ] and my family. I prayed about it. We felt that it was the best thing to do. I’ve got more energy and fight than I’ve ever had.”
Little Rock School District Athletic Director John Daniels said Patton’s resume is impressive. Patton interviewed with the district Tuesday, and his hiring was approved Wednesday by Johnny Key, the Arkansas education secretary who serves in place of the district’s school board, Daniels said.
“He’s a builder of teams,” Daniels said of Patton. “He’s a builder of young men. He’s a builder of programs. Daryl has been over the largest district programs at Bryant and Fayetteville. It was hard to overlook somebody like him.”
Patton is 169-88-2 in 22 seasons as a head coach at Bryant (1998-2002), Fayetteville (2003-2015) and Bauxite (2016-2019). He was 34-20 at Bryant, 116-44-2 at Fayetteville and 19-24 at Bauxite. However, Bauxite, which went 0-10 in 2016 in Patton’s first season at the school, won nine games in 2018 and six a year ago.
Before entering coaching, Patton was a quarterback at Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State) from 1986-88 and the University of Central Arkansas in 1990.
Patton’s run in Class 7A came to a sudden end in May 2016 when he resigned at Fayetteville, citing personal and family reasons. Later in the month, Patton said the resignation was a result of an extramarital affair.
Three-and-a-half years later, he will get another opportunity to lead a Class 7A program.
“He’s a good man,” Daniels said. “He wants to help out the LRSD. You can see that we’ve worked hard to have people that have good character. Their moral compass is moving in the right direction. That’s what we’re doing here.
“Let’s just say that we’ve taken a look at everything from a student-relationship standpoint and that we found nothing negative with him.”
Patton said his time at Bauxite was beneficial for him professionally and personally.
“Bauxite was a great job,” he said. “The support and love the community had was unbelievable. I’ll be personally indebted to the community and the kids forever. They stood behind me and gave me a lot of support.”
Daniels said Patton will have at least seven assistants on his staff at Southwest. Patton said he plans to start with the Gryphons on Monday and meet with returning players from Little Rock McClellan and Little Rock Fair, which are the two schools consolidating to make up Southwest.
Southwest not only will be the state’s newest football program in the 2020 season, it’s also entering the state’s toughest conference.
The Gryphons will play in the 7A-Central Conference, which features two-time defending Class 7A state champion Bryant as well as state championship contenders North Little Rock and Conway.
Patton said he’s ready for the challenge of leading the Gryphons.
“Central Arkansas has taken over power from the 7A-West,” Patton said. “Every Friday night will be a battle. We want to put a product on the field that not only makes southwest Little Rock proud, but also the city of Little Rock.”