Ashcraft leaves Conway post to be head coach at Vilonia
It was always a matter of when, not if, Clint Ashcraft would find his way back to the sidelines.
That became reality Monday night when the Vilonia School Board announced him as the Eagles’ new football coach.
He succeeds Todd Langrell, who recently left to become Southside Bee Branch’s first football coach.
Vilonia went 3-7 last season in the 5A-Central Conference. The Eagles will compete in the 5A-West in 2024.
Ashcraft, who spent the past six years as the athletic director at Conway High School, said it was within the last year that he decided for sure that he wanted to get back into coaching. Prior to Conway, he was Siloam Springs’ coach for nine years, finishing with a 6837 record.
Ashcraft said Vilonia wasn’t the first school he spoke with during this coaching cycle, but it was the first that offered the kind of opportunity he was seeking and, most crucially, a proximity to the house he built outside of Conway.
“At first, I didn’t know anything about the job,” he said. “And then I started talking to them and the more they talked to me, the more appealing it was. I started really listening and paying attention. I was like, you know, this sounds like a good deal.”
Ashcraft will be joined at Vilonia by his son, Coleson, a freshman at Conway. Ashcraft said that was as big a part of the urge to get back to coaching as anything.
“I think anybody that coaches, and has kids that play the sport that they coach, that’s just a special bond that not a lot of people get to experience,” he said. “The chance to coach your own son in football is an appealing one, I promise.”
Over the past six years, Conway has had one of the top football programs in Class 7A, thanks to former coach Keith Fimple and current coach Buck James, who Ashcraft hired last May.
“I’ve learned a lot from watching them both,” Ashcraft said. “There’s things that you’ve seen people do and you think to yourself, ‘I wish I had thought of that when I was coaching.’ You pick up those little things that you see and steal them from other coaches.”
With a job as expansive as athletic director, Ashcraft said he’ll take many lessons from his time with the Wampus Cats, but the most notable is the newfound perspective he will have on his fellow coaches.
“I think as a football coach, you get so focused on football, and it’s hard to see the big picture,” Ashcraft said. “And then when you become an athletic director, it really kind of changes your vision. You see all the coaches have pressure on them, and all the coaches have different things that they’re dealing with with their teams. It makes you appreciate those guys and ladies.”