Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Weatherford comes from a long coaching tree
VAN BUREN — Van Buren coach Luke Weatherford experienced baseball at the very grass roots of the sport as a child and then played for some of the most influential coaches in the state.
“Baseball has been a huge part of my life,” Weatherford said. “It’s one of the reasons I chose this profession.”
In his first season as a head coach last year, he guided the Pointers to the Class 5A state championship in May.
After the Pointers’ 12-1 win over Jonesboro in the championship game, Weatherford said he had players that were like him.
“I love being on a baseball field,” Weatherford said. “This team had a lot of players like that. We may have some future coaches because we have a lot of guys that love being at the park, love being at the yard whether it’s taking ground balls, hitting, or whatever. They love being around each other.”
Weatherford’s influences began early under Bill Breedlove at Fort Smith Northside, where he was all-conference in baseball, basketball and football and all-state in baseball and football.
He played American Legion baseball for Kerwin’s Sporting Goods under Chuck Holcombe.
He played on Dale Harpenau’s first two teams at then Westark College and was an All-Region selection.
Then he played on Norm DeBriyn’s final two teams as an Arkansas Razorback in 2001 and 2002.
Weatherford joined the staff at Van Buren in 2010 where he tutored under another veteran coach in David Loyd. That team was the Pointers’ first to play in a state championship game, losing to Bryant in the state’s largest classification.
In all, under Breedlove, Holcombe, Harpenau, DeBriyn, and Loyd, that’s 134 years of combined baseball knowledge from which to draw.
“I’ve had a lot of great influences,” Weatherford said. “I’ve been very fortunate.”
Weatherford gathered bits and pieces from all of them along his road in baseball.
“For sure,” Weatherford said. “Anytime that you’re part of a staff or you’re a player you take the things that you see out of your coaches that inspired you and made you who you are as a player. Any good coach or manager has that personality of who they were as a player. I feel like a lot of those guys filled my personality as a baseball player which in turn allowed me to use that as a coach now.”
His earliest influences, though, were built on the very grass roots of baseball watching his dad, Zeke, play independent baseball at Mountainburg.
The Mountainburg independent team played at the old baseball field near the tracks located behind the current football field. The team was organized by John Huffor with his brother, Steve, and cousin Chuck Reynolds along with Eddie Lynch, Mike Balazic, and Skip Hayes, who wrote a novel, The Dixie Association, about his experiences playing baseball with a bunch of grownups in their 30s and 40s on baseball fields around eastern Oklahoma in towns like Stilwell or Greasy and northwest Arkansas in Winslow and Tontitown.
At Mountainburg, there was no outfield fence in left field so sometimes 370-foot flyballs were tracked down for outs. There was a single wire rope that provided the fence in right field in front of a grove of small trees. The goal posts were barely in foul territory down the right-field line. Sometimes, games had to be stopped because of dogs on the field. Foul balls behind third base were often lost forever because of the thick brush during the summer, and a cap was passed through the small crowds for any spare change to buy baseballs.
Zeke Weatherford organized a one-day tournament that was held every year with players of all ages from high school to older adults.
“That was a great part of my childhood,” Luke Weatherford said. “We talk all the time about the Zeke’s Fall Classic, and all of my dad’s friends and uncles would come crash at the house. I remember picking out the colors for the different team’s jerseys and trophies for the offensive MVP, the defensive MVP. I can remember getting excited every year seeing those shirts laid out and the trophies. I knew we were about to have the Fall Classic.”
Weatherford’s dad has lived in Vietnam for nine years now and wasn’t able to watch Luke and the Pointers win the championship last year in person.
“The great thing about technology is that he’s been able to follow along,” Weatherford said. “He’s had a lot of fun watching from afar. There’s a 12-hour time difference.”
Weatherford has fond childhood baseball memories that are unique in that it’s not about the usual T-ball team or organized baseball or fancy uniforms, although he did do that, but of the last true bastion of baseball as it was originally played in its purest form.
“I do,” Weatherford said. “I was 6 when we left Mountainburg. I remember going down to the school and watching games. There would be guys out there catching in blue jeans. I’d think what is this guy doing? Then you’d watch him catch and it was like holy cow some of these guys can play. Those were some fun times and some wild times.”