Rockets take success to new level

It had been awhile since John Fogleman was part of a season like 2022.

In 2011, Fogleman led Malvern to 12 wins and a spot in the Class 4A state championship game.

The Leopards fell to an undefeated Pulaski Academy, but it was the school’s first

10-win season since the turn of the century.

Eleven years later, Fogleman led Little Rock Catholic to 11 wins, the Rockets’ first undefeated regular season in school history, a conference championship and a spot in the Class 6A semifinals.

For all of the success this season, Fogleman is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s All-Arkansas Preps Coach of the Year.

While Fogleman — in his 10th year at Catholic — is the recipient of the award, he was quick to praise those around him for the favorable results this season.

“The kids deserve this credit a lot more than I do,” Fogleman said. “I didn’t coach any less or any more than I did, say five years ago when the seasons weren’t that great. So, you know, any accomplishment like this or any awards like this, credit goes to the rest of the coaching staff and the players. Without them, none of that would be possible.”

Fogleman and Catholic’s success in 2022 would have been impressive at any school, but it was even more so with the way the first nine years of his tenure in Little Rock had gone.

From 2013-21, the Rockets averaged less than five wins per season. Their season-high came in 2019 with seven wins before falling to Bentonville in the state quarterfinals.

The wins hit a low in 2021 as the Rockets went 2-8 and lost in the opening round of the playoffs.

Due to the Arkansas Activities Association’s Competitive Equity Factor, Catholic was moved to Class 6A for the first time since the creation of 7A and 6A prior to the 2006 season.

Fogleman said the move has had a large effect not only on the difficulty of the schedule, but on the difficulty of getting kids to buy in.

“I think the biggest difference was trying to convince kids what they can and can’t do,” Fogleman said. “When they’re hearing it from outside sources all the time that you can’t do this, you can’t do that, and you’re the only one trying to build them up that they can, it makes it awfully tough. That was the biggest thing going up against those big schools. So now you’re looking across the field with the same number of kids, the same number of coaches, it’s easier to believe. I think that was a big part of the season.”

Before Catholic could begin its first 6A campaign, it had one nonconference clash with Class 7A’s North Little Rock on the schedule.

The Charging Wildcats were considered among the favorites to challenge Bryant in the state’s top classification, but the Rockets shocked them at North Little Rock, 236.

Three weeks later, Catholic defeated the Class 6A-East favorite Benton 38-14, and Fogleman said those two games were the jump start his team needed.

“Sure, we knew we would be better, we had experience coming back,” Fogleman said. “After that first game, the focus then turned to conference play. We had that big game immediately right off the bat. … Once [we beat Benton], then the attention came to we got to really do good in the conference and even win it. So I think that game, being right off the bat, drew attention to the possibility of coming out on top of the conference.”

Fogleman got his start in coaching in 1995 on Ellis “Scooter” Register’s staff at El Dorado. He led the freshman team to an undefeated season. In his second season on staff, El Dorado made it to the Class 4A semifinals, losing to eventual champion Van Buren.

After that, he spent time as the offensive coordinator at Bentonville, winning the state championship in 2001. He was the head coach at Malvern for seven years, going 45-37.

Along with coaching, Fogleman teaches civics and a class on World War II at Catholic. Being a teacher is something he cherishes in the classroom and on the field.

“I enjoy the teaching aspect. I get to meet a new group of boys, [ many of whom] don’t play football. So that’s a whole different side of the teaching than the coaching part, but I think all good coaches are good teachers, too.”

Fogleman