Change is the name of the game in high school sports

Of course, the nature of high schools sports is change as athletes appear, play for a spell, graduate and are replaced by others who do the same. In an area with a stable population, like where I grew up, it seemed that over the years, the last names of the players were generally the same. It was just the first names that were changing.

With the rapid influx of population into northwest Arkansas, high schools that were once in the smallest of Arkansas’ classifications have ascended into middle classifications or higher. The larger high schools in this corner of the state have grown to the point to where they are now the largest in the state and even the southern part of the U.S.

For a long, long time, Pea Ridge was 1A in classification though it had grown enough by the time I arrived here in 1997 to have been reclassified to 2A. Not too many years after I had been here awhile, the school moved up into 3A and then finally into 4A the past few years.

It’s hard to believe that Bentonville High, the biggest high school in Arkansas and nearly all the south, was smaller in the 1970s than Pea Ridge is today, much smaller. That was, of course, before the big Wal-mart boom-years which, of course, really haven’t ended. People are still moving in, schools are still expanding, change is a fact of life.

This fall will see the exit from the 4A-1 by the Farmington Cardinals who will becoming members of the 5A-West. New league member Huntsville is now just nine students from 5A status and could bounce up and down from 4A to 5A for awhile. Next in line to move up would likely be Gravette, Prairie Grove and Berryville. Gravette is the state’s ninth biggest 4A school with Prairie Grove and Berryville ranked 16th and 17th, respectively. With all the schools in the 4A-1 growing, it could just be a matter of time before someday the 5A West will look a lot like the 4A-1.

A big change for the 4A-1 next year is the exit of Lincoln head football coach Brad Harris. An assistant coach at Arkadelphia before coming to northwest Arkansas, Harris took the job at Lincoln where he could run his own program. With Lincoln one of the worst programs in the state when he arrived, he had a lot of work to just get off the ground.

The Wolves responded by getting better each year until they went three games deep into this year’s playoffs. Lincoln also won basketball championships and were leading the baseball circuit last time I saw the standings.

All that may be ending as coach Harris resigned to take a job at 7A Benton. Harris is from that part of the state and with his parents ailing, he made the decision to return home to his roots. That also means his very talented quarter- back son Drew Harris won’t be on the field this fall in the 4A-1 either, good news for conference foes. With the bulk of the Wolves stars graduated or moving, look for Lincoln to have some struggles this coming year.

As everyone knows, Ozark moved south to the 4A-4 and we get good old Shiloh back into the fold. Another change that I wasn’t aware of was that Booneville’s very powerful football team has dropped down into 3A for the next cycle and out of Ozark’s new league. Booneville and perennial 3A powerhouse Charleston will likely be battling each other for state supremacy.

While sporting a youth-oriented team this fall (half of the 2014