All They Do Is Winn, Winn, Winn
Editor’s note: This is continued from the Nov. 29 edition of The TIMES, the second in a three-part series on the Blackhawks football playing brothers, Dayton, Dakota and Drew Winn. The third part of the series will be published Dec. 13.
Drew Winn was barely out of diapers when he slung his chubby, toddler leg over the seat of a tiny dirt bike for the first time.
Drew Winn, youngest of the Winn brothers —Dayton, who graduated in 2013, and Dakota, who graduated in 2015. All three have been star players for the Blackhawks football team and helped elevate the program into a Class 4A power.
Growing up Winn
The boys’ father, Dickie Winn played football and was a kickboxer growing up in southeastern New Mexico. He saw very early that his sons were gifted in sports, with Dayton “scoring about 10 goals a game” playing soccer as a youngster in Bentonville.
“We played just about everything,” he said of the boys. “We had a trampoline and a big concrete pad at the house and the boys played basketball and rode their bikes for hours and hours. Dayton and Dakota were older, but Drew wanted to do what they were doing, so he learned how to ride and play whatever they were playing.
“There is no doubt that having older brothers made him tougher, but they were also great role models for him to follow.”
Dayton Winn was in the eighth-grade when then Blackhawk head football coach Tony Travis started his first season at Pea Ridge, and the coach knew immediately that Winn had the tools to be a great running back.
“He just had a tremendous desire to be good and a tremendous work ethic,” Travis said, “but he also just had a lot of talent and vision. He could see holes and seams that not many others can and that’s what all the great backs have.”
Dayton grew into his role as Pea Ridge’s go-to player as the ‘I’ back in a run-oriented offense. As a sophomore, he topped the 100-yard mark a couple of times but really came into his own over the final two seasons. As a junior, he had 1,857 all-purpose yards including 1,502 rushing and 19 total touchdowns as the Blackhawks posted their best season (4-6) in four years.
Those numbers paled in comparison to what he did his senior season, rushing for 2,068 yards and 21 touchdowns to lead the Blackhawks to a 10-2 record. His rushing total was the highest in Arkansas that season and he found the end zone 25 times.
Hendrix College was one of just a handful of programs that offered Dayton a chance to play at the next level. What a stroke of genius that proved to be for a program that was starting its first season.
Dayton was a star from the moment he stepped foot on the Conway campus, where he graduated in four years with a sports management degree. On the field, he was a two-time Little All-American and two-time conference Player of the Year. He had 829 carries for 5,009 career rushing yards and 63 touchdowns. He also caught 119 passes for 1,221 yards and 10 more touchdowns and compiled 8,296 career allpurpose yards.
“There were a lot of people who did not believe Dayton could play college football,” Travis said. “All that did was just make him more determined.”
More success followed as he was signed to a professional contract for a team in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he led the team to a Mermaid Bowl win and earned Most Valuable Player honors last season. Dayton is unsure if he will return to play in Europe again next season. Currently, he is working at Academy Sports in Fayetteville and waiting on a call from a professional team for perhaps one more season before he gets into coaching. Eventually, he plans to use his sports management degree to become an athletic director, he said.
Next up, Dakota
Dakota was a running back growing up like his elder brother and blessed with that Winn speed. He got a few carries as a sophomore during Dayton’s senior season and scored a couple of touchdowns, but like most underclassmen, Dakota had to wait his turn to shine under the Friday night lights.
The 2013 season was supposed to be his time, but his season ended before it ever got started when he suffered a gruesome arm injury during an August practice that required season-ending surgery.
Already short-handed from the graduation of 21 starters from the season before and losing another key player at the same time torpedoed the Blackhawks’ season and the result was a 1-9 record.
“It seemed like if anything could go wrong, it did for us that season,” Travis said. “We lost Dakota Winn and Dakota Canaday and both were going to contribute a lot that season.”
The 2014 season was a complete reversal as Dakota, who is a student at Pitt State now, became a lock-down defender on the corner. He also blocked a punt in a game against Berryville that resulted in a touchdown.
But nothing compared to the game he played against Shiloh Christian on that November night. Seemingly every pass that the Saints attempted that game was either batted down by Dakota, or intercepted by Seth Brumley, who returned an interception 80 yards for a touchdown. After coming close in 2011, the Blackhawks finally broke through against the most successful 4A program in the state that night.
“Our kids had been waiting for that game for a long time,” Travis said. “We had not beaten Shiloh in about 14 or 15 years, back before they were the Shiloh we know now.”