ATKINS — When football season starts next fall at Atkins, it will mark one of just a handful of years since 1949 that Carl or Charlie Sorrels won’t be on the Red Devil sideline.
Charlie Sorrels, who surpassed his father as the winningest coach in Red Devil history several years ago, has decided to retire from football while retaining his other full-time job as athletic director.
“I figured it up once,” said Sorrels, 56. “Except for my freshman and sophomore years at [Arkansas] Tech and one year when I coached at Morrilton, me or my dad has been on the sidelines from 1949 until this past year.
“There’s really one reason I’m wanting to do this. I’ve got four grandkids, all living in Atkins, and I’m looking forward to going by and picking them up and taking them to the ballgames, then riding back in my car instead of that yellow bus.”
In 24 years at the helm of his alma mater, Sorrels put up a record of 176-95-1. Charlie Sorrels passed his father with his 145th win in 2004. His teams made the playoffs 19 times and won eight conference championships. He was a member of the executive committee of the Arkansas High School Coaches Association and the Arkansas High School Football Coaches Association, a past president of the AHSCA and a three-time Arkansas High School All-Star coach.
Sorrels’ absence from Atkins football will be noticed all over the River Valley.
“Coach Sorrels was the dean of the River Valley,” Russellville coach Jeff Holt said. “He is a great coach but even a better man. He has always gone out of his way to help me, and I am extremely proud to have him as a friend. He is Atkins football, and whoever becomes the next Atkins football coach has some mighty big shoes to fill.”
Added Dardanelle coach Josh Price: “I have known Coach Sorrels since I was a sophomore in high school, and he has remained a great person and a great coach. He has been more of a mentor to me than he knows, and the town of Atkins should consider itself very lucky to have kept him for so long.”
Bryan Rust, coach at Pottsville, said, “Charlie has been like a coaching father figure to most of us young coaches in this area. I have coached against him for many years, and his teams were always prepared and played hard. He is a model for anyone wanting to go into the coaching profession.”
Craig Pinion, boys basketball coach at Atkins, added, “If you look the word ‘optimist’ up in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Coach Sorrels. He always sees the glass half-full and does whatever he can to make the best out of any situation. He has remained consistent in his coaching philosophies while also being flexible enough to adjust his strategies to match his team’s athletic abilities, always giving his players the best opportunity for success.”
The Sorrels story at Atkins is nothing if not a family affair.
Carl Sorrels, who died in 1990, coached the Red Devils from 1949-71. His sons Joe, Bill and Charlie all played for him and excelled at whatever sport they played. As a senior, Charlie threw for almost 2,000 yards to lead the Red Devils to the Class A state football championship. His father retired on top.
After graduating from Tech in 1976, Charlie Sorrels returned home to coach girls basketball and to work as an assistant in football. After two years with those duties, he went to Morrilton under Doyne Davis as head junior high football coach.
“I was good coaching anything, but my goal was to be a head football coach someday, hopefully at Atkins,” Sorrels said.
After one year, the offer of offensive coordinator called him back home for good. Over the years, he worked under Leon Anderson, Dean Kilmer and Larry Carter until Carter gave up football to concentrate on AD duties, and Sorrels realized his dream by becoming the Red Devils’ head coach in 1987.
“My mother was a coach’s wife, full-blooded, and my wife, Connie, is the perfect coach’s wife,” Sorrels said of the high school sweetheart he married 38 years ago, during his time at Tech. “She was pretty well raised in a coaching family. Both my brothers have been right here with me either helping in the press box or doing something throughout this whole deal.”
Sorrels’ daughters, Jill and Katie, competed for the Lady Red Devils and also helped their dad during football.
The Red Devils started a playoff streak of 11 years in 1988. Although he never coached a state championship team, Sorrels had quite a run, taking several teams as far as the state quarterfinals.
“In the 1990s, when we had some of our really good teams, we were caught in a cycle where we were about the smallest school in our division, and we’d always run into schools like Nashville, Prescott, Fordyce, that had so many more numbers,” he said. “They were two-platooning, and we couldn’t ever get over the hump.”
Over the years, he coached about every sport Atkins offered except baseball, which he focused on during his last three years at Tech.
“I coached boys and girls track, boys and girls tennis, girls basketball, and I really enjoyed it,” he said of his nonfootball duties. “But it got to where I was doing too much, (grades) 7-12 football and girls basketball. Back then, that wasn’t real uncommon since you didn’t have that many on staff.”
Sorrels is in good health, but he has had a few challenges. He had a heart attack and five bypasses in 2002, has undergone three shoulder surgeries and had his left knee replaced.
“It got to where I couldn’t coach the way I liked to coach,” he said. “I was always an active football coach. I had to be throwing, participating, hands-on, and the last couple of years, I can’t throw a football 10 yards. So I couldn’t do it the way I enjoyed doing it.
“I would love to still be able to coach football, but the way I used to.”
He took on athletic director duties when Carter retired in about 2000, and Sorrels said the dual role grew to be essentially two full-time jobs.
“I don’t feel like I did either one justice,” Sorrels said.
But after 35 years, he has no intention of retiring from everything.
“I still love to be around the kids,” he said. “I may even coach golf next year. I want to help all our programs, take some paperwork duties off them, be a little more supportive of the entire athletic program. It takes that nowadays. It’s so important to do fundraising now. There are a lot of areas I’d like to focus more on.”
His grandchildren — Jill’s sons, Konnor and J.C.; and Katie’s daughters, Makali and Addison — will help fill the void football will leave for their grandfather.
“I remember all the thousands of hours of breaking down film, worrying about every little thing, and now it’s more important to have the grandkids over and put something on the grill and play baseball in the backyard,” he said. “Your priorities change a little bit.
“But I’ve been really blessed to have so many good people around me. There’s no way I could name all those people over the years: the chain crews, the press box, booster club, and I think it goes back as far as with the athletes.
“The thing that sticks out to me more than anything is the relationships. I’ve got 35 years of relationships I’ve made with a lot of young people who are now doctors and lawyers, loggers — every phase of business you can imagine. There’s not a lot of jobs where you can make that many relationships with that many people.”
Sorrels has been in Atkins long enough that he has begun coaching second-generation Sorrels players.
Looking back, he counts many highlights.
“I was really blessed,” he said. “We had in place pretty well everything you have to have to be successful: a good run of athletes from the late ‘80s on, great assistant coaches, support from my family, which is really very important.
“Unless you’ve been a coach’s wife or a coach’s kid, you don’t realize the hours. It takes some special people to put up with us. This community has supported football and all athletics. We had a lot of community support.”
He said friends told him he’d know when it was time to give up football, and he’s comfortable with his decision.
But Sorrels knows he’ll miss it.
“I started with my dad as water boy when I was 8 or 9,” he said. “I’m 56, so this is probably 46, 47 years’ worth of football.
“I’m hoping from now on, I can look at it from a different view.”