Fifth in a series previewing members of the 2014 class who will be inducted Feb. 28 into the
Alvy Early’s three sons have followed in their father’s coaching footsteps, but they will be hard pressed to match their father’s accomplishments.
That isn’t news to Brian, Preston or Kent Early. They are well aware of the success their father has achieved in his 35 years coaching at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, where he has won a combined 1,061 games as a women’s basketball and softball coach.
And Alvy, 73, is still going strong on the softball field despite undergoing two knee replacement surgeries in 2013.
Early admits there has been no magic formula to his success.
“I have been fortunate to coach the caliber of athletes that I have,” said Early, who will be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame on Feb. 28 at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock. “A lot of coaches know the same things and can recruit good players. One thing that I think has helped is that I have been able to get good players to play hard.”
A native of Fort Smith, Early grew up in Pahokee, Fla. He graduated from Arkansas A&M (now UAM) in1967, having lettered in football, baseball and tennis before becoming a successful high school coach at West Fork. He became the women’s basketball coach in 1979 at UAM, where he went 425-211 in 21 years.
“People who know Alvy know that he can communicate with people at all levels,” said Ron Marvel, the former University of Central Arkansas women’s basketball coach. “He has a love for all sports, and if you are a good coach, you can coach anything.”
Early, Marvel and Joe Foley, the former Arkansas Tech coach who currently coaches UALR, battled annually for the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference championship throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s.
Early’s Cotton Blossoms won the AIC five times and became the first women’s team from Arkansas to play for a basketball national championship in 1990 when they lost to Southwestern Oklahoma. UAM captured the last AIC championship in 1995 before moving to the Gulf South Conference, where Early guided the Cotton Blossoms to the West Division championship in their first season.
Early became the school’s athletic director in 1997 and its softball coach. He kept coaching basketball until 2000, but continued pulling double duty as the school’s athletic director and softball coach until 2009, when he stepped down from his administrative role.
He said giving up the athletic director’s position was probably one of the easiest things he’s done.
“Being an athletic director is a 24-7 job as a fundraiser and everything else that’s got to be done,” he said. “I was more interested in coaching. All I ever wanted to do is coach. My hobby is my job. It’s a lot more stressful as an athletic director.”
Early didn’t have much of a problem winning on the softball diamond after helping lead the program’s transition to NCAA Division II. His first team won 20 games in 1997, which was followed by seasons of 31, 39, 41 and 37 victories. Another 37-victory season in 2002 was followed in 2003 by a fourth consecutive Gulf South West championship and the school’s first appearance in the NCAA regional tournament as they finished 42-12.
The Cotton Blossoms’ best year came in 2010 when they went 55-13 and missed advancing to the Division II College Softball World Series by one game.
In the school’s first year in the Great American Conference in 2012, the Cotton Blossoms went 40-14 and won the regular-season championship, earning Early recognition as the league’s coach of the year.
Early is 636-320-2 as UAM’s softball coach, but just as impressive is the love for coaching he has passed along to his sons. Preston is the girls’ basketball coach at Rogers High School, Kent coaches the softball team at Bentonville High School and Brian recently was named defensive line coach at Arkansas State.
“My time as a coach’s son and just watching the way that Dad conducted business definitely helped prepare me and has given me an advantage in this highly competitive profession,” Brian Early told the Advance-Monticellonian after being hired by ASU.
Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame
ALVY EARLY AT A GLANCE
AGE 73 (born Feb. 14, 1941) HOMETOWN Fort Smith COLLEGE Bachelor’s degree(Arkansas-Monticello); master’s degree (University of Arkansas) FAMILY Wife, Nancy; sons, Brian, Preston and Kent NOTEWORTHY All-time winningest coach at UAM in basketball (425-211) and softball (636-320-2). … Led the UAM women’s basketball team to a 1990 NAIA national runner-up finish. … Gulf South Conference Western Division Softball Coach of the Decade (2000-2010). … Four-time Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference and two-time NAIA District 17 Basketball Coach of the Year. … Served as UAM’s athletic director from 1997-2009. … Elected to the UAM Hall of Fame in 2012.
Sports, Pages 19 on 02/22/2014