CONWAY — Dennis Fulmer of Conway was going through some old photos when a group shot of his 1968 Conway High School football coaching staff struck him.
All five in the photo — Fulmer and his four assistants — had gone on to be inducted into at least one hall of fame each.
“I just saw that picture, and I remembered what a good staff it was, all the good staff meetings we had, how everybody got along,” Fulmer said. “It’s a highlight to have that good a coaching staff. You don’t realize how good a staff that was until you get away from it.”
That staff included some of the legends of Arkansas high school football coaching:
Fulmer, now 81, was the Wampus Cat head coach from 1967-70 before becoming the first full-time athletic director in the school’s history. He has been inducted into the University of Central Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame.
Joe Fred Young, 73, was offensive coordinator. After a distinguished coaching career at Fort Smith Northside, he is a member of the Arkansas High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the UCA Sports Hall of Fame.
Ernie Miller, 74, was defensive coordinator. He has been inducted into the UCA Sports Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame.
Bernie Cox, 72, coached offensive backs and special teams. He went on to a 35-year tenure at the helm of Little Rock Central High School and is a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Harding University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Johnny Simmons, 73, coached defensive backs and special teams and is a member of the UCA Sports Hall of Fame.
A year after the Wampus Cats went 10-1 (losing only to North
Little Rock) and were named the No. 1 team in Class AA, the 1968 squad finished 10-2.
“I got to select them, but I pretty well knew them,” Fulmer said of his coaches. “I knew Joe Fred most of his life, and Bernie was my quarterback at Jacksonville, and I knew him quite well. I knew Ernie from when he was in college [at UCA].
“They were capable coaches. I knew they could coach, and I allowed them to coach. Bernie told me one time, ‘This is the first time I’ve got to coach.’ I trusted them that much. They were that dependable, and I knew they could do the job.”
While the staff eventually moved on — Fulmer became Conway athletic director before going into private business; Young succeeded him as head coach for a year and later took Cox with him to Little Rock Central; Simmons went on to a 45-year career in banking, real estate and insurance; and Miller retired after 38 years in school-equipment sales — all five recall their common Conway experience fondly.
“Those four years meant everything in the world to me,” Cox said. “That four years there and the three years I was with Joe Fred [as an assistant] at Central set me up for whatever I’ve been able to do. The four years at Conway gave me the background I needed, and I needed it badly.
“The kids were so good to coach, and they were disciplined. That was a good community with good people, and those four guys, they took care of me.”
Cox said he believed he was too young to take the reins at Central when Young left there after three seasons for a position on Frank Broyles’ University of Arkansas staff in December 1974, but over the next 35 years, Cox led the Tigers to state titles in ’75, ’78, ’80, ’81, ’86, 2003 and ’04 — and a record of 271-93-8.
He said he played quarterback for Fulmer at Jacksonville from his freshman through senior seasons.
“[Fulmer] was one of the reasons I went into coaching,” Cox said. “I had graduated from Harding in 1966 and was coaching at Searcy when he had an opening and called me, and boy, I jumped on that. The staff over there — Joe Fred and Johnny and Coach Fulmer and Ernie and C.D. Taylor (another Hall of Famer who was the Wampus Cats’ basketball coach) — was so good, and I learned a lot about kids and coaching and football the four years I was there.
“It was the hardest thing in the world for me to leave after four years and go to Little Rock with Joe Fred. That was a wonderful, wonderful period of my coaching life. And I still have a love in my heart for Conway. I’m still for Conway in everything they do, athletically and as a community.”
Young joked that he “had to choke Bernie to get him out of Conway.”
After Central, Young coached two years under Broyles, then decided to return to high school coaching. He spent four years at Fayetteville before landing at Northside, where he took the Grizzlies to eight state championship games during his 1981-98 tenure and won the title in 1987.
“I learned everything from Dennis,” Young said. “The thing I got most from him was how to deal with people and with kids. He was absolutely marvelous.
“All the time I worked with him — five years — never, ever, ever did we have a cross word. I can’t remember him ever having a cross word with any of the coaches, and that was an inspiration to me. I always tried to do the same thing when I became a head coach. I wanted to make sure the coaches worked together, enjoyed each other and got along.
“It makes everything so much more enjoyable when you have people get along. That’s the way I looked at him then and how I look at him now. He was my hero.”
With Young’s move to Central, Miller succeeded him as Wampus Cat head coach for three seasons before going on to earn a doctorate from UA, then entering sales.
But his experience with Fulmer’s staff followed Miller throughout his career.
“They were all my friends,” he said. “It was nice to surround yourself with good people. We worked together real well. I always thought I would get back to coaching, maybe track on the college level, but another opportunity came along, and I retired from that after 38 years.
“But I always said selling was like coaching — you go out and try to win that order because of your competitive nature.”
Simmons coached just one more year after the ’68 season. Instead of taking a position as head coach and athletic director at Clarksville, he veered into business.
“Lord, that was the best staff,” he remembered. “What I liked about Dennis was he let you express your ideas, and if you had a good one, he was all for it.”
Simmons said that during his final year, the Wampus Cats were helped by quarterback Mike New.
“I could see a lot of our success was based on him, but he was going to graduate, and my next quarterback was going to be Tommy Courtway (now president of the University of Central Arkansas),” Simmons said. “Tommy’s a great guy and a great president, but he wasn’t a Mike New.”
Lessons learned?
“In football, playing and coaching, you can’t get too high or too low,” Simmons said. “You can’t let success go to your head because the next week you may get your butt beat. And if you lose a couple in a row, it’s not the end of the world. You just keep plugging along.”
Fulmer said he remained in touch with all four coaches.
“It was just a bond that coaches and friends have,” he said. “It was a time back then when the world was a little bit slower. We all taught a full load of classes. I was doing what I wanted to do all my life.”