Entitled to admiration

When it comes to the legacy of former Arkansas high school football coach Barry Lunney, Fayetteville Coach Daryl Patton is one of the coaches who can speak to how well regarded the former Fort Smith Southside and Bentonville leader was.

Lunney, 63, was 248-90-1 and won 8 state championships in 28 years as a head coach in the state. He led Fort Smith Southside and Bentonville to 4 state titles apiece and retired after the 2014 season when he led Bentonville to its fifth state title overall.

On March 4, Lunney will be among the 11 inductees going into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

Patton, who coached against Lunney annually from 2005 to 2014, put him in the class of Arkansas coaching giants Frank McClellan (Barton) and Bernie Cox (Little Rock Central). But Lunney's accomplishments have reached heights outside the state, Patton said.

"When you talk about football in Arkansas on a national level, the first name everyone will mention is Barry Lunney," Patton said. "He let his guys do their jobs. His kids are always well respected."

It was Lunney's first losing season where he made the biggest change of his career.

Fort Smith Southside went 1-9 in 1996 and Lunney knew he had to do something to get the Rebels back on track.

In 1997, Lunney switched from the Wing-T offense to the one-back offense. Lunney's Rebels were one of the first teams in Arkansas to spread the football. The switch worked, as Southside won the AAAAA title, Lunney's third at the school.

"It pressed the defenses," Lunney said. "The defensive schemes started to change. The defenses tried to catch up. That's a tribute to the coaches in our league."

Lunney recalled former Arkadelphia coach John Outlaw, who was at Lufkin, Texas, in the late 1990s, calling him after he had switched offenses.

"He said, 'I have to do something different. Texas, it's 3 yards and a cloud of dust. I can't recruit the kids out of the hallway. I think we have to do something to attract them,' " Lunney said.

Outlaw, who guided Arkadelphia to state titles in 1979 and 1987, led Lufkin to the Texas Class 5A Division II state championship in 2001. He died in 2011 at 57.

Lunney, a 1970 graduate of Southside, started his head coaching career at Beebe, where he had a 15-6 record in 1987-1988. He was hired at Southside in 1989 and was 136-60-1 in 16 seasons, leading the Rebels to state championships in 1991, 1992, 1997 and 2002. At Bentonville, Lunney won state titles in 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2014. During his 28-year head coaching career, Lunney won or shared 16 conference championships and had 13 10-victory seasons, including five at Bentonville.

"They were not going to beat themselves," Patton said. "There has never been a better play-caller in high school football than Barry Lunney."

Lunney retired as Bentonville's coach in January 2015 after 10 seasons at the school. He led the Tigers to the Class 7A state championship in December 2014 despite an 0-4 start.

In his year away from coaching, Lunney said he's missed the relationships with his coaches and players. He added that he appreciated the loyalty and commitment from his players over the years.

"It's a special, special thing," Lunney said. "You can't replace that. Those are things that you miss."

Even in defeat, Lunney was gracious.

Patton's Fayetteville team beat Bentonville in the 2007 Class 7A semifinals. He was trying to shake hands with Lunney after the game, but his players were a little overzealous.

"Our players wanted to dump me with a bucket of water," Patton said. "They dumped the water, I ducked and it soaked Barry. He just lost a big game and our players dumped him with a bucket of ice water.

"I called him the next day to apologize. He said, 'Coach, I'm so happy for you guys. Your kids were excited. No problem, no big deal.' He showed a lot of class. He's a gentleman in every sense of the word.

"It was an honor to coach against him."

Sports on 02/02/2016