College coaches meet in uncharted territory

Arkansas coach Bret Bielema, right, talks to players as Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson, left, looks on during the All Arkansas satellite camp Sunday, June 5, 2016, at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema, right, talks to players as Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson, left, looks on during the All Arkansas satellite camp Sunday, June 5, 2016, at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

By 5:32 p.m. on Sunday a football camp unlike any other the state had seen was still a long way from starting.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Players stretch during Sunday’s All-Arkansas high school football camp at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. In all, 618 participants showed up to be measured and then tested in the 40-yard dash as well as the broad jump. The players also went through several other drills.

"The good news is," Arkansas State Coach Blake Anderson said to one of his assistants, "I can see the end of the line."

A large portion of the credit -- or the blame -- for the spectacle created Sunday at War Memorial Stadium could be put on Anderson, who teamed with Arkansas' Bret Bielema and Ouachita Baptist's Todd Knight in April to stage a football camp open to every high school player and every college coach in the state.

Satellite camps -- those held off a college campus and in which several colleges participate -- have become a lightning rod for debate among coaches and administrators during the past year, but Anderson, Bielema and Knight decided while sitting on an national coaching committee that one that unites the sport in Arkansas was necessary.

Their idea, as long as the camps were still allowed by the NCAA, was to do one at Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium and open it to everybody. All they needed was a $30 entry fee to participate in the All-Arkansas Camp.

Players listened, and so did coaches.

Pre-registration was capped at 500 players, but the walk-up crowd brought the final tally of participants to 618. They were all measured, reported in with their class and position and then tested in the 40-yard dash and the broad jump.

Bielema brought his entire Arkansas staff to the camp, as did Anderson, who was the official host, meaning the $30 registration fee for each camper went to ASU. But representatives from 10 other Arkansas colleges were present.

Central Arkansas, Bielema said, chose not to attend because it plays ASU this season.

"I just think that we all want to promote the best football in the state of Arkansas that we can," Anderson said. "Any time you can promote football in this state -- which I think is part of our job -- to show the advantages of it and create opportunities, and everybody jumped in with both feet to do it, from one end of the state to the other."

Bielema said he's "caught heat" from some over the past five weeks since he was the first to mention the agreement for the camp. Most of that centered around the University of Arkansas' longstanding policy not to compete in athletics with any other in-state college.

"When it first came out and got released ... the powers that be sounded off a little bit," Bielema said. "Then I'd run into certain media people or people who have been around a long time and they couldn't believe that conceptually it could happen."

But on Sunday, Bielema and his Razorbacks staff were on the same patch of turf as Anderson and his Red Wolves' coaches. There were also Golden Lions, Tigers, Bisons, Reddies, Muleriders, Boll Weevils, Wonder Boys, Warriors, Scots and Buffaloes assembled in one place for maybe the first time.

It was such an oddity, that Larry Lacewell, Arkansas State's all-time winningest coach, stopped by just to see it for himself.

"I came out here just to make sure it was real and that I wasn't dreaming," Lacewell said.

Arkansas-Monticello Coach Hud Jackson said he usually doesn't leave his campus for summer camps, preferring to show potential recruits the Boll Weevils' set up. But, 600 high school players less than two hours from his office was a good enough reason to change his normal procedure.

"All of us are coming together for a common goal here, and that's to find football players that can help our program win," Jackson said. "Competition is competition, but trying to find good football players, everybody can work together on that."

The turnout, which meant drills were being conducted until past 8:30 p.m., surprised some coaches.

Harding's Ronnie Huckeba was not among the those.

Huckeba, who has played at or coached at his alma mater for most of the last 30 years, said Sunday that he didn't remember who invited him to the camp, but that he was always going to say yes.

"The sport is under attack, and anything that helps promote our sport to me is worth getting involved in," he said. "It's good for football in the state of Arkansas, and that's important to me."

Will this be the one and only time it happens, though?

In April, the NCAA Division I Council made it so camps could not be held off campus. Then, a few weeks later, that decision was reversed. But the future of them are still in doubt.

"Somewhere along the way there's going to be some compromise," Anderson said. "But I don't see how you can take it away from the kids that we have the ability to go to them. I don't see how that benefits the game of football."

Bielema, who has voiced support of the camps, will take his staff to Houston, Atlanta and Tampa in the next couple of weeks for similar camps next week. As long as they're allowed, he said making room for Little Rock will be a desire.

Sports on 06/06/2016

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