Vilonia senior right fielder Luke Gordon had opportunities to play college baseball and football next year, but he decided instead to quit while he was ahead.
Gordon was one of the key cogs in Vilonia’s
first state-championship baseball team since 1998. He batted .342 with 38 hits, 30 RBIs, 23 runs scored and a .970 fielding percentage. He delivered 12 doubles, two triples, three home runs and just one error as the Eagles marched to a 9-2 state-championship win over
Magnolia for the Class 5A state title.
In football, the 6-1, 217-pound quarterback completed 308 of 527 passes for 3,309 yards and 23 touchdowns (an average of 150.4 yards per game) and rushed for 827 yards and 16 touchdowns.
But instead of playing both sports at Southern Arkansas University or football at Henderson State University, he said he plans to focus on his studies at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway this fall.
“The whole baseball season was the highlight, to see us go from a team that honestly shouldn’t have made the state tournament to being a team that was a lot closer and wanted to be with each other and ended up winning it together — that was something,” he said.
Gordon is the River Valley & Ozark Edition Baseball Player of the Year.
“A lot of us just want to be with each other,” he said. “I think most of us are just sad not getting to play games together anymore. I made a lot of friendships.”
Vilonia coach Brad Wallace said that attitude marked his 2017 seniors.
“Luke said, ‘Coach, I think I already got the prize. What’s going to be hard for me is all these guys I played with this year are not going to be there next year. It won’t be the same experience.”
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Gordon, the son of Stanley and Melanie Gordon, has been an Eagle all of his life. His older brother, Seth, played tennis and basketball for VHS; older sister Lydia was all-state in basketball, tennis and track before going on to compete for Harding University; younger sister Hannah plays volleyball and runs cross country.
“He’s from good stock,” Wallace said. “He’s a very hardworking kid. They own some farms, and he does some work out there. He’s completely changed his body. He’s worked extra hard in the weight room, and he takes good care of himself as far as what he puts in his body. He’s very disciplined in that regard, especially for a high school kid.”
Gordon has played baseball since he can remember and said his intelligence and strength are his best attributes.
He earned all-conference honors in baseball the past three years. In football, he was all-conference two years and all-state as a junior.
“Really, I was just out there to win and spend time with my teammates,” Gordon said of his attitude toward baseball this spring. “I probably should have, but I didn’t set any personal goals.”
The state championship fulfilled all of his desires.
“It was just kind of crazy, honestly,” Gordon said. “It was not expected by anyone at all, except for us, and then we knew something could go wrong. By the end of the year, we really got heated up.
“But it was not a smooth year. Not at all. Our senior class was the difference.”
The Eagles struggled to a 17-11 record before winning their final eight games to finish 25-11. The turning point was the split of a doubleheader with Greenbrier, the Eagles’ Faulkner County nemesis.
“Whenever we beat Greenbrier the first time, we knew we could,” Gordon said. “Everyone was talking about them, including themselves, and nonstop. Once we beat them, we knew we could beat anybody.”
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Getting there, though, was difficult.
“Luke’s a kid who does not like the morning stuff — the weights or the hitting,” Wallace said, referring to his usual demands on his baseball team. “He’s always the kid who asks why we are doing things. That’s fine; in education, we’re raising kids to ask questions.”
Gordon recalled his junior season, which ended 16-9 and short of the Class 5A State Tournament for the first time in his career.
“We were 24-7 in baseball last year. We never got to know each other on any other level other than baseball,” he said of Wallace.
So when the Eagles were short a football coach last fall, Wallace volunteered.
“Luke was the main reason why I did it,” he said. “I wanted our relationship to grow. There had always been some distance there. He’s a football guy; I’m a baseball guy. He’s a good baseball player, but there were a lot of things he didn’t understand about me. Me coaching football gave us time to be together.”
Wallace recalled the game against Farmington when he joined Gordon on the bench.
“I put my arm around him, and he looked at me and said, ‘Coach, thank you for being consistent,’” Wallace said. “So many people try to change who they are, and that consistency brought me and Luke to where we are today. That relationship is awesome.”
Gordon echoed the importance of the football angle.
“For him to go out and sacrifice a lot of time with us when he could’ve been with his family says a lot about him,” Gordon said.
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Gordon sports a 3.3 grade-point average and said he will probably study business management or marketing at UCA. His summer work has included construction and working in the Biscoe rice fields.
Although he said his official competitive days are over, he will likely find another outlet — slow-pitch softball or flag football.
But it is good to know he went out on top.
“That was awesome,” he said. “There’s no better feeling.
“I’m a little sad that it’s over.”