After a long career as a coach, principal and superintendent, Rick Waters was contemplating retirement. That all changed when he was hired as the new athletic director for the Lake Hamilton School District in Pearcy.
Waters, 55, received the nod after the interviewing process was completed in June. He officially started his new position July 1, taking over for John Utley, who went back into coaching and teaching.
“Strictly, by the grace of God is where I am now,” Waters said. “That’s the honest truth. I mean that wholeheartedly.”
Waters, who is originally from Caraway in northeast Arkansas, was the superintendent for the Genoa Central School District in Texarkana. He held that position for four years but had resigned in September 2016, finishing out the school year.
“I knew I was done,” he said. “I don’t want to do that anymore. I had another opportunity to be a superintendent. I just didn’t want to do it.”
The position at Lake Hamilton opened up late in the 2016-17 school year.
“I think they reached out to a couple of athletic directors locally that they were interested in,” Waters said. “When they opened it up publicly, it was right at the end of May. I interviewed the first week of June.”
Waters has been in education for 32 years. He’s been primarily a basketball coach, while also coaching football and other sports during his 17-year coaching career. Stops included Guy-Perkins, Hermitage, Bay, Flippin and West Side Greers Ferry. He was a principal at Green Forest and West Side before going to Genoa Central as superintendent.
“When this job came open, my wife, [Sharon], and I were preparing to move to our home in Greers Ferry,” Waters said. “I thought this would be an awesome job for me. I love sports. I’m in the back end of my career. I thought that would be a great way to finish out a career.
“I threw my hat in the ring. By the grace of God, the door opened, and the offer was made, and here I am.”
Waters said he didn’t think he was cut out to be a superintendent for the long haul.
“I was seriously thinking of retiring at the end of my 30th year,” he said. “It was a tough four years. It was a challenging four years. You really need to be from that community (Genoa Central) for them to accept you.”
At the same time, Waters said there are good people in that community.
“I had a fellow tell me that everyone who has a desire to be a superintendent needs to do it at least one time in their life,” Waters said. “I know what he means now. I’m not real political in my ways sometimes. I believe in doing what is right for the kids, and the adults sometimes don’t understand that.
“I don’t mix well with the politics side of it.”
Waters said if he had a school board at Genoa Central similar to what Lake Hamilton has, he might still be the superintendent at Genoa.
“[Lake Hamilton] is a great school,” he said. “Mr. [Steve] Anderson is a great superintendent to work for. He is an employee-teacher person. His decisions are based on making things better for these kids, giving them every opportunity, and the board supports that.”
Anderson said the district did an extensive search for a new athletic director.
“We had a number of qualified applicants,” he said. “As our program at Lake Hamilton has grown, as it has at both Class 6A and 7A, I’m seeing more and more athletic directors approaching that job more as a school-administrator viewpoint. That is what attracted us to Rick Waters. Besides his background in coaching, he had also been a high school principal and even had a stint as a superintendent for a while. We felt like he had a great background with lots of experiences in different areas.
“We’ve been pleased. He’s brought a little different approach to our athletic department. We’ve been real pleased with what we’re seeing right now.”
Waters said he’s never worked at school larger than Class 3A. Lake Hamilton is a Class 6A school. He said the size of the district made him “big-eyed.”
“There are 4,300 in this district,” Waters said. “The numbers are what made me big-eyed. It took me a week and a half to two weeks to adjust; then I realized, ‘It’s all the same thing. It’s just got a bigger number in there.’”
Not long after Waters was hired, he received an email from Anderson saying that the district was going to hire a full-time assistant athletic director. Jeff Scott, a coach in the district, had been doing that job on a part-time basis while also coaching and teaching.
“You’d understand now if you saw my calendar,” Waters said. “We have a lot of junior-high events and senior-high events on the same night. We divide those responsibilities up and help each other out. We’re able to cover everything. One of us is at almost every activity.”
Waters said three in-house candidates were interviewed for the position, including Scott, who was hired as assistant athletic director.
“We had three good folks,” he said. “I feel like [Scott’s] knowledge of the athletic department would just help me mesh into this a whole lot quicker.
“We work well together.”
Scott, 46, has been at Lake Hamilton since he was in the third grade. He’s now worked for the district for 23 years. He has coached several sports, including basketball, baseball, tennis and softball. He won a state championship in 2000 in softball.
Scott said he is enjoying working for Waters.
“He’s helping me with budget issues. … I’m really new to that kind of stuff,” Scott said. “He’s good. He’s really including me on everything.”
Scott said Waters has fit well into the Lake Hamilton community.
“We’ve had coaches and different people who don’t seem to fit our community,” Scott said. “He fits in well. He’s got a daughter who is established here as a coach.”
Scott said he works as a go-between with the coaching staff and Waters.
“Since I’ve been here so long, I know the coaches very well,” he said. “A lot of them will come to me with questions because [Waters] is new, and they don’t know him as well. I can be a good go-between. It’s worked out well.”
Anderson said having a full-time assistant athletic director helps with academics.
“Our principals and assistant principals at the middle, junior high and high school obviously have a lot of nighttime activities that they have to go to,” Anderson said. “While those are important to be there to support their kids and help with crowd control and everything else, their main job is to take care of things in their building from 8 o’clock to 3, with the main focus being on academics.”
Anderson said going to all the evening activities was running the administrators “to death.”
“Sometimes, when you are out to 11 o’clock or midnight, it’s hard to get back in that English classroom the next morning and have your full focus on academics and the academic performance of your teachers and kids,” he said. “We felt like [having an assistant AD] would give them some assistance in supervision of these athletic programs and also give them a little bit of a break every once in a while.”
Anderson said he doesn’t think the district could have found a better person than Scott to have great chemistry with Waters.
“Coach Waters is bringing some experience as an AD, high school principal and superintendent,” Anderson said. “Jeff is bringing some of the local institutional knowledge of our school, current staff and our community. That has been a really good blend. They can feed off each other and learn off each other.
“We’ve been really pleased with that new setup.”
Scott and his wife, Brandee, who is a kindergarten teacher at Lake Hamilton, have one daughter, Jacey, who is a senior at Lake Hamilton High School.
Waters and his wife have three children. His oldest daughter, Maribeth Richards, is junior girls head basketball coach at Lake Hamilton. His middle daughter, Sarah Drum, lives in Jonesboro. His youngest daughter, Gracie, is a sophomore at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. The Waterses have one grandson, Dawson, and another grandchild due in December.
Waters received his bachelor’s degree from UCA after playing two years of basketball at Central Baptist College in Conway. He was inducted into the CBC Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
“That was a big honor for me in my life,” he said.
He earned his master’s degree from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and his specialist degree from UCA.
Waters said he has several goals for the athletic department at Lake Hamilton.
“One of the things we’re trying to change is the image of just being an athletic school,” he said. “We’ve got some brilliant athletes in the academic process.”
One way to accomplish this is the Scholar-Athlete of the Week program. Waters said coaches can nominate players who are showing improvements in class by raising their grade-point averages and having good conduct in class.
“That is something we’ve taken on that we’re really proud of,” he said. “We want people to embrace that we have really bright athletes. Sometimes, we get confused that Lake Hamilton is the athletic school and that Hot Springs Lakeside is the academic school. They have a great school and programs all the way around, too.”
Waters said the department has a goal to win at least five state championships in various sports.
“That may be unrealistic to some people, but it is a goal for us,” he said. “If we can win one or two, we’ll be tickled to death.”
As far as team sports, Waters said, the department has set a goal of total wins for the school year.
“We’ve got a number out there with all our sports,” he said. “We’ll put a tally to that.”
Also, Waters is encouraging athletes in other sports to support the other teams during their seasons.
“Right now, we’re encouraging our football folks to come in and watch the volleyball team at the end of their practice or go to tennis matches,” he said. “We’ve seen a tremendous uprise with our coaches on board with that.”
Waters said the coaches have been on board with recent changes.
“They are OK with a little bit of change,” he said. “Nothing was bad in the past. It’s just new eyes and new breath.”
The department has also started the Captains’ Council.
“We’re incorporating a new leadership program into our sports department,” Waters said. “We’ve got 40 kids who the coaches have nominated who are future leaders of our district and community.” They are athletes in ninth through 12th grades.
“The goal with that is to teach our young people to be leaders,” he said. “It will run through the semester. It’s basically to teach a leader that it’s OK to be a servant. It’s OK if the team captain has to pick up a dirty towel off the floor and put it in the wash instead of a sophomore doing it.
“We’re getting real positive feedback from our community.”
Waters said he is thankful for being at Lake Hamilton.
“We’re tickled to be here,” he said. “Our family is getting to see each other. I get to be with my daughter every day. It brought our family a little closer together coming here.”
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.