MAYFLOWER — Todd Langrell has done it again.
As the football coach of the Mayflower Eagles for the 2017 season, he’s the River Valley & Ozark Edition Coach of the Year for the second time.
“That’s awesome; thank you very much,” Langrell said, laughing.
He also received the honor in 2014, the first year it was given.
The 46-year-old Mayflower High School graduate just made a move — he was hired earlier this month and started Monday as football coach of the Vilonia High School Eagles to replace Ron Young. Last year, Vilonia’s team went 1-9.
“It’s a big jump to 3A to 5A, and you always want to grow professionally, and it gets me in a position to do that,” Langrell said. “I want to stay hungry; I’m going to be coaching against some of the best coaches in the state, I believe.
“It’s bittersweet leaving home, but I think people understand … success breeds opportunity; the kids put in the work that allowed me the opportunity I have,” he said.
He doesn’t take much credit for the 11-1 Mayflower team, which was undefeated in the 3A-2 Conference. The 10-0 record in the regular season was a first in Mayflower’s history, he said.
The Eagles lost 41-14 to the Rivercrest Colts, who won the state championship.
“We got beat by the better team,” Langrell said.
For most of the season, though, the Mayflower Eagles were the far better team on the field.
Langrell said the key to that success is that every player on the field is a coach, and that has made the difference.
It all started when he came back in 2014, he said. Langrell played basketball and football at Mayflower High School and went to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. He landed his first coaching job in Mayflower after he graduated in 1996. He coached a little bit of everything for nine years and served as junior high football coach and assistant high school boys basketball and football coach.
He left Mayflower and went to Oak Grove for one year and was head junior high basketball and football coach and assistant high school football coach. Then he took a job as offensive coordinator in the Greenbrier School District, but he considered Mayflower home.
“It’s the place where I wanted to be,” Langrell said in 2014.
He was successful from the get-go, which surprised him.
“I’m going to tell you — when I first got here, and that’s why I wanted to come back — I wanted to change the culture around here,” he said. “It seemed you’d always hear some bad things. I thought man, I’m going to have to move a mountain around here because of the selfishness. … They bought in, and it was probably as quick a turnaround as I’ve ever seen.”
The 2014 team went 9-4.
“We could have easily had a bad season,” he said. “This team, the 2014 team, after they bought in and these guys (the current players) were ninth-graders, I think they saw that, and we had such good, good chemistry, work ethic. We had 36 on the team, and there are 36 coaches out there because they’re coaching during practice. Kids are teaching, and I think that’s the biggest contributor to our success. They communicate — and what they say, they’re not saying the wrong thing — and they’re showing each other [what to do],” Langrell said. “That means a lot.”
The key game in the 2017 season was against Harding Academy, which Mayflower defeated resoundingly 42-14.
“I think the 3A-2 Conference always goes through Harding Academy. It’s hard to beat those guys because they’re so well-coached and such a good-tradition program,”
Langrell said. “A Mayflower team has never beat Harding as bad as we did,” he said, quickly adding that he doesn’t mean to sound harsh. “We were really hungry that night. We had some adversity. We had some problems in that game and overcame them, and I thought that was the defining moment of our season.”
The team should be successful next season, too,
Langrell said. Seven players are returning, including twin standouts Deon and Keon Simmons, who will be seniors.
Deon Simmons is the River Valley & Ozark Edition Offensive Player of the Year.
Langrell said that’s a good call. Simmons rushed for 2,562 yards and had 43 touchdowns — and he could have had more if not for the mercy rule.
Simmons said Langrell “is a great coach.”
“He likes to motivate us all the time. He pushes us every day, on and off the field,”
Simmons said. “He makes sure we keep our grades up. He seems like he really cares about his team.”
Langrell said he sees the bigger picture.
“It’s all about, to me, building relationships and gaining trust of the kids; it’s more than just wins and losses. We want to win every single game, but we want to produce men of character,” he said, “and when they leave school, they have what they need to be successful in life.”
Langrell, before he accepted the job in Vilonia, said he would like to go undefeated at home and win a conference championship and the state championship, which he called the “ultimate” goal.
“We’ve never been that far in football. … I think Mayflower has been to the quarterfinals five times in history. I’ve been part of that three out of five times, either playing or coaching,” he said.
Since Langrell came back in 2014, the Mayflower Eagles have done nothing but rise.
“The success we’ve had has not just been from me; I promise you that,” he said.
Langrell also gave credit to Chance Lefler, offensive coordinator, and Andrew Harrison, defensive coordinator.
And to every player on his team — coaches, he said, every one.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.