Longtime UA-Monticello coach Alvy Early dies

Alvy Early
Alvy Early

Alvy Early, the longtime women's basketball and softball coach at the University of Arkansas-Monticello, died Monday at 77 after a bout with cancer.

Early who won 1,178 games in softball and women's basketball. He coached the women's basketball team from 1979-2000, where he had a career record of 425-211. His 1990 team was runner-up in the NAIA national tournament, losing to Southwestern Oklahoma. Under his leadership, the Cotton Blossoms won the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference in 1986, 1987, 1990 and 1995. They also won the Gulf South Conference title in 1996.

He coached the softball team from 1997-2018. He was named Gulf South Conference Western Division Softball Coach of the Decade from 2000-2010. His teams won seven GSC Western Division titles and advanced to the NCAA Tournament four times. When UAM joined the Great American Conference in 2012, Early led the Blossoms to the new league's first regular-season and tournament championships.

He also served as UAM's athletic director from 1997-2009. He is also a member of the UAM and Arkansas Sports halls of fame.

Early, who was born in Fort Smith, but attended high school in Pahoke, Fla., received a college deferment from the local draft board and went on to letter in football, baseball and tennis at UAM, graduating in 1967.

Lindsey Kight, who played on four consecutive Gulf South Conference Western Division championship teams from 2001-2004, said of Early: "He was so successful because he took the players who already had a good foundation and he made them strive to be that much better," she said. "He pushed you to the point where you didn't think you could go anymore. He got more of out his players than they thought they had."

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