Two coaches will get their first opportunities to lead varsity-level teams this fall, as the Bald Knob School District has hired Kirk McDonald and Madison Leach to be the head coaches for the girls and boys basketball teams, respectively.
“It gives me an opportunity to prove everything I was taught by Alan Riley for the past 12 years,” McDonald said. “He taught me how to run a program, and I learned things I would do different in a program, and it gives me a chance to do it.
“I’ve got really good assistants at Bald Knob. We are going to be a tight family unit. I am a relationship-type coach, and my job is more than just basketball.”
“I was excited to become a head coach, but I didn’t want to be just anywhere,” Leach said. “Bald Knob is a program that I would like to be at, and it is somewhere good for my family. Plus, one of my friends, Caleb Crisp, is an assistant and head junior high coach at Bald Knob, and he raves about how much he enjoys it.”
McDonald has been an assistant under former Vilonia High School girls basketball coach Alan Riley for the past 12 years. In McDonald’s first season under Riley, the Lady Eagles won the Class 5A state championship. McDonald became the head junior high coach in 2013.
“I think he will do a good job,” Riley said. “Hopefully, he will develop a consistent program and get [the players] on the right track.
“His style of play, much like mine, is dictated by his players and the speed they want to play. He probably plays more zone than I do, but he will be able to adjust game by game. I think he will do a good job with that.”
Riley, who retired this year, said that, hopefully, McDonald will bring the same kind of success to Bald Knob that he did at Vilonia. Jeremy Simon will coach the girls and boys basketball teams at Vilonia High School this fall.
Leach replaces Matt Ragsdale, who resigned to be the assistant senior high coach at Nettleton this fall. McDonald replaces Katie Cooper, who will remain on staff for the district for its EAST classroom at the middle school.
Leach has served as an assistant boys basketball coach under Joe Scott at Sheridan High School for the past five seasons. Leach said he was the head junior high coach last year, and he learned a lot from Scott, including the importance of preparation for both practices and games.
“He is a very high-character guy and has an excellent work ethic,” Scott said of Leach. “He has developed rapports with faculty and students, and overall, he is just a really good worker.
“I think he will do great, and I have a lot of confidence in him. I think he will be able to turn that program around.”
Leach said his wife, Ashley, is a pharmacist, and she was driving from East End to Heber Springs about three times a week. Therefore, moving to Bald Knob will cut down on her commute.
“I’m really excited to show what I learned at Sheridan,” Leach said. “Part of me is a little nervous, but I’m hoping that I can take everything I learn and be able to implement it and lead Bald Knob to be successful.”
Leach said his grandfather was a high school basketball coach, and Leach’s dad was a high school basketball official for 70 years. Leach said basketball is a sport that his family has always loved.
“There was something about basketball in high school that drove me to loving it,” Leach said. “All the action, all the preparation — I just enjoy being around the game as much as possible.”
McDonald said he became a coach because he wanted to be a positive role model for players and have a positive effect on both senior high and junior high boys and girls. He said his objective at Bald Knob is to win games, but his purpose is to have a positive impact on the lives of his players.
“They need to know that they are loved and their value is not defined by what they do on the court, and they were uniquely created to make a positive difference in the world,” McDonald said. “Bald Knob is a really small school, with a family atmosphere, and [Bald Knob is] a tight-knit community that supports basketball and has had some success in the past.
“I want to take my success from Vilonia and bring it to the Bald Knob School District.”
McDonald is originally from Malvern, having graduated from Malvern High School in 1986. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1991. He said he remembers camping out his senior year at the U of A to see the Razorbacks play the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“They looked like grown men compared to our guys, who looked like skinny boys,” McDonald said. “Those were some great memories for me.”
Leach played basketball at Mount Vernon Enola High School, graduating in 2011. He was a sophomore when the team made it to the state finals. He earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in 2015, having served for two years as manager for Corliss Williamson, who was UCA’s head basketball coach at the time.
“I want to build relationships with these students and become a part of this community,” Leach said. “Hopefully, we get to play and get on the court, and I get to be on the sidelines. I am looking forward to being a head coach on the varsity level and the excitement and pressure that come with it.”
McDonald said practice has begun for the basketball teams. He said the players do have to take their temperature, and he asks the players to wear masks when they first come in, and coaches have to wear their masks the entire time. He said the staff sanitizes the basketballs and splits the girls into smaller groups. He said it is important for the teams to follow the health guidelines as best as possible.
Leach said his team has practiced a couple of times in the past week, and he said one of his senior captains, Shane Freeman, sent the coach a text saying how excited he is to start his senior season.
“I would love for us to finish in the top half [of the 3A-2 Conference],” Leach said, “and for us to compete for a conference championship and a potential state-tournament berth. We return two starters, but we lost a lot of scoring from last year.”
“We are going to work hard,” McDonald said. “Everybody wants to win, but who wants to work to win? We are going to work hard to get better because things don’t come easy in life, and you have to work hard to accomplish your goals.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.