When the high school football season commences in late August, don't be surprised to see a rejuvenated Bobby Bolding patrolling the sidelines, albeit in a different capacity.
After a 24-year head coaching career, the former White Hall coach will join his younger brother Brad's staff at Little Rock Parkview as the team's defensive coordinator. While Bolding will once again prepare for a football season, for the first time in a long time, he will not carry the burden of being the head coach or athletic director.
"I am excited to be a part of my brother's staff and I am looking forward to being a part of watching him run a program," Bolding said. "It will be nice to just be a part of the group of coaches he has assembled. I am going to help them in any way I can. I was literally working about 140 hours per week sometimes during the fall, and even though things slowed down a bit in the spring, there were things I had to see or observe as the athletic director and it was a grind. I just needed a break."
The workload of wearing three different hats -- athletic director, coach and teacher -- hastened Bolding's departure from White Hall. This move has been in the works for a year prior to his resignation, but the 55-year-old relented and stayed a year longer than he anticipated.
"I told the superintendent that he had to get me some help," Bolding said. "There was no way I could do the job the way I was capable of doing it at the time. But he talked me into staying another year and we had some great kids who really worked hard and played some great football."
In his final season on the sidelines in White Hall, Bolding led the Bulldogs to their first state championship appearance since 1987, where they lost to Pulaski Academy 51-19 in December. White Hall suffered a regular-season loss to PA and was also beaten by Brad's Patriots in September.
"We were able to have the kind of season we wanted, but we just came up short in the championship game to a very good team," Bolding said. "We just didn't get the job done that day, and Pulaski Academy was very deserving of that win."
In his 33-year coaching career, Bolding holds a 220-78-3 record and has won three state titles since 1998. He led both Pine Bluff (two titles) and Stuttgart (one title) to championships. Marked Tree was the the only stop on his coaching resume where he would fail to reach a championship game.
After resigning from White Hall as head football coach in December, Bolding stayed on as athletic director for the remainder of the school year before turning in his resignation last month.
Yet, there wasn't a time during his brief sabbatical that he wasn't ruling out a return to the sidelines in some form or fashion. In fact, Bolding admitted that the opportunities were there, but said that it was important that everything felt right for both himself and his family.
"It didn't really matter what level the program was or where it was, I wasn't going to just jump back into the grind of coaching if it wasn't the right fit," he said. "Fortunately, this was a perfect place for me and the salary was pretty comparable to where I was before I resigned from White Hall."
Brad said Parkview is getting one of the best coaches in Arkansas football history on its staff.
"I am the most fortunate head coach in the state," he said.
The two brothers have competed against each other several times in the past (Brad boasts a 5-3 edge), but they are now looking forward to sharing the same sideline for the second time in their storied careers since they were on the same staff at University of Arkansas at Monticello, when both were assistants.
"I am looking forward to it," Bolding said. "It's an exciting time because they are great kids and there are so many good things I see happening here at this school."
The Bolding brothers are the sons of coaching legend Buzz Bolding, who worked at various schools before finishing his career at Conway in the 2009-10 school year.