Wear Withstands All

ONE-TIME BENTONVILLE COACH HAPPY AT SPRINGDALE HAR-BER

By Kurt Voigt

Posted: November 26, 2009 at 5:12 a.m.

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SPRINGDALE — The Springdale Har-Ber assistant football coach has plenty of reason for that happiness. The Wildcats have reached the Class 7A state semifinals, and they travel to Cabot on Friday with a berth to the state championship game on the line.

It’s the third straight year Har-Ber has reached the semifinals, including one trip to the state championship game two years ago. The Wildcats made that trip in only their second year of varsity play, and much of their success has come thanks to a stable of successful running backs — the position Wear coaches.

Yes, it’s good to be Gary Wear right now.

Five years ago, however, that wasn’t the case.

Tigers Rise, Fall

The fax, with Bentonville Public Schools stamped across the top, was sent at 4:23 p.m., on Friday, Nov. 12, 2004.

The subject line read: “Resignation of Head Coach Gary Wear.”

One week earlier, Bentonville’s football team had ended a 1-9 season with a 36-10 loss to Fayetteville. It was a season that opened with a 32-0 loss at Arlington, Texas, and it was one that tested every bit of strength — mental and physical — that Wear, his assistant coaches and players possessed.

Bentonville had gone 4-6 in 2002 and 3-6 in 2003, and 2004’s collapse brought the Tigers’ final three years under Wear to 8-21, just 5-16 in conference play. That the team was starting a core group of sophomores, a group that would go on to make the playoffs two years later, didn’t make things any easier — or quell rumors about Wear’s job security.

“It was tough,” said former Bentonville offensive coordinator John Fogleman, now the head coach at Malvern. “It was really hard to watch. I felt like we were just crumbling right there, and there was nothing we could do about it.

“We didn’t have the horses we had, and in all aspects it was tough.”

To his credit, the ever-diplomatic Wear still won’t say whether he actually wanted to resign or if he was forced into the decision. His former co-workers speculate that it was the latter, and they say that Wear was told he could keep his coaching stipend for the remainder of that school year as long as he kept quiet.

“At that point in time, I think it was time for us to part ways,” Wear said. “Both for me and them. It was probably the right time to part ways, and we’ll just leave it at that.

“I didn’t hold any grudges, and still don’t hold any grudges. I have some wonderful friends in Bentonville, and that’s part of sports today.”

The black cloud that hung over the Tigers in 2004 was a far cry from just three years earlier. That was when Wear, just a few short months before the start of the football season, was named the interim Bentonville coach after Gary Orr resigned during the summer.

The well-liked Wear, who started in Bentonville as a defensive coordinator in 1992, immediately put his stamp on the Tigers. He infused the program with a sense of direction, a program that had never won more than seven regular-season games since moving to the state’s largest classification in 1989.

Unranked in the preseason, the 2001 Tigers started out 7-0 and ascended to the No. 1 ranking before a midseason loss to Russellville. All the while, Wear kept his interim tag amidst the belief from his assistant coaches and friends that the Bentonville administration didn’t want to hire the longtime assistant and instead preferred a “big name.”

Late in the season, Wear was named the permanent coach. The Tigers responded by claiming the school’s first state football title with a 23-16 win over El Dorado in the championship game in Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium.

“It was phenomenal,” said former Bentonville High Principal Steve Jacoby, who now works at Rogers Heritage. “There was just a lot of enthusiasm.”

The Tigers’ championship was celebrated throughout the community. It also helped kick-start the eventual passage of a 2003 millage that brought Bentonville’s new Tiger Stadium and the rest of the Tiger Athletic Complex.

Wear was deeply involved in the planning and development of the athletic facilities, working with administrators and architects to ensure no small detail was overlooked. Bentonville’s administrators knew of the impending growth in the district, and the belief was an athletic showcase would help draw in Wal-Mart vendors and their families.

The design work carried over into football for Wear, who suffered heart problems after a loss to Rogers during the 2004 season. Looking back, he knows the stress from both losing on the field and the work on the stadium off the field were contributing factors.

“At that point in time, there was a lot going on,” Wear said. “We weren’t successful, and we were trying to build the new stadium and facilities up there. You keep things bottled up, and it comes back to bite you.”

Today, even though he no longer works in Bentonville, Wear still feels a sense of pride and accomplishment when he see the new Tiger Stadium.

“I’m excited for the people of Bentonville to have what they have now, because it was a lot different beforehand,” Wear said. “The success they are having now is the vision we had when we started building the facilities there.”

Springdale Rebirth

Wear thought he was done with football after 2004. He had taken a job teaching and coaching the golf team at Har-Ber when a phone call from then-Springdale High football coach Gus Malzahn pulled him back in.

The two had never worked together, but Malzahn wanted Wear on his staff simply because of the work ethic and preparation he had seen across the field on Friday nights. Given that Springdale had gone 12-1 the season before, was on its way to a state title and national ranking in 2005 and the respect Wear had for Malzahn, the decision was an easy one.

“I probably thought about it for 30, 40 seconds,” Wear said.

The 2005 Springdale state championship did more than just rekindle Wear’s love of football after the stress of his final season at Bentonville. It also helped him refocus his priorities in life, something he has done in the last year after his mother died last September and with his daughter, Jordan, starting college last year.

“I’ve always tried to keep those (priorities) in line, but the job we’re in demands so much time away from your family,” Wear said. “I hope younger coaches can understand their families are there just for a short period of time.”

Har-Ber coach Chris Wood, an assistant with Springdale in 2005, saw Wear’s passion and good relationships with players up close that year. They were two of the primary reasons he hired Wear at Har-Ber in 2006 — along with the hope that one day Wear, and his experience in building a stadium in Bentonville, can help if the time ever comes to build an on-campus stadium at Har-Ber.

“He was one of the first ones I tried to get,” Wood said. “I thought what he did at Bentonville, taking them to the state championship when they had had very little postseason success before, was outstanding.”

Har-Ber has won 30 games over the past three seasons going into Friday’s semifinal game at Cabot. The school has come a long way since its first year of varsity play in 2006, a year Wear enjoyed because of how hard the players worked even though they only won two games.

“The strides we’ve made in such a short period of time is a credit to the kids and the guys in that coaches’ office,” Wear said. “Just to be a part of what’s going on right now is unreal. Our success is a lot of fun.”

Wear, now in his 29th season of coaching high school football, feels the usual pressure and is under the normal stress that any coach in his position would feel. These days, it doesn’t consume him — a far change from five years ago.

“I’m extremely happy,” Wear said. “I’m as content as can be.”

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