SPRINGDALE — Crosby Tuck dropped back and provided simulated coverage during a passing drill.
The player cut and curled in on a comeback route, making a leaping catch on a pass with a lot of zip. As he came down with the catch, Tuck patted the receiver on the helmet.
The dark stubble on his face was the only hint Tuck wasn’t one of players. Not long ago he was scoring touchdowns and leading Shiloh Christian’s football program to state championships. On Wednesday, he was back at Champions Stadium trying to help the young Saints’ receivers achieve their own success as a coach.
“I think it’s one of those special opportunities a lot of people don’t get,” Shiloh Christian coach Josh Floyd said. “A lot of our kids knew him when they were young. A lot of these kids looked up to Crosby.
“He’s one of the best receivers I’ve ever seen in high school football.”
Tuck was called back to his alma matter this summer when a former coach, Jimmy Harris, was hired at Stillwater, Okla. Tuck had been coaching in Florida for the past two years, and had recently taken an offensive coordinator position.
Floyd, who coached both Tuck and fi rst-year off ensive coordinator Austin Tucker on the Saints’ 2006 state championship team, did a Skype interview and worked out the details to bring him home.
“It was a great opportunity,” Tuck said. “I talked to my wife Lauren about it, and we decided it was the best move for us as a family going forward and for me as a coach. This place is special to me.”
Tuck was a star for the Saints on Floyd’s 3A state championship team. As a record-setting receiver, he ranks fourth all-time on the state’s career touchdown list with 53. His 219 career receptions also ranked fourth, and his 4,381 receiving yards are second all-time.
He earned a scholarship to Arkansas under former coach Houston Nutt and was a contributor early, scoring a 40-yard touchdown against Alabama in 2007. But Tuck’s college career ended abruptly when he broke his right elbow against Kentucky in just his third game. Two of his three career catches were touchdowns, including a 42-yarder from Darren McFadden.
“I shattered my radial head,” he said. “I went through a surgery and months of rehab. I came back for my sophomore season and tried to keep going on it, but football at that level with what I had to do from a strength training standpoint and just a physicality standpoint with the way my elbow was at that point, it was just not something I was going to be able to do at the SEC level.”
The Razorbacks honored Tuck’s scholarship and he earned his degree in kinesiology from Arkansas in 2010.
Although Tuck and Tucker, who have remained close friends, are back at Shiloh Christian, they are not the only former Saints in the coaching ranks, Floyd said. Former linebacker Adam Herring is a graduate assistant college coach at Texas, and Andrew Jordan is a coach at Lynchburg Christian Academy in Virginia.
“I don’t think I’m that old, but it makes me feel a little old having those guys back, but they obviously were special kids when they were here,” Floyd said.