ELKINS — Nothing about the pregame handshake was that extraordinary.
Nathan Wells walked across the basketball court, shook the opposing coach’s hand and shared a smile with her before returning to West Fork’s bench.
It lasted only a few moments, and it didn’t warrant as much attention as Jim and John Harbaugh will surely get tonight when the brothers shake hands following Super Bowl XLVII.
No TV cameras were in Wells’ face when he embraced his older sister, Elkins girls basketball coach Monica Wells, prior to their game against each other last Tuesday.
“Sure, we want to beat each other because we’re very competitive. That’s why we’re both coaches,” Monica said following a 56-51 win over West Fork, her second close victory against her brother this season. “But the big part is we’re real good about just leaving it on the court.
“We’re real good about not carrying it off the court.”
One of the main storylines heading into the Super Bowl has focused on the Harbaugh brothers, who have spent the past two weeks preparing for their family feud to play out in front of a global audience. It’ll make the first time in American professional sports history that two brothers will face each other for a major championship.
On a much smaller scale, Nathan and Monica Wells know what it’s like to coach against a sibling. They’ve been doing it for more than a decade. It’s a family reunion every time West Fork plays 3A-1 Conference rival Elkins in a girls basketball game.
“I think absolutely we don’t want to lose to each other, so I think both of us really try to prepare hard,” Nathan said, later adding, “I don’t like to lose, but it doesn’t bother me to lose to her more than it does to anybody else.”
Nathan and Monica aren’t the only siblings coaching at rival schools in Northwest Arkansas, but they’re believed to be the only ones who must face each other as head coaches in the same sport.
As it stands now, there’s no chance of the Early brothers meeting on the same playing field. They coach different sports, which must make things easier on the family.
Preston Early is Rogers High’s girls basketball coach, while Kent Early coaches Bentonville’s softball team. Meanwhile, Brian Early serves as Fayetteville’s bowling coach to go along with his duties as the football team’s defensive coordinator.
Sometimes, it’s not always brother versus brother.
Several years ago, Gentry girls basketball coach Tim Rippy found himself sitting on the opposite bench as his father, legendary Ozark coach Ron Rippy, during a first-round game at a regional tournament in Farmington.
The elder Rippy had retired from coaching by then. However, in an attempt to remain involved in the game, he joined Ozark as a volunteer coach.
It made things a bit uncomfortable for the father and son, though Tim said it helped that both of them weren’t head coaches directly competing against each other in the postseason.
“I think it was more awkward for him being in a fatherly position,” Tim said. “He comes to a lot of our ball games and roots us on, but for that night he had to help them win.”
Ron got the edge over his son, with Ozark winning by 10 points to end Gentry’s season. But Tim said his father felt guilty afterward about being a part of the win.
“Later that night, he kind of reflected on how he wasn’t going to put himself in that position again,” Tim said. “I think that ended his volunteer career at Ozark.”
The Wells sibling rivalry keeps going strong, though. It dates back to their childhood, when they played each other in one-on-one basketball games that had a tendency to get heated.
“Whenever one of us got beat, there was always somebody mad,” Nathan said, smiling. “Or probably a fight.”
However, Nathan and Monica admitted that they don’t talk about their games against each other once they step off the court. There are no hard feelings, which was evident last Tuesday.
Monica sat in the stands and chatted with her younger brother not long after Elkins edged West Fork to clinch at least a share of the 3A-1 championship.
“We were brought up in a very sports-minded family, and we just knew that this is always what we wanted to do,” Monica said. “It’s just a competitive spirit. We can’t play anymore, so we’re going to coach.”