BENTONVILLE -- When it came time to select players to help with youth basketball camps at Bentonville, former Tigers coach Mike Nelson would always ask Matt Ragsdale to help out.
"I didn't ask all the players, but I always asked Matt to help," Nelson said. "Matt even came back when he was in college because he really enjoyed it."
Matt Ragsdale
School: Bald Knob
Position: Boys Basketball Head Coach
Notable: Graduated from Bentonville in 2006 and played college basketball at Harding University. … Was a graduated assistant at Harding for one season before coaching for two seasons at Class A Mammoth Spring.
It appears working those camps helped in paving the coaching road for Ragsdale.
Three years after graduating from college, Ragsdale accepted his second high school head coaching position when the 2006 Bentonville graduate was named the head coach at Class 3A Bald Knob earlier this month.
Ragsdale replaces Art Bell, who resigned earlier this summer after two seasons at the school to take a junior high coaching job in Beebe. Bald Knob was 9-17 last season and they qualified for the regional tournament.
Ragsdale said his experiences at Bentonville are a big reason why he got into coaching.
"Coach Nelson is a huge part why I do what I do," Ragsdale said. "All throughout high school, coach Nelson was a great inspiration to me. I looked up to him a lot. When I was in high school, I was able to see what he was able to do, and I wanted to do the same thing. I want to influence kids. I want to teach kids. I want kids to have what I had.
"My dad (John) is also a big part of what I do. My dad, and coach Nelson, always said do what you love and you will never work a day in your life."
Ragsdale, 26, played four seasons for coach Jeff Morgan at Harding University in Searcy. He also spent one season as a graduate at Harding before spending two seasons as the head coach at Class A Mammoth Spring.
This is the first week that Ragsdale is getting a good look at the Bulldogs, and he said he likes what he has seen so far.
"We don't have a lot of things installed, so we just have been going out and playing," Ragsdale said. "I want to see how hard they play. They have fought, they have battled. That is one thing that I want to see early is how hard they play, the fight, the heart that they have. They have it and we are going to keep working.
"I can tell you one thing, we will not be behind when the season starts."
Ragsdale said moving back close to Searcy was a big draw in accepting the job at Bald Knob.
"I guess you can say I got a promotion," Ragsdale said. "I'm very excited because I get to be in a part of an area that I was part of for four years. This is the area I want to be in."
Ragsdale will bring an uptempo and aggressive style of play to Bald Knob, which is something he said he learned under Morgan at Harding.
"Coach Morgan helped me tremendously, and I learned so much from him about basketball and life in general," Ragsdale said. "Coach Morgan is a basketball mind, and a lot of what I run here will be a lot of Harding stuff."
Nelson said he expects Ragsdale to have continued success at Bald Knob.
"Matt was just a joy to coach," Nelson said. "He was one of those kids had a great personality, plus he was talented. Being talented always helps. He was always willing to listen to coaching."
Sports on 07/24/2014