SPRINGDALE — Heather Hunsucker keeps her three basketball state championship rings stowed in a jewelry box at her home.
She earned her first as the starting point guard for Fort Smith Northside in 1999, kicking off a string of six state championships in 15 years for the Lady Bears and coach Rickey Smith.
She earned the other two during her five seasons as an assistant coach under Bobby Smith at Fayetteville, where she helped mentor current Arkansas starting point guard Calli Berna.
All-NWA Media Girls Coach Of The Year
Heather Hunsucker
School: Springdale High
Record: 28-54 (3 years)
2013-14 Record: 16-11
2013-14 Conference: 9-5 (t-3rd)
2013-14 Postseason: 7A state quarterfinals
Notable: Led Springdale to its first playoff win since 2003 in a 60-50 first-round win against Fort Smith Southside. … Molded team with four sophomores among top five scorers to win eight of final 11 games, including six-game conference winning streak, program’s longest since 2002. … Springdale beat every team in the conference at least once. … Won a state championship in 1999 as a player at Fort Smith Northside. Won two state titles in five years as an assistant at Fayetteville.
The third-year Springdale High coach took the rings out of the jewelry box and started wearing them in late February to motivate her Lady Bulldogs team headed for its first playoff appearance since 2009.
“I told them I needed some with red,” Hunsucker said.
That thought was unfathomable when she took the job in 2011. She had a winning pedigree. But Springdale didn’t. At all.
She inherited a Lady Bulldogs program that finished in the bottom two of the conference standings in five of six seasons after Springdale split into a second high school in 2005, including three last-place finishes. It’s a job most would have shied away from taking.
But Hunsucker didn’t.
“Bobby (Smith) looked at me and said, ‘Heather, I truly believe you can win at Springdale,’” Hunsucker said. “He said there was an opportunity there. I decided that it was that time. I wanted to move on. I had career goals.”
But those aspirations were mostly on hold the first two seasons as she undertook the task of trying to turn the struggling program around.
Springdale went 12-43 those first two seasons, including 0-14 and 2-12 conference records that kept the Lady Bulldogs in the conference cellar and ran their league record to 14-100 since the split. But there were signs of a change in culture as last season’s team showed improvement from her first, avoiding a last-place finish and playing competitively in losing five conference games by three points or less.
“You saw a group that you could build on and you saw that the program was turning in the way that they worked and in their mental attitude,” Hunsucker said. “Because, to me, the biggest challenge is creating a winning environment. And we simply did not have that at Springdale when I got there.”
Everything changed this year. Springdale became a contender.
An influx of talent in the sophomore class paved the way for a historic season, easily Springdale’s best since the split. Hunsucker finally had the players to run a more up-tempo, free-flowing system.
The Lady Bulldogs advanced to the Class 7A quarterfinals by beating Fort Smith Southside for their first playoff win since 2003, one of a number of breakthroughs including their best conference finish (3rd) since 2003, longest conference winning streak (6) since 2002 and most overall wins (16) since 2005.
The talent clearly made a big difference. Hunsucker had college coaches contacting her for a change this season.
“I had to do some of the reaching out to the college coaches and use some of my friends that were college coaches as references,” Hunsucker said of her first few years.
But the talent was bolstered by Hunsucker’s coaching, a combination of intensity, savvy and organization, all of which her players gravitate toward.
“She always shows us she believes in us and she’ll never quit on us,” sophomore point guard Kierra Lang said. “And she shows us that she trusts us with everything. She gets in our tails sometimes. But we know it’s because she loves us and wants us to work our hardest and get the best out of us.”
Senior Baiyinnah Taylor got to witness the turnaround up close for three years. She was a sophomore when Hunsucker took over, playing a part in the transformation that turned the program around.
“She changed Springdale,” Taylor said. “She’s one of those coaches where she would make any team better. You could give her a team at rock bottom and she will find a way to lift that team up. And that’s what she’s done.”
It didn’t take much time for the talented sophomore class to form a bond with their new coach.
“It was love at first sight,” Lang said.
The hope is that the bond will lead to Hunsucker adding another ring to her jewelry box.
Sports on 03/30/2014