LITTLE ROCK — Over and over, Jimmy Culp’s athletic career strongly suggested that no one could have invented a game he couldn’t have mastered, either playing or coaching.
As a sophomore at Southern Arkansas in 1953-1954, Culp led the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference’s football receivers and basketball scorers during the same school term. He also found time to letter as a sprinter and hurdler on the track team.
(He professed to love baseball also, but he had to find time to do that in the summers.)
By the mid-1960s, he was the state’s hottest young basketball coach for North Little Rock High School, with a three-year record of 83-12 (25-5, 26-4, 32-3) including a state tournament victory and three conference championships. With an outstanding nucleus due back, he startled most coaches by resigning after the 1964-1965 season.
“I loved coaching and [leaving] was all about economics,” he said. “Mary Ellen and I got married in college, and by the time I got out of coaching we already had all four of our kids. If I had gone back to North Little Rock, I would have been making $7,100. I was offered a job recruiting and training salesmen for an insurance company, starting at $12,000. It was a case of financial reality. But it didn’t take long for us to start loving Northwest Arkansas.”
Culp spent almost 20 years in the insurance business, followed by a fascination with lifting weights at a fitness center called Power Company. When the gym went up for sale a year or two later, he bought and renamed it Culp’s Gym, then eventually sold it. He now works as a personal trainer.
His North Little Rock Wildcats were anxious for a reunion - almost 50 years after the coach’s departure.
“Larry Wooldridge, Danny Russell and another guy or two mentioned it to me about a month ago,” said Bobby Vint. “Some of the guys couldn’t make it, like Richard Baldwin and Gary Stephens. They really wanted to be there. Richard is now a minister at Kansas City, and he had to fill in for somebody.”
The former players present Saturday night at Corky’s restaurant in North Little Rock included Bill Burnett, Russell, Woodridge, Nicky Boyd, Bobby Browning, Clark Morgan, Ray Maleom, Joe Lamb, Jerry Killion, Vint, Tommy Skinner, former NLR assistant coach John Montgomery, and Coach Culp. It was an extremely good-natured setting.
When Culp’s turn came, he said, “I wanted this team to be the best it could, the best coaching and best defense. I knew this team had talent. I love you guys.”
During his coaching years in central Arkansas, he also played independent basketball for Carder Buick of Searcy, and was a persistent force as Carder won five state tournaments in seven seasons. In the 1980s, in his 50s, he became fascinated with body-building and Senior Olympics.
He was asked recently if the Culp descendants are very athletic.
“Well, my oldest son, Jim Jr., was a vaulter at Arkansas-Monticello,” he said. “David was an all state tailback at Springdale. Greg was a NAIA decathlon champion at Monticello and later Abilene Christian (Texas). Suzanne was a body-builder, a two-time contestant in the nationals and state aerobic winner in Arkansas.
“Dan Culp won a decathlon at Rogers. Chad Johnson won the decathlon at Farmington.
“Bradley Culp won his second consecutive decathlon, in addition to catching 13 touchdowns for 1,273 yards for Fayetteville High last fall, at the rate of more than 20 yards per catch.”
Jen Condren is an All-American pole vaulter for Arkansas; Steven Barker, who won the junior pole vault for Elkins, is Culp’s great grandson.
Somehow, the Culp bloodlines remain as promising as ever.
Sports, Pages 18 on 07/03/2012