Once the dust finally settled on the 2020 football season and this year's Arkansas Activities Association state championships had been handed out, Rep. Jim Wooten, R-Beebe, felt as if things had reached "a tipping point."
With Pulaski Academy (Class 5A), Shiloh Christian (Class 4A) and Harding Academy (Class 3A) all finishing atop their respective classifications -- in addition to Little Rock Christian ending as the Class 5A runner-up -- it meant that a third of the state finalists were private schools, extending a pattern from much of the past decade.
For Wooten, it was all the more reason why he believed now was the time to make a change.
Just a few days into the legislative session of the 93rd Arkansas General Assembly, Wooten proposed a bill, HB1097, that would, if passed, force the AAA to create separate athletics systems for public and private schools across the state. Such a setup would be a radical change from the current format where public and private schools compete against one another, albeit with certain restrictions placed on the private schools to level the playing field.
But from the perspective of Wooten, along with his four co-sponsors, this proposed change is their last-ditch effort at solving a problem they view has plagued public schools for many years.
"The private schools have distinct advantages over public schools relative to recruitment, relative to facilities and training," Wooten told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "It's just a situation where we, in public education, have to take and play with what we get ... and it's just become a dominant situation in their favor."
Wooten is a Beebe native and a former member of the school's football coaching staff. His family's name is also on the Badgers' home field.
He says, however, that this problem has not just frustrated him alone.
"I have heard from superintendents and athletic directors and school board members," Wooten said. "The main outpouring has come from parents who have seen their kids be demoralized on Friday nights in small-town Arkansas by some of these private schools."
Although three of the state's six classifications this year were won by private schools, it was just the third time in the last 10 seasons that more than one private school has won a football state title. And outside of Pulaski Academy, which has won six of the last seven Class 5A championships (Little Rock Christian claimed the other in 2018), public schools have won all but four of the other 35 football titles handed out since 2014.
Only 22 of the 113 championships, or 19.5%, have gone to private schools in the 2000s. A total of 12% of private schools make up all the football-playing schools in the AAA.
It's why longtime Pulaski Academy football Coach Kevin Kelley struggles to see this change as an effective solution.
"One of the problems in our society is that when our kids are having a tough time, we don't want to help them push through and get through it and fight to come out on top. We want to make it easier for them." Kelley said. "I think we find excuses to change things and find ways to make it easier for our kids to win rather than saying, 'What if you can find a way to beat them?' "
Beebe happens to play football in the same 5A-Central Conference as both Pulaski Academy and Little Rock Christian, and the Badgers have lost to Kelley's team by double digits each of the last seven seasons.
The change wouldn't impact just football, despite it being the impetus behind the bill. Public and private schools would be forced to compete independently in all sports -- at least for conference play and playoffs -- which could create logistical nightmares for sports such as basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball, as those teams play upwards of 20 games in a regular season.
That could result in a combination of long trips -- both in and out of the state -- as well as situations in which more rural private schools wind up playing against one another several times over the course of a season.
"To kick [the private schools] out of the AAA or make them compete in a separate league -- I don't like it," said Little Rock Central boys basketball Coach Brian Ross, who both played and coached previously at Baptist Prep. "[The private schools] already have some different rules they have to follow ... but you have some good leadership at some of those programs and that's why they win."
The bill, which is now in the hands of the state legislature's education committee, may still be revised before a full, formal vote occurs in the state house. But its main contents will almost certainly remain unchanged, leaving those such as Little Rock Christian football Coach Eric Cohu, in a difficult spot.
While Cohu sympathizes with the plight of those like Wooten, he enjoys the rivalries between public and private schools and believes this route is the wrong way to go about resolving what remains a thorny issue.
"I would hate to divide communities and the state of Arkansas when we're in an environment right now that's very divisive," Cohu said. "[Politicians] would do really well to present legislation that unites people in this time in our country and in our society."
