There are a couple of unique features that are missing from Al Flanigan’s day-to-day regime these days.
For more than two decades, a trademark red, white or blue towel could routinely be found draped across Flanigan’s left shoulder whenever his Little Rock Parkview Patriots took the floor for a high school boys basketball game.
Along with that towel regularly came a glowing scowl across his face that could serve as a form of hypnosis for his players at any moment because they generally knew what it represented without him ever uttering a word.
But neither the linen nor that piercing glare are staples for Flanigan nowadays. Since retiring in 2019, serenity follows the coaching legend.
He looked at peace when he decided to take in a game during the Class 6A boys state basketball tournament in March.
However, the fire that’s long been ingrained in him — the same passion that he was known for whenever his Patriots walked into a gym — hasn’t gone anywhere.
“Man, I still work out,” he said. “You know, I’ve got to get my fitness in. I want to be able to look down and not have my stomach covering my feet. I’ve got to get it in every day that I can.”
That determination is what helped make Flanigan one of the more respected coaches in the state. On Friday, the 74-year-old will be celebrated in the highest regard when he’s inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
“Oh man, I’m filled with joy about it,” Flanigan said. “That’s the last stop in my basketball career. That makes me a four-time hall of famer. God has been good to me.”
And Flanigan has been good to legions of others, especially during his epic career at Parkview.
In his 23 years as the Patriots’ coach, the Magnolia native was 545-147 — an astonishing 78.8% winning percentage — won 12 conference titles and 7 state championships. Flanigan was also a part of four other state titlists as an assistant coach under the late Charles Ripley.
The one constant for those Parkview teams he directed was their defensive prowess. In fact, a constant phrase of Flanigan’s was that “defense travels,” and that usually held true for the Patriots.
“[Flanigan] is one of the best defensive coaches we’ve seen,” said Jonesboro Coach Wes Swift, who faced Flanigan’s Patriots several times, including twice in state championship games. “I’ve taken a lot of his stuff [primarily his on-ball defensive philosophy] and tried to emulate it. Anytime you played Parkview, you had to handle constant pressure. They also kept you off balance by switching back and forth between man and his matchup [zone].
“But the really tough thing was they took their pressure to another level in the third quarter. I’ve seen numerous teams go into half feeling like they were in pretty good shape, and like, ‘Hey we can handle this.’ Then at the end of the third quarter, you were down 20 and out of timeouts.”
For as great as Parkview was defensively, the Patriots weren’t slouches on offense, either. Both of those notions epitomized Flanigan during his playing days.
He was a two-time, firstteam All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference pick at Southern Arkansas University, where he holds numerous records that he compiled over his four years under the leadership of fellow Arkansas Sports Hall of Famer W.T. Watson. He’s fourth in program history in scoring (1,609 points), sixth in single-season points (559), seventh in career scoring average (15.2 points per game) and first in free throws made in season (155) just to name a few.
“Back then, things went really good for me,” Flanigan said. “I had a hard-nosed coach [Watson], and he didn’t take any crap. He pushed me every day, but he really wasn’t worried about me. He’d tell everybody ‘Flanigan is going to do his part.’
“He would tell me that that I needed to get in those guys’ butts, and that we needed to start working whenever we weren’t doing so well in games. I really appreciated that from him because he trusted me.”
But Flanigan said he didn’t necessarily mimic his coaching method and techniques after Watson, who’s won more games at SAU than anyone.
“I actually molded my style after Jack Bridges,” he said. “We call him ‘Gator Jack.’ He gave me my first opportunity at Pine Bluff High School. I left after that 1977 season after we won [state], but he called me right after I graduated from SAU. I went on over there and started with football at Southeast Junior High. I stayed there one year, and he’d always told me that if he had someone leave, he’d move me up the next year as an assistant.
“That’s exactly what he did.”
Flanigan would also coach at Dunbar Middle School in Little Rock, but it was his time with the Patriots that his name truly began to ring out. He would help Ripley, who died in 2020, build Parkview into a nationwide powerhouse in the 1980s and 1990s. When he inherited the head coaching position after Ripley left for Westark Community College (now the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith) in 1995, he maintained the team’s dominance.
He led Parkview to the state final in his first year, losing to Little Rock Fair. That title appearance, which was the fifth straight for the Patriots at the time, was practically a blimp on their radar.
In its next 10 trips to the state championship game, Parkview won seven titles with Flanigan at the helm.
“His teams were always tough, aggressive, and play together,” Swift said. “Offensively, he’s underrated in my opinion because they were usually very talented. His teams always had great spacing, played to their strengths and were very unselfish.
“And they transition so fast … just something else you had to be prepared for.”
More times than not, those transition points came after strong defensive possessions.
“To tell you truth, it just p*ssed me off when somebody scored on me,” Flanigan said in reference to when he played at SAU. “That was my mindset. And when I was at Dunbar and Parkview, our mentality was us against the world. We had to get after it, and the kids didn’t mind playing that way.”
That formula resulted in several of his players going on to play NCAA Division I college basketball, including all three of his sons — Wes, Jason and Chris as well as his grandson, Allen.
“That was my biggest enjoyment,” Flanigan said. “Coaching those three and them winning a championship. And then, I coached Allen, who won one, and my nephew Keith, too. I don’t think too many coaches can say that.”
But Flanigan insists he’s enjoying retirement. He’s still intrigued with basketball but noted the itch to get back out there hasn’t surfaced.
However, he does realize that he did quite a bit as a coach, and it wasn’t just limited to his basketball knowledge.
“I tried to reach out to each and every one of my basketball players,” Flanigan said. “I tried to be that father figure away from home, tried to keep them off the streets. We’d practice a lot and hard, and that was one way to keep them off those streets. And for the most part, I think the parents appreciated that.
“I always wanted to look out for those guys, and I treated them like my own.”