By TODD TRAUB
Leader sports editor
North Pulaski is back where it was a year ago and with only three weeks to do something about it.
Football coach Rick Russell left the Falcons after one year to take the vacant job at Jacksonville, where he assisted 14 years, and was announced as Red Devils head coach on Tuesday morning.
“Coach Russell will do a good job over there,” North Pulaski athletic director Tony Bohannon said.
Russell’s departure left Bohannon and the administration again looking to fill the football job at a program that has won four games thepast five seasons and will be naming its third head coach in three years.
“It was a loss for one school and, you’d say, a gain for one,” said Jacksonville athletic director Jerry Wilson, who accepted football coach Mark Whatley’s resignation last month. Whatley departed to join the staff at Springdale High School.
“It seems like it’s the same story just two or three weeks later,” Wilson said. “Of course, North Pulaski is going to go through the same things we did.”
Bohannon, who stepped down as Falcons coach after seven years in 2008 and was replaced by Russell, said Tuesday he was going to consult with the North Pulaski administration and see what the best option would be for finding Russell’s replacement.
Bohannon said it was possible North Pulaski would go through a search process or promote an assistant or junior high coach.
“Hopefully something with as little disruption as possible,” Bohannon said. “That’s what we’re going to talk about and see what our options are.”
North Pulaski, of the 5A-Southeast Conference, was 1-9 with a 35-13 victory over Little Rock McClellan last season. The Falcons are 6-74 the past eight years.
“One of the toughest things I ever had to do in my 27 years of coaching was go in there and look those guys in the eyes and tell them I wasn’t going to be their coach next year,” Russell said of his farewell to the Falcons.
Russell, 51, said it had always been his goal to be head coach at Jacksonville, where he served the last eight of his 14 years as defensive coordinator.
“It came open this year, unfortunately for what we were trying to do at North Pulaski,” Russell said.
North Pulaski has been going through summer weight training and conditioning as well as competing in 7-on-7 games weekly at Cabot, where the Falcons were 2-0-1.
Russell said he had been planning to open up the offense more with athletic quarterback Shyheim Barron running and passing out of the Spread formation.
“Last week was the best week of football I had at North Pulaski,” Russell said. “I told them ‘I appreciate the way you treated me and the effort you put into this football team.’ I hope they understand, as far as me as a football coach, I didn’t abandon them. I told them I’d always be their football coach, I’d be very fond of the relationships we had.
“It was just something I had to do for me and my family.”
