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PREP RALLY | 8.18.2024
Back in the game Tice, Loughridge break lengthy hiatus to return to coaching ranks
Doug Loughridge( left), head football coach at Siloam Springs, and Tommy Tice, head football coach at Farmington, are seen on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at Farmington High School Fieldhouse. Both men are making their returns to coaching after a lengthy hiatus. Tice had been retired since 2017, and Loughridge was the athletic director at Alma. Visit nwaonline. com / photo for today’ s photo gallery.( NWA Democrat-Gazette / Caleb Grieger)
HENRY APPLE NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
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FARMINGTON— Tommy Tice picked up the marker and wrote just two words on the white board in his office as he and Doug Loughridge participated in a recent photo session.“ We’ re back.” Tice and Loughridge will try their hand as a football coach one more time after being away from it for an extended amount of time. Tice, Arkansas’ third-winningest football coach with 289 career victories, takes over at Farmington while Loughridge assumes the same role at Siloam Springs.
When Tice leads the Cardinals onto the field Aug. 30 in their season-opener at Shiloh Christian, it will be his first game in this situation since Nov. 6, 2015, when he guided Huntsville to a 31-0 victory over Berryville.
“ At that point in time, I thought that’ s what I wanted to do,” Tice said.“ But the moment I walked off that football field I thought‘ never say never.’ You never know what’ s going to come up, and I’ ve grown to where I don’ t say that because you never know what’ s right around the corner.
“ And we keep telling our kids‘ don’ t worry about what happened yesterday. Keep your eyes open about tomorrow because you may miss a great opportunity.’”
Tice’ s decision to step away from coaching was the right one at that time. It allowed him to move back to Harrison in 2019 and help his daughter after she had suffered a
479-273-7786 479-524-8400 www. afbic. com heart attack. He admitted he was glad he was out of the school business when the coronavirus pandemic hit the following year.
But he was still keeping up with football. He was reading about the game a lot and doing radio work during that time. He then started hanging around Harrison’ s football team after that, and Arkansas Coach Sam Pittman allowed him to attend Razorbacks practices whenever he wanted.
That’ s when he started getting the itch to return to coaching, and the opportunity presented itself when Farmington had an opening after J. R. Eldridge stepped away in April.
“ This opportunity came out of the blue,” Tice said.“ I thought to myself‘ Do you really want to do that?’ And the more I thought
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about it and the more( Athletic Director) Beau Thompson talked to me about it, I knew inside that’ s what I wanted to do the whole time.
“ I want to coach. I want to be a football coach. I don’ t want to be an average football coach. I want to be a great football coach, and this particular setting gives me the chance to get back in it and the way I want to get back into it, which is full speed ahead. And I get to do it in what I think is the best 5A conference from top to bottom, which is the 5A-West.”
Tice said“ things hit like a tornado” when it came to his new job. He and new offensive coordinator Mark Whatley, both of whom were hired at Farmington the same day, had only three days to install their offen-
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