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Bobby Bolding joins brother Brad's staff at Little Rock Parkview

Bolding holds a 220-78-3 record and has won three state titles since 1998.

By Kyle Sutherland | Photos by Jimmy Jones 

Longtime Arkansas prep head football coach Bobby Bolding has made his next move to Little Rock Parkview, joining his brother Brad’s staff.

After resigning as head football coach at White Hall in December following a Class 5A state runner-up finish, Bolding stayed on as athletic director for the remainder of the school year before turning in his resignation last month.

“I am looking forward to being a part of that Parkview program,” Bolding said. “I think there are a lot of good things going on there, a lot of good football players. I have not been around them a bunch, but I love the staff in what little time I have been with them.”

Bolding’s initial intentions were to stay on at White Hall as athletic director, but he was assigned to teach immediately after stepping down from coaching, which became too much of a grind holding two full-time jobs, which was the initial reason he became full-time athletic director.

“I was walking off the practice field [then] going to volleyball games, and I just could not keep up that pace,” Bolding said. “I work a ton of hours already ... so, I wanted to get out of football. They put me on a full social studies schedule, along with athletic director, so I was back to two full-time jobs again. I just could not do that. I could not be gone four nights a week and this opportunity came up where I would not have to move.”

Brad is elated to have not only one of the best minds in the state leading his defense, but also to be working alongside his brother and friend.

“I am the most fortunate head coach in the state,” he said. “I get to work with my brother the last few years of his career, and I get one of the best coaches in the history of Arkansas football on my staff. It is a win-win.”

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Bobby and Brad have faced off eight times as head coaches in the famed “Bolding Bowl” with Brad boasting a 5-3 edge after Parkview most recently won a 13-10 defensive battle over his brother’s Bulldogs in Week 3 last season.

Brad might have the bragging rights in that regard and might oversee the Patriots, but Bobby fully expects to be treated equally to the rest of the staff.

“I do not have a problem with it,” Bobby said. “That was one of the first things we talked about at first. When we started getting serious about this I asked, ‘When you have to come in and rip coaches are you going to come in and rip big brother, too?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and I told him ‘Good, because I do not want to be treated differently; I can take it.’”

This will be the second time the duo has coached together, but the first in around three decades — they were on the same staff at the University of Arkansas-Monticello while Brad was working on his master’s degree and then became an assistant.

As one of the state’s all-time great head coaches, Bolding compiled a 220-78-3 record since 1998 and won three state titles — his first at Stuttgart in 2002 and back-to-back at Pine Bluff in 2014-15.

Bobby and Brad are the sons of Hall of Famer Buzz Bolding, who had stints at Blytheville, McClellan, Cabot and Magnolia before finishing his career at Conway, where he revolutionized the school’s athletic program. Buzz became athletic director and head football coach in 1984 before becoming strictly AD in 1990, his final job until he retired after the 2009-10 school year.