Quad Sanders happy to be back in Bryant, this time as head coach of powerhouse Hornets football program
By Nate Olson | Photos by Jimmy Jones
An hour after former Bryant head football coach Buck James resigned last Tuesday morning, Quad Sanders’ phone rang. Bryant School District officials were offering him the Bryant head-coaching job.
Sanders became Jonesboro’s head coach in March and was meeting with Hurricane coaches while his team took the week off before summer workouts began.
He had no idea his boss of five years had just taken the job at rival Conway High School. And now, he had an offer to coach one of the state’s premier programs.
“There was a whole lot of chaos,” Sanders said with a laugh a week removed from that day. “I had to leave the meeting and talked about it with my family. No question, it surprised me. I didn’t expect to get that phone call.”
New Bryant head football coach Quad Sanders was an assistant for five seasons under former head coach Buck James.
Sanders, who had just sold his house in Bryant a few days before, visited with his wife and daughter about the offer and wrestled with leaving a program for which he hadn’t coached a game.
“My wife was ecstatic,” he said. “She said, ’I have never had to make that big of a decision before.’ ‘Me, either,’ I told her. This was definitely different.”
By noon Wednesday, the Mississippi native had decided to return to the program for which he had served five years as defensive coordinator.
While it was appealing to be the head man of a program that has won five consecutive state championships and 53 games in a row against in-state opponents, it was family that was the deciding factor for Sanders.
“My wife’s family lives around an hour and 15 minutes from Bryant,” he said. “When we moved to Jonesboro, we were more than three hours away from them. My wife and daughter made that sacrifice for me to be a head coach in high school to move to Jonesboro. I wanted to return the favor back to them. It was a no-brainer.”
The difficulty was breaking the news to his coaching staff at Jonesboro and not being able to meet with his team to tell them face-to-face.
“The worst part was our guys were off, and I didn’t get to talk to them,” Sanders said. “They were off for a week and many of them had made plans, so there wasn’t much I could do. I stayed around a couple of days to talk to some of them after the fact. Some of them talked to me and some of them chose not to. I understand that. Having to do that after the fact sucks, but there wasn’t any other way.”
Kirk Bock (left) is now Bryant's athletic director, but he won't stray far from the football field after serving as the program's offensive coordinator since 2016.
Sanders, who rented a home in Jonesboro, doesn’t have a new residence in Bryant after selling his home but is on the job. He oversaw the first day of team workouts Monday and had the Hornets at a team camp early Tuesday morning at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium.
“It’s been amazing,” he said. “We had a surprise meet-and-greet with the community [Monday night], and the reception has been awesome. The players and community have rallied around us.”
Before James’ departure, Bryant would have been a heavy favorite to win a sixth consecutive state title this fall. A core group of starters returns on both sides of the ball. With a familiar Sanders returning to restore order, the Hornets will once again sit atop most pundits’ Arkansas prep preseason rankings.
“If I am being honest, I never looked at us a favorite to win,” he said. “I always knew we were capable of [winning a state title], but we had to go out there and compete for it. Everyone is getting better, and they all know the blueprint now. What you have done before doesn’t mean crap. We are always have a chance to be good, but to win it, we have to be ready to compete every night.”
Head coach isn’t the only position that will change with this staff. Last month, James elevated former varsity head baseball coach Travis Queck to defensive coordinator. Former offensive coordinator and James’ right-hand man Kirk Bock had agreed to become the school’s athletic director, so James promoted Julian Jones to offensive coordinator.
Since then, Bock’s son, Garrett, has joined the offensive staff and was announced Monday night as the new Hornets baseball coach. Former Fort Smith Northside aide Percy Jones fills the defensive backs coach role, and Terrell Williams, who was a volunteer in the secondary last fall, is expected to assist Jones in a full-time capacity.
Quad Sanders has been welcomed back warmly this week by his players and members of the Bryant community.
It will be Sanders’ first time managing a staff, but he feels equipped for the job after leaving the college game as an assistant at the University of Arkansas at Monticello to shadow James for five seasons.
“I thought I was ready to be a high school head coach; [James] showed me I had a lot to learn,” Sanders said. “The biggest thing I learned from him was to let your coaches coach. If you see something they need to do different in practice, coach them later. Let them go ahead and coach, and then coach them away from practice. That allowed all of the coaches to grow and develop without having to stop practice and involve the players. With that kind of development, the sky’s the limit.”
While the elder Bock is now an administrator, he won’t stray far from the program. He was with the team on the field Monday.
“He will be around as a consultant,” Sanders said. “When you have someone that has that much expertise, you are going to lean on him.”
Sanders said he and the staff will use the summer to scrutinize personnel and “no position is really solidified.” The staff will also focus on “all the little things and sharpening up the details.”
The defense will be without one of its key cogs. Senior four-star end TJ Lindsey announced last week that he is transferring to IMG Academy in Florida for his final prep season.
“Anytime you lose a Power 5 guy, that is going to make an impact, but we try to win by committee,” he said. “Losing TJ or any impact guy hurts, but regardless, we have guys that can fill in.”
The Hornets will also be without Class 7A state championship game MVP quarterback Gideon Motes, who is going to focus on baseball as he prepares for a career on the diamond with the University of Arkansas. Junior Jordan Walker, who started every game last season while Motes battled a shoulder injury, figures to be the Hornets’ starting QB this fall.
James built a solid staff and program at Bryant. He branded the 212 mantra, and Sanders plans to build on the success James created.
“We are 212 until someone takes that away from us,” Sanders said.
