LONGTIME SOUTHSIDE COACH SETS OFF FOR THE SUN

A worried look graces the face of Steve Peoples. He’s not having a good week. His younger brother, Michael, is nearing the end of his life. Steve Peoples, always friendly and forth giving, is peering down at the floor. “That was a really hard thing to deal with,” Peoples said of his brother. Michael Peoples was diagnosed with cancer and had one of his kidneys removed last fall. Then early in 2017, cancer returned. Michael Peoples lost his battle May 10. “He had so much to give,” Steve Peoples said. “When something like that happens, you’re never prepared.” Related content Cowboys, Razorbacks RB Darren McFadden to speak at River Valley Preps banquet May 28, 2017 Steve, too, would soon be closing a chapter. This is the last week of his 44-year teaching and coaching career. Peoples will be honored Thursday at the River Valley Best of Preps Awards as he receives the Lifetime Achievement Award. “The neatest thing is when a student or an athlete comes back to thank me for what I did for them,” Peoples said. “That’s one of the enjoyments of coaching — that and seeing kids go on to do well in life.” Peoples estimates he’s been connected to 300 to 400 students a day for 44 years. “I’m going to miss seeing their development, not only with their athletic development but also growing as a person,” Peoples said. “Hopefully, I had a little bit of help in that. That’s one of the great things about coaching, seeing them grow mentally and spiritually. “To me, that’s the best part about coaching.” For four and a half faithful decades, Steve Peoples was a coach, friend, father and mentor. The man friends refer to as “Peeps” spent the last half of his coaching career in Fort Smith, at arm’s length from Michael and sister Gina Driscoll. “Coach (Jim) Rowland (former Fort Smith Public Schools athletics director) gave me the opportunity to come back to Fort Smith in 1996,” Peoples said. “Being able to come back to Fort Smith, that such a blessing.” Life has a way of coming full circle, and it did for Peoples and Mavericks’ football coach Jeff Williams nearly 10 years later when the latter had the daunting task of replacing Barry Lunney Sr. in 2005. “I met coach Peeps when I was 7 or 8 years old at an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) camp at Oklahoma State,” Williams said. “My dad (David) was a longtime coach and used to take kids to the FCA camp at Oklahoma State. In fact, that was our vacation. “He’s (Peoples) just a great guy. You talk about character and integrity, he honestly cares for people, and he’ll go out of his way to do things for people.” Leave It To Beaver The turbulent ’60s were tough on America. Race, the economy, the Kennedys. But life at C.D. and Bonnie Peoples’ house on South Knoxville Street in Fort Smith was as All-American as something you might have seen at the kitchen of Ward and June Cleaver’s fictitious late ’50s sitcom. Only Steve and Michael were far better athletes than Wally and Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver. Long before kids were encouraged to specialize in sports, choosing to play one thing instead of three or four, Steve Peoples jumped from one sport to the next — football, basketball, track and baseball. He earned a college scholarship to play baseball at Ouachita Baptist University after high school. And, he might have soon coached high school baseball, too, had the Arkansas Activities Association offered baseball in the 1970s. The majority of Arkansas high schools didn’t begin fielding spring high school rosters until the late ’80s. By then, Peoples had distinguished himself as a football and track coach. “I played college baseball at Ouachita Baptist, and I thought I might want to be a baseball coach,” Peoples said. “(But) at that time Arkansas didn’t have high school baseball.” So Peoples, who ran track in high school, spent his springs coaching track. “At first, it was required of me, but then I really got interested in it,” People said. “As time went by, I saw the importance of how it helps with other sports also. I really got interested in track when my kids got interested in track. “We had a summer track club when I was at Jessieville, and then we had one when I went to Greenwood.” Full Circle Peoples, who began his coaching career at Chaffin Junior High in 1972, then migrated to Fayetteville, Clinton and Jessieville. He returned to Fort Smith to help his dad, Clayton ‘C.D.’ Peoples, with the family’s Carpet Cabin business in the summer of 1987. A restless Peoples was out of his element. “The year I was out of coaching was tough on me,” he said. “My father had had an illness and I was helping them out. But being out of coaching, I realized I missed it.” Former Greenwood football coach Rick Rachel then hired Peoples in the spring of 1988. “It just so happened that they had an opening,” Peoples said. “I applied for that job and got it.”

LONGTIME SOUTHSIDE COACH SETS OFF FOR THE SUN

KEVIN TAYLOR

Times Record | 5/28/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Taylor