Stewart Adams has his dream job.

The former Southside standout, who played on some of the late Mickey Johnson’s great teams in the early 1990s, was named the school’s head boys basketball coach Friday.

“It’s something I’ve had a goal of since I started,” Adams said. “It’s so much more special to me because this is my school. Playing under Mickey Johnson, then coaching under Jerry Bridges, Eric Burnett and Charles Cooper, it’s a humbling experience.”

The well-liked Cooper resigned in April following a lengthy run as the team’s head coach, spanning 2005-19.

But the Mavericks, after a huge season in 2012 where the program won 23 games and reached the 7A semifinals, have averaged just seven wins over the last seven seasons.

The Mavericks finished 1-13 in 2018-19.

“Southside’s never been about the greatest athletes on the floor,” Adams said. “It’s been about teams that are going to out-hustle you and play smarter, and work together — I think that’s the type of program that I grew up in, and I want to create that here.

“I want there to be a toughness about us that I learned from Mickey Johnson; that’s the type of style that I appreciate.”

Fort Smith Public Schools Athletic Director Dr. Darren McKinney praised Adams. He’s had a birds-eye view of the former Mavericks’ star, too.


“I played at Northside and he played at Southside — and we guarded each other in this very gym,” McKinney said. “He has the thing that nobody else has. He knows the culture of Southside High School.

“He knows the culture of the junior highs, too, so he can go out and relate to the kids.”

Adams coached under Cabot coach Chris Meseke, then the Greenwood boys coach, and with current Van Buren girls coach Chris Bryant, then the head boys coach at Hartford. In addition, before coming to Ramsey, where he served 12 seasons, Adams also was the head boys coach at Waldron for five seasons.

This past season, with Cooper under the weather, Adams did the majority of the coaching in the final Northside-Southside game of the season. McKinney came away impressed.

“We had a lot of folks interested in this job,” McKinney said. ”(But) coach Adams is the one that kept coming back to me. Getting to see him in action, during the Northside-Southside game was a big deal to me, because I got to see how the kids responded. Who he’s played for and who he’s worked with, that’s a pedigree that’s second to none.”
