DECATUR -- With the possibility of high school football games looming on the horizon, Decatur Bulldog athletic director Toby Conrad announced May 20 that the 8-man football program had a new head coach and it is a person who knows Decatur very well.
Grant Hutson, whose father Bryan coached 11-man football in Decatur from 1998-99, will take over as head coach for the Bulldogs when the Arkansas Activities Association opens up sports this fall. Hutson replaced two-year coach James Ortiz who took another head coaching position in Arkansas
Grant received his degree at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and continues to work on his master of arts degree in teaching -- special education. This program allows him to teach while still during coursework at ATU.
While at Arkansas Tech, Grant was unable to hold a head coaching position. Seeing a great opportunity to learn firsthand what the head coaching job entails from a master gave him a huge advantage.
"My coaching experience is limited to where my father is coaching at the time," Grant said."While I am in college, I am not able to hold a head coaching position, just working as an assistant. My father helped build my relationship to the sport of football."
Working with his father, Bryan, the younger Hutson, helped coach the Paris Eagles for three years. When his father took over the football program at Elkins in 2019, he helped coach the 4A conference Elks to a 5-6 season.
Grant is no stranger to football, having been introduced to the sport when he was very young. When he was 2, he watched his father coach the Bulldogs in Decatur. He watched from the sidelines as Bryan coached Decatur to five-straight victories during the 1999 1AA season before a team from the school where he currently coaches, Elkins, ended the Bulldogs' winning streak. The Bulldogs finished the 1999 season 6-4 and was edged out by the Greenland Pirates for a spot in the state playoffs that year.
The ties that Grant's mother and father built here in that short time gave him an appreciation for this small community.
"My father always spoke highly of the community and the administration here," Grant said. "In fact, my mom and dad still have friends here that they talk to on a regular basis."
What is interesting is that the 1998-99 Decatur football season was the elder Hutson's first head coaching job, and now the younger Hutson returns to Decatur for his very first head coaching job -- like father, like son.
Up until now, Grant's experience in Arkansas High School football has been in the 11-man conferences. So transitioning to 8-man will be a big challenge he will face once the football season is cleared to start in late August if the Arkansas Activities Association allows the sport at that time.
"It is going to be a very unique change, especially for Decatur and the smaller schools in Arkansas," Grant said. "This sport is very close to 11-man, with just a couple of changes here and there. It is a much faster-paced game and gives coaches the ability to call unique plays, formations and defenses. I am really excited to learn 8-man as I go and I am already starting to learn the differences between the rules for 8-man and 11-man football."
Grant is eager to get to work meeting the players and his coaching staff and begin rewriting the gamebook to fit his situation and, hopefully, rewriting the Decatur Football legacy.
"From my experience, I tend to coach with the players that I have," Grant said. "I've been able to adapt to a very fast team that could be spread out or a large team with stronger linemen that may line up in the middle and just pound the ball. It depends on what fits the players that I have."
Having served as an assistant coach for four years, Grant knows the stresses that go along with that position.
"Assistant coach-wise, I don't like to rule with an iron fist," said Grant. "I want my assistant coaches to be able to do what they need to do to get the job done. A head coach is only as good as his surrounding cast."
In addition to coaching football, Hutson will teach business, which is, ironically, a position that his mother also held in 1998-99.
It is not known if or when Arkansas high schools will have sporting events scheduled for the 2020-21 school year. The direction the pandemic takes will determine when high school sports resume. But, when they begin, Grant Hutson will have a chance to follow in his father's footsteps and build his own piece of Decatur Bulldog football history.
Sports on 05/27/2020