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Coach Merrill Mankin
A Man Apart WORDS Dwain Hebda IMAGES courtesy Glenn Gilley
Rickey Smith, head girls basketball coach at Fort Smith Northside, is one of the most successful coaches in Arkansas in any sport, a straight-ahead, no-nonsense kind of guy who enjoys the challenge of competition almost as much as the win itself. After all, as he’s the first to tell you, it’s those who
He treated all his players as if they were his own kid... He was hard on you, but he was also very empathetic. He could put you in your place, but then turn around and say something that makes you feel at ease and calm and know that he was right. It was just a matter of he expected so much out of you, he was going to tell you the straight-up.
push you to your limits who bring out your best. Merrill Mankin, former head coach of Fort Smith Southside, was just that sort of person. “We were fierce rivals, fierce competitors,” Rickey says. “Many, many times we were one and two in the conference. We even played each other for the state championship in 2001. We wanted to meet against each other. He wanted to beat us, we
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