As a community Lincoln has a foundation in place for success with pillars of community support for football.
Local churches are committed to supporting the football program with the Methodist Church feeding the team an after school meal before home games and the First Baptist Church feeding the team breakfast on days of road games. These meals have consistently brought the team and community together in a social setting and when Wolfpack Stadium debuted in 2013 churches from Cincinnati and Summers also participated. Parents and the booster club provide take along meals for road trips.
Pastor Kevin Alexander, of Washington County Baptist Church, in Lincoln, has served as statistician and Pastor Randy Magar, of Lincoln First Baptist Church, lends his voice in support of Wolves' football as an announcer. Lincoln fans yet recall his voice booming out over the public address system introducing, "And at quarterback, that old Indian outlaw, Cheyenne Vaughn."
Athletes and the community have bought into charismatic leadership in the past and players, who never knew they would be wearing a Wolf uniform, became teammates. Vaughn came over from Westville, Okla., twice earning All-State honors. Tyler Cummings and Jake Davenport transferred from U.S. 62 rival Prairie Grove and became starters contributing mightily to Lincoln's 11-2 run to the state quarterfinals in 2013. Timmy Alexander stepped out of the home school ranks to play fullback, linebacker and later defensive end. Emilio Marrufo came to play baseball as a foreign-exchange student only to discover how far and how accurately he could kick a football. Then there was frail 80-pound Ryan Holcomb responding to an invitation to come out for football as a seventh grader, something he had never considered before while handling autism. By his senior year Holcomb bulked up to 130 pounds and intercepted a pass inches above the turf to cap a 71-0 runaway victory at Dover.
By 2013 playing football at Lincoln had become an experience in itself beyond the toil of practice and on-field competition. The program was structured as all-inclusive within the community and drew people in. Folks wanted to be associated with Lincoln football and the Wolves became so competitive that teams were no longer wanting to play them. Both Dover and Stilwell, Okla., dropped nonconference series.
Spearheading the program's success was charismatic leadership, reaching out to the community and instilling confidence within individual players. Now that Lincoln has witnessed what is possible when people choose to believe in themselves and work together they don't want to settle for anything less.
A recent decision brought an end to Scott Davenport's tenure as Lincoln head football coach after one season with the Wolves winning 2 games measured against 8 losses and a 1-6 conference record in 2014. Offensively Lincoln scored 170 points for an average of 17 points-per-game but yielded more than twice as many points-per-game on defense, 351, or 35.1 points-per-contest. Midway through the season the Wolves switched offenses changing from the spread to the Wing-T in an effort to adapt to their personnel.
The restructuring presented more opportunities for some players like fullback Kaleb Ayers, who became a consistent running threat after primarily being utilized as a lead blocker and pass receiver out of the backfield in the spread offense. Still the change resulted in only one more win (16-14 over Berryville at Homecoming) and the Wolves actually produced fewer points (75) over the final five games than they did in the first five (95) although they were held scoreless in the season-opener.
Now, a challenge is once more presented unto the community, particularly the faith-based pillars of support for the football program. Pray in a quality leader, who will once again usher in expectations of attaining standards of excellence on a habitual basis, and improve the community as a head football coach. Pray in a coach, who will lead by example and shall regard the existing support structure for Lincoln football already in place by embracing the community.
MARK HUMPHREY IS A SPORTS WRITER FOR THE ENTERPRISE-LEADER.
Sports on 04/08/2015