Sports

Forte ignoring rumors of his firing

By Mike Marzelli/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, November 15, 2007 10:55 AM CST

Arkansas-Pine Bluff head coach Mo Forte isn’t paying attention to the rumors that he will be fired after the Golden Lions’ season finale Saturday at Texas Southern.

“No one has told me anything officially,” Forte said. “I’ve heard all the rumors but no one who makes a decision has told me anything so I’m just treating them like rumors.

“It’s really just not my decision so until someone who does make those decisions approaches me I have no further comment.”

Forte has one more year remaining on his contract and is due approximately $120,000 in 2008 after he was given a one-year extension prior to this season. If he is fired, the school will be required to buy out the remaining balance of his contract.

He has compiled a 20-22 record in four seasons at UAPB heading into Saturday’s game, including last year’s 8-4 season that resulted in the Lions’ first-ever trip to the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship. Overall as a head coach he is 68-89-1 in stops at North Carolina , Norfolk State and UAPB.

Running back

One of the major reasons why the Lions have won two games in a row has been their running game.

Over the last four games UAPB has rushed for 447 yards, including a season-high 160 yards Saturday against Southern. Over the first six games of the season, UAPB rushed for 429 yards.

“The running game is now as good as it has been all season,” Forte said. “We all saw where we started with how our offensive line was, we just couldn’t gain anything. Things still aren’t where we hoped they’d be but they’re a lot better than they were earlier in the year.

Mallett’s 91 yards Saturday were a season high after the Pine Bluff native ran for a SWAC-best 1,104 yards in 2006. UAPB currently has 876 yards as a team heading into its final game of the season .

All wet

Storms rolling through Pine Bluff drenched Golden Lion Stadium but they didn’t put an end to UAPB’s practice.

The Lions worked out for close to three hours in the unpleasant conditions, which did not damper the enthusiasm that Forte has been praising over the past three weeks.

“We’ve had another great week of practice so far,” Forte said. “I’m sure it has a lot to do with finally winning but our kids have continued to keep their energy, their focus and their effort at a high level these last few weeks and we’ve really been able to get a lot accomplished in terms of preparation because of it.”

Long overdue

UAPB athletic icon Dr. Vannette Johnson will be inducted into the SWAC Hall of Fame on the Friday prior to the 2007 SWAC Championship, the league announced Wednesday.

Johnson is one of six inductees that make up the Class of 2007 and one of two with UAPB ties.

A former All-American quarterback for the Golden Lions, Johnson joined the staff at what was then Arkansas AM&N in 1957 as an assistant football coach and head track coach. He went on to post the best record of any UAPB football coach with a 54-46-6 mark over 12 seasons and produced 32 professional athletes during his tenure, including seven players who were drafted following the 1969 season.

Johnson also served as athletic director on a part-time basis and is currently serving as compliance coordinator for UAPB’s athletic department and as a professor in the School of Education.

Slap in the face?

News of the other member of the SWAC’s 2007 Hall of Fame class with UAPB ties is sure to ruffle a few feathers and raise some eyebrows in Pine Bluff.

Former UAPB football coach and Athletic Director Archie “The Gunslinger” Cooley, whose tenure at the school from 1987-90 resulted in the NAIA placing the Golden Lions on the institutional “death penalty” for the 1991 season and eventually led to the cancellation of the 1992 season, will be inducted for his work as coach at Mississippi Valley State.

Cooley, who is currently the coach at Paul Quinn College in Texas, was the coach of the Delta Devil teams that featured National Football League Hall of Famer Jerry Rice at wide receiver and current Valley coach Willie “Satellite” Totten at quarterback.

Cooley was discovered to have broken numerous NAIA rules while at UAPB, including using ineligible players, which resulted in the “death penalty”, a rarely-used sanction that forces that program to shut down its operation entirely for one academic year.

The “death penalty” has only been leveled twice by the NCAA: In 1952 when the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team was convicted of point-shaving and in 1987 when the Southern Methodist University football team was found to have paid its players.

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