Volunteer coach gets chance to win big at Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE — When Tennessee fired Beth Alford-Sullivan as its head coach overseeing men’s and women’s track and field last year and replaced her with Duane Ross from North Carolina AT&T, John Newell found himself looking for a new job for the first time in nine years.

Newell had been a Tennessee assistant since 2013 and believed he had a chance to be retained on the staff considering he coached 10 SEC champions in the throwing events, but it didn’t happen. He was fired.

Now Newell, 40, has gone from being a Tennessee Volunteer to a volunteer coach at the University of Arkansas.

It’s been a good move for Newell — even though he isn’t being paid for his work since joining the Arkansas staff in July — and the Razorbacks.

“I could be somewhere else on salary,” Newell said. “I got multiple job offers.

“But it ultimately came down to, if I didn’t go to Arkansas, would I regret it? And I absolutely would have.”

In 20 years as an athlete at Georgia and as an assistant coach at Michigan State and Tennessee, Newell never had won a conference or national championship.

“I wanted to have an opportunity to feel what it’s like to win,” Newell said.

Newell finally experienced that winning feeling during the indoor season when the Razorbacks swept SEC and NCAA championships, and three throwers he helped attract to Arkansas and coaches were key contributors.

Arkansas, with only a handful of notable throwers going back more than 40 years such as Scott Lofquist, Marty Kobza, Marcus Clavelle and Eric Brown, has arguably the SEC’s best group this year with three transfers who were All-Americans at their previous schools: seniors Rojé Stona (from Clemson) and Jordan West (Tennessee) and sophomore Ralford Mullings (from Arizona State).

The trio combined to score 16 points in the shot-put at the SEC Championships — the Razorbacks won with 100.25 — as West took second (66-7), Stona third (65-6) and Mullings seventh (61.7). All three marks were personal bests.

West took fifth at the NCAA Championships with another personal-best of 67-2 as the Arkansas men won their first national title since 2013 indoors.

Arkansas will be looking for big points again from Stona, West and Mullings at the SEC Outdoor Championships this weekend in Baton Rouge.

Stona (219-10) and Mullings (206-2) rank 1-2 in the SEC in the discus and second and fifth nationally. West ranks second in the SEC and fifth nationally in the shot-put (66-2 1/4) and Stona is third in the conference and seventh nationally (65-10 1/2).

“Now with the transfer portal, you can instantly be good in a given event,” said Chris Bucknam, head coach of Arkansas’ men’s cross country and track and field teams. “You get the right coach, you can transform the team. We’ve done it with Coach Newell being our throws coach.”

West, from Rahway, N.J., met with Tennessee’s new coaching staff, but was told his scholarship money would be drastically reduced.

“Considering all I’d done at Tennessee, I would have thought I’d be a valuable piece of the puzzle,” West said. “But they had their own vision, and they’re entitled to that.

“I just know that for me and my future, I wanted to be somewhere I was valued. … They didn’t make me feel wanted at all.”

It was a natural choice for West to get in the transfer portal and follow Newell to Arkansas. Stona and Mullings also were in the portal and quickly made the decision to join West and Newell with the Razorbacks.

“Obviously facilities help you recruit great athletes, but you recruit around coaches,” said Travis Geopfert, who is in his second stint as an Arkansas assistant after being on the Tennessee staff with Newell. “Once we got John on board officially, it took about a week and a half to land those three guys.

“It’s fun to see it all come together. They got together with a great coach at a great place and they’re all having a lot of success because of it.

“I said to those throwers, ‘It’s a lot of fun to make history at the most historic program in the NCAA.’ That’s what those throwers are doing right now. They’re making history at Arkansas, which is a really big deal.”

As an assistant at Michigan State and Tennessee, Newell has coached 3 Olympians, 20 conference champions and 28 first-team All-Americans.

But as a volunteer coach, Newell isn’t allowed to recruit under NCAA rules, so that was left to Geopfert to convince the throwers to come to Arkansas.

“Coach G is an awesome recruiter,” said Mullings, who is from Kingston, Jamaica. “He showed us the support track and field has here at Arkansas and how it would make us all better.”

Stona, from Montego Bay, Jamaica, broke the Arkansas discus record which had been held by Lofquist (205-4) since 1982. West broke the UA shot-put indoor record which Lofquist (66-9 1/4) had held since 1983.

“The goal is always to leave a legacy and get your name in the record book,” Stona said. “So that’s been a good thing for me.”

Good for West as well.

“Creating a name for myself in the world of throwing is definitely something I want to do moving forward,” West said. “I feel like being at Arkansas — being with Coach Newell again — is helping me do that.”

Lofquist, who now runs a gym in St. Louis, has attended several Arkansas meets this year to see the new throwers.

“I don’t think anyone is more happy for the guys than Scott,” Newell said. “He’s really excited to see what we’ve done with our throwing program.”

Stona, West and Mullings are glad to have each other as training partners.

“There’s a saying that iron sharpens iron,” Stona said. “So if you’re training with some of the best athletes in the country in your events, you’re going to become better yourself.”

West said the trio has helped each other with exchanging ideas as well as competing in practice.

“It’s hard training by yourself, especially when you’re going into championship season,” West said. “It definitely helps having a group of elite throwers to push each other every day in throwing or in the weight room.”

After the Razorbacks won the SEC Indoor championship at the UA’s Randal Tyson Center, Newell had to tell his throwers to stick around for the victory celebration.

“They’d never been on a championship team before, so they didn’t know there was going to be confetti dropping and everyone would be celebrating together,” Newell said. “Seeing the smiles on their faces and seeing them taking pictures with the trophy was great.”

Stona said he’d been wanting to win a team championship since he was in high school.

“Getting recruited by Arkansas and knowing the history, I knew the potential was there for team titles,” Stona said. “Arkansas is probably the dream team for conference and nationals, indoors and outdoors.”

Mullings said it was “exceptionally cool” to be part of a conference championship team for the first time.

“To win it on your home turf and defend your land, it’s pretty remarkable,” Mullings said. “It felt great to show off the trophy and the hard work you’ve put in all those months.”

West recalled that during a meet early in the indoor season, his new Arkansas teammates came to watch the shot-put and cheer on the throwers.

“Having that team camaraderie aspect is very humbling,” West said. “Being on the outside looking in at Arkansas when I was at Tennessee, you knew Arkansas was always winning, but now being here, you understand the dynamic.

“Hopefully we can help win some more championships outdoors.”

Winning a conference title for the first time brought a delayed reaction for Newell.

“It really hit me the next day, because during a meet you’re so busy coaching your guys,” Newell said. “But when I woke up the day after the meet, I just completely broke down. It was emotional.”

Newell has been able to manage financially for several months without a paying job because he sold a 3,000-square-foot house in Knoxville and moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Fayetteville with his pet dachshund, Biscuit.

In January the NCAA’s Division I Council approved legislation that allows schools in all sports to transform volunteer positions into full-time paid jobs starting in July.

No decisions have been made by Arkansas’ administration about hiring new positions for track and field, Bucknam said, but he’s hopeful he’ll be able to add Newell to the payroll.

“For decades we’ve been understaffed as college track and field programs, and now hopefully soon we can get Coach Newell to stay with a full-time position here,” Bucknam said. “We’ll see how it goes.

“But there’s no question having Coach Newell here with his level of expertise helped us attract some great throwers, and we want to be able to keep growing in that area.”

Geopfert said that when Newell was announced as a volunteer coach at Arkansas, he got even more offers for paying jobs as an assistant.

“John was getting calls like crazy, and he turned down some big-time jobs,” Geopfert said. “He was like, ‘I gave my word to Arkansas and I’m going to stick to it.’

“We were really fortunate to add him to our staff. He’s become a big part of our program and hopefully we can keep him right here.”