Jim Rowland, longtime Fort Smith Public Schools coach and athletic director, has died

Jim Rowland, the longtime and revered coach and athletic director with the Fort Smith Public School District who helped guide the district though an emotional and divisive mascot change, has died. He was 83.

Rowland was employed by the school district for 53 years, and was the district’s athletic director between 1991 and 2016. He was widely hailed as a coach who was just as interested in personal development as player development, and praised for being an ardent advocate of equitable support for Northside High School and Southside High School athletics – the two high schools in the district with historically different demographic realities.

“Fort Smith has lost a legend and a hero this evening with the passing of Jim Rowland. He will be greatly missed as he touched so many lives. Our prayers are with his family,” noted a statement from the Northside High School Booster Club.

The Southside High School football field is named the Jim Rowland Stadium.

Fort Smith Public School Board President Dalton Person said Rowland had an impact on everyone he encountered.

“In my lifetime, no one has done more to further athletics and activities in the Fort Smith region than Jim Rowland,” Person noted in a statement provided to Talk Business & Politics. “Many local residents knew Coach Rowland by his work ethic; you only had to drive by a football field in the heat of summer with the white-haired athletics director mowing the lawn to quickly realize that. His contemporaries always spoke of his athleticism and the admirable role he played as the starting quarterback for Little Rock Hall during the 1958 football season while Little Rock was integrating schools. Coaches across the state respected him. He had the unique ability to make coaches at both Northside High School and Southside High School feel heard, and that he was never showing favoritism to one school over the other. Many local coaches considered him a mentor. What I will miss most about Coach Rowland, though, is that he was a consummate gentleman. Since I was in high school, he always supported me and was genuinely interested in my life and that of my family. The impact he had on people of all ages and from all walks of life will live on for many years.”

Rowland’s career with the district had a surprise ending that was announced during a May 2016 district school board meeting. The meeting was focused on the issue of returning the Rebel mascot to Southside High School.

The Fort Smith Public School Board voted 7-0 on July 27, 2015, to change the mascot and end use of the “Dixie” fight song that has been associated with the school since it opened in 1963. The Board voted to discontinue use of “Dixie” as the Southside High School fight song in the 2015-2016 school year and to drop the Rebel as the Southside mascot in the 2016-2017 school year.

In August 2015, Rowland said during a school board meeting that some may see the Southside traditions as “innocuous,” but they are “hurtful” to minorities and those outside the city.

“Unfortunately symbols matter. How can we tell those students, our friends, that slavery has been over 150 years and they should get over it while we then adopt the symbols that they associate with slavery and display them with a sense of pride?” Rowland said during an August 2015 school board meeting.

Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen pushed an effort in 2016 to return the Rebel mascot.

“Shame on us if that happens,” Rowland said during a May 2016 board meeting of the attempt to reverse the mascot decision.

An emotional Rowland during that meeting called on then-Southside High School head football coach Jeff Williams to read a statement. The statement Williams read was from Rowland announcing his retirement. Gasps and crying were heard as Williams, who fought back tears, read the statement. The resignation was effective June 30, 2016.

Chip Souza, general manager of Hawgs Sports Network and former sports editor for the Southwest Times Record, said Rowland was “straightforward and honest” in his approach with everyone.

“Jim Rowland was one of the first administrators I met when I took the sports editor job at the Times Record in 1999. He welcomed me to the city and made sure that we would always have a clear line of communication. Even when I had to report not so favorable news, Coach Rowland was always straightforward and honest, which is becoming rare these days,” Souza noted. “When WEHCO Media did the History of Arkansas High School book, one of the chapters I wrote was on integration. Coach Billy Joe Releford credited Coach Rowland with making the integration of Fort Smith schools in the 1960s as seamless as possible. When Northside faced hostile crowds, Coach Rowland protected the Black players, facing down anyone who threatened those players. They knew that Coach Rowland always had their backs. That is what I will always remember Coach for. A true gentleman who stood for right and put the kids of Fort Smith first. All kids.”

Link here for Rowland’s obituary notice.