Yarbrough excited about returning to Southside High School as a coach

Nicholas Yarbrough enjoyed his time being a high school head varsity basketball coach in Oklahoma. However, when the opportunity to come back home to Fort Smith presented itself, Yarbrough couldn’t refuse it.

Yarbrough recently accepted a job at his alma mater, Southside High School, to coach the freshman boys basketball team. He will still get to be a head varsity coach, as Yarbrough will oversee the Maverick boys and girls golf squads.

Another reason for Yarbrough to essentially come back home was a favor to Southside’s new boys basketball coach, Chuck Davis, who recently was hired following a stint at Clarksville.

“I’m a (2008) graduate of Southside High School, and Coach Davis was like, ‘We need somebody that has ties to Fort Smith and knows Fort Smith,’” Yarbrough said. “Being from Southside and knowing Coach (Michael) Beaumont (Fort Smith Public Schools athletics director), they were like, they gave me an opportunity to come back.

“I miss Fort Smith; it’s a place that helped raise me and helped mold me into the man I am today, because I was impacted by some great coaches. … And I just felt I need to get back to Fort Smith so that I could be that impact to players and to people in the community to help Fort Smith and the Southside program grow.”

Yarbrough spent last season coaching the boys basketball team at Westville, Okla. The previous three years, he was the head girls basketball coach at another Oklahoma school, Eufaula. He said there really wasn’t much of a difference coaching boys and girls basketball, and added one of the joys of being a head coach was to get to see players grow and mature.

“I coached all the way down to sixth grade, sixth through 12th grade, and so being able to see kids develop sixth through 12th grade was a huge thing that I really liked because, you know, you get down in those younger ages, you really got to focus on the fundamentals of building what you want in a program,” Yarbrough said.

Yarbrough also has prior coaching experience in Fort Smith. He was at Northside for four seasons as the head golf coach and an assistant boys basketball coach. While with the Grizzlies, Yarbrough was a part of two state title teams under then-coach Eric Burnett. Yarbrough also got the chance to work with Northside standouts Isaiah Joe and Jaylin Williams, both of whom later became teammates at Arkansas and are currently teammates with the Oklahoma City Thunder, who just won the NBA championship.

“It’s unbelievable just to see the hard work that they put in and then see them become NBA champions,” Yarbrough said. “They’re both high character guys. That’s what I loved about coaching them, is that they brought it every day, and they had a good attitude, and they just were great teammates and great leaders.”

Before getting set to coach basketball at Southside, Yarbrough’s main focus now is his golfers, which play a fall schedule.

“Coming to Southside, they’ve got such a rich tradition (in golf); they’ve won a state title,” he said. “They’ve had individuals, big top golfers in the state. And so I look forward to just continue to build on that, really build relationships with those kids that are on the golf team and help grow golf in Fort Smith.”

Yarbrough isn’t the only one in his family excited about returning back home. Also returning to the area is his wife, Micah, and their two young children, son Falcon and daughter Jersey, named after former Northside basketball standout Jersey Wolfenbarger, now playing at Tennessee.

“I just can’t wait to get started,” Nicholas Yarbrough said. “I’m very excited. I’m humbled for the opportunity to get going and look forward to it.”