In The Shadow Of A Giant

Business is booming in the birthplace of Wal-Mart, and so is the football. That means coaches like Ronnie Peacock are going the way of the five-and-dime

The microphone doesn't work. Tomorrow is the biggest game of his life, which means tonight is the biggest speech of his life, and the microphone doesn't work. Ronnie Peacock, head football coach of the Rogers High Mounties, paces around the musty field house, tapping and blowing and shaking and checking and tapping again. Nothing. He has prepared all week for tonight. Make that all season. Actually, make that all his life.

He had his players write letters to their mamas. He asked the dads to deliver speeches to their sons. He's put together a highlight video, featuring that scene from Polar Express where a train conductor asks a little boy, "Well, you comin'?" His boys will love that, Peacock thinks, because they like it when he refers to them as the Big Blue Train. It's a little ironic, actually. Because here in northwest Arkansas, home of the world's largest retailer, the Big Blue Train could refer to something else altogether.

The coach is known around town as the guy who hugs everybody. And tonight he'll hug his coaches, then bring in his players, and finally, their parents. Peacock calls the pep rally "Circle the Wagons," and it will test the walls of the small field house. It will be just like in the old days, he will announce to the throng, when together the settlers fended off the intruder. But, of course, the old days are long gone.

The intruder tomorrow will be Rogers' rival from a few miles down the road, the Bentonville Tigers, a team Peacock has beaten three years in a row. But something has changed over in Bentonville—something Coach Peacock isn't sure he can keep up with. Actually, everything has changed. And at age 56, after 34 years of doing this, Peacock isn't sure he can change with it. The hard truth is this: The Big Blue Train is coming right at him.

So the coach will circle the wagons tonight, and tomorrow, and for as long as he can hold out. He'll point to the sign he put above the door to the field. "Do I Make You Proud?" it says. The coach has asked that question his whole life and never heard the answer he wanted.

The players file in. It's time. Peacock looks out at them, still clutching the black wand with no magic. Okay, he decides, I'm just going to have to yell.

HE'S GOT stories. Great stories. He meets you at the restaurant, takes off his cap, shakes your hand, slides into a booth, orders a sweet tea and tells tales for as long as you hang in. He juts out his whiskered chin. His face twists and contorts with every emotion. His hands clench and splay. His blue eyes are icy and frozen, then melt into tears. He wants so badly for you to listen. He pleads. Are you listening?

Peacock ignores the menu. Leaning across the table, he talks about the time back at his former school when his kicker took off a leg cast to boot the game-winner in overtime. Peacock was more of a bastard then, an ornery sumbitch, but he was driven to hug all of his players in the locker room afterward. One player had come over and whispered, "Coach, I could use another one of those hugs." The kid was from a broken home and new in town, so Peacock wrapped his arms around the boy, and the boy squeezed back. In the moment, Peacock's mind flashed to a player from two years before who'd killed himself. Wow, the coach thought, he must have needed a hug too.

Peacock's coaching outlook changed that night in 2000. It became his mission to "git emotionally nekkid" with players, parents, everyone. He started father-son retreats, asking kids to lead their dads on blindfolded trust walks. He asked dads to tell their kids what they'd say if they knew they would die the next day. That's where it gets tough for Coach Peacock; his own father-son retreat happened in a cemetery.

As he blinks back tears, the lines on his face reflect an older Arkansas, of hard work and soft earth. Peacock grew up amid cotton and soybeans, on the other side of the state, and on the other side of time. "This part of Arkansas is nuthin' like it used to be," he says between sips of tea. "Nuthin'." Remnants linger out by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport: chicken houses and grazing cows and barbed wire. But drive the few miles toward Rogers and you'll see rickety wooden fences become heavy stone walls chiseled with lofty names like Borghese Gardens. At one time the names of villages in the area—Cave Springs, Siloam Springs, Little Flock—were accurate. That's the Arkansas

Peacock remembers, back before the interstate, sushi joints and Starbucks. Before the Big Blue Train got rolling.

These days, there is no missing the trucks with the seven blue letters and one star: Wal-Mart. Sam Walton opened his first store right here in Rogers, in 1962. A lot of people don't remember that, because Wal-Mart's headquarters is in Bentonville, the next town over. The Wal-Mart museum is there too, in the town square, near the statue of a Confederate soldier. After Sam died, in 1992, Wal-Mart began insisting on dealing with its Fortune 500 clients face-to-face. So big shots from all over the country—execs from Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson—moved in. Pickup trucks gave way to BMWs, diners to Chili's. The median house value rocketed past $215,000. "How many acres?" became "How many garages?"

Don't cry too much for Rogers, though; Sam's tide has lifted all ships. The town got a sparkling new mall, a brand-new hotel and even an LPGA tournament that tees off next year. But while the new money gets spent in Rogers, a lot of it gets invested in Bentonville. That's where most of the wealthier transplants set down roots. And that's where the football stadium got built.

Have you seen Tiger Stadium? Oh, you really must. It's a right turn away from the Wal-Mart museum, on the campus of Bentonville High. Built in 2005, it's got light poles that rise like spires, FieldTurf that stretches like a green blanket and a twotier press box with "club seating" for a one-paper town. The indoor practice field is as nice as any in college football. Same for the on-site rehab facility, carpeted weight room and the JumboTron that's plastered with sponsors—Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Mobil and, of course, Wal-Mart. The whole thing cost $10 million, paid for by Bentonville taxpayers and private donors, some of whom made their donations in Wal-Mart stock certificates still in shrink-wrap.

The thinking was that, when the transplants drove by the stadium, they'd realize northwest Arkansas was no backwater. Send your kids to school in Bentonville and they will play in this facility, and for Barry Lunney, the four-time state champion football coach who was hired at $89,000 a year, twice what most of the school's teachers make. If your kid doesn't play football, that's okay too. He or she can try out for the Tiger Pride Marching Band, which, by the way, is booked to play the Fiesta Bowl this January.

At first, Peacock refused to drive by the new stadium. He knew all those new kids would see the Taj Mahal of Arkansas football and forget his Rogers Mounties existed. Rogers High was no dump, mind you—it's the biggest high school in the state—but c'mon. The stadium is next to a Tyson chickenprocessing plant, so the field is covered by a haze that stinks of gizzards. Garden hoses and rusted tin drums are stored underneath the rickety press box, and the brand-new weight room is so small the players have to lift in shifts. Honestly now, who would choose to play there? Surely Rogers had the money somewhere, but the town wasn't about to pony up for a losing program. When that stadium went up down the road, Peacock knew he had only one counterpunch: his own story.

DO I make you proud? Young Ronnie asked that question of his dad over and over. "Ronnie," he always heard back, "my ambition is to see you come over in an F-16, tip your wings and fly off." Peacock's dad was a WWII gunner who had no interest in football, even when his son showed an uncanny knack for the sport. Peacock's dad seemed a lot more interested in booze, which is what led to the poverty, and the divorce.

By the time Ronnie was in 10th grade, his dad had moved away, and his mom too, taking his two younger siblings to New Orleans. Ronnie stayed behind in tiny McGehee, Ark., joined the high school football team and moved in with a teammate's family. He had a dream. "My folks just didn't get it," he says. He got a scholarship to play football at Harding University, in the Ozarks, married the coach's daughter, became the eighth receiver in college history to catch 200 passes and received an offer to sign with the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Peacock had the honor and pain of calling Don Shula to explain that he couldn't accept, because the Steelers had offered a few dollars more. In Pittsburgh, he met fellow rookie Franco Harris, caught a few passes from Terry Bradshaw, then broke his finger. He was gone in six weeks. Meanwhile, the Dolphins were steamrolling to their perfect season. Ronnie's dad missed all of it. After years of excessive drinking, he'd dropped dead in his front yard the year before.

Do I make you proud? Ronnie kept asking for years after his dad was gone. He got into coaching, first at his alma mater, Harding, then later at the high school in Greenwood, Ark. When he won a 4A state championship there in 2000, he wondered if maybe his dad was up in heaven, smiling. Or maybe he was still waiting for his boy to get in the cockpit.

One day six years ago, Peacock met an F-16 pilot who volunteered to take him for a ride. They soared over the old Arkansas, then veered toward his dad's grave. As they flew low over the tombstone, the pilot tipped the jet's wings. Tears skidded down Peacock's face. "Dad!" he thought. "I did it!"

Do I make you proud? Maybe not. By the time Peacock moved up three divisions to 7A Rogers High in 2001, the community was already crackling with Wal-Mart-driven growth. And it wanted a winner to go with it. Peacock went 2—8 his first year, and his answering machine filled with hate messages. His house was egged. Hell, someone even smashed up his golf cart. "It was the most hostile environment we've ever been in," says his wife, Martina. "People forgot it's a game." The Peacocks stopped reading the papers after seeing commentary like "We need fewer hugs and more touchdowns."

It got no easier. The team didn't sniff the postseason in Peacock's first five years, and entering 2006, the most recent championship banner, from 1978, hovered in the field house over Peacock like a guillotine blade. It didn't help matters that rival Bentonville had that fancy stadium and, despite a losing record the year before, a preseason No. 1 ranking.

So Peacock began the season by posting a message on the team website: "This is my 34th year of coaching football, and there have certainly been some ups and downs for me, my family and staff. I thank God for giving me and others those memories of trying to be the best, and picking ourselves up when we came up short. I treasure the relationships that have grown to a hug instead of a handshake." The coach's wife had a much shorter thought. "I asked God for something amazing," Martina says.

This year, at least, Peacock had seniors. He had the best player in Benton County, a 6'7", 295-pound monster of an offensive tackle named Lee Ziemba, who's choosing between free rides at Arkansas and Auburn. He had Chad Peachey, the soft-handed son of a Wal-Mart pilot, at receiver. And he had a quarterback, Cody Kirby, who was oddly like his coach. Kirby's family didn't come to the area from across the state for Wal-Mart. They came for football. Bob Kirby wanted a school where his son could throw the football. But only Peacock brought him in for a talk. The coach sat down father and son, looked them each in the eye with that ice-blue gaze and got emotionally nekkid. He jutted his chin and told his story. "I am at Rogers," says Cody Kirby now, "because of Coach Peacock."

So Ziemba blocked, Kirby threw, Peachey caught—and Rogers racked up wins, nine straight without a loss. By the time 7—2 Bentonville arrived at the run-down stadium next door to the chicken plant, the conference crown was on the line. It would be the biggest game in Benton County history.

PEACOCK PACES his field house, broken microphone in hand. His players are all here, their dads too. Each father walks to the front of the group and gives a brief testimonial about his son and the team, every one ending with an "I love you" and a hug. Ziemba's dad stands next to his enormous son, pats him on the belly and says, "Baby Lee." Bob Kirby and Cody both dissolve into tears. "Four years ago," Bob warbles, "we moved here with a big dog and a big dream. We sat in Coach Peacock's office and heard his big dream. Now we are living that dream." Sobs echo against the metal roof. The high light video with the scene from Polar Express plays, and the room fills with claps and whoops. All aboard the Big Blue Train.

No one talks about the other Big Blue Train, the one that will, in all likelihood, make this the last time Peacock prepares the Rogers Mounties for a home game against their archrival. Wal-Mart's increasingly long reach has brought families from China and Scandinavia to northwest Arkansas. That growth will split Bentonville into two schools, maybe more, over the next 10 years. Rogers will split in 2008. Peacock won't be able to coach at both, so he'll have to choose between the whistle and his job as athletic director. "My future might be larger as an AD," he says. "I just don't know if I'm ready." This season, for the first time ever, he gave up play-calling. During the practices leading up to the big game, it took every ounce of restraint in his 56-year-old body to keep from grabbing the playbook. "It's tough for him," Martina says.

Gameday arrives. Peacock clutches a gold coin that reads Prayer Warrior. "I'm a little nervous," he admits. Cars snake the few miles from Bentonville to Rogers, winding past countless construction barrels and tall cranes. Rogers' stadium holds only 5,500, but more than 10,000 circle the field, sitting on grassy slopes and pole-vault landing pads. Smoke rises from the Tyson plant, filling the stadium with its haze. "Will the owner of the 4Runner please move your vehicle," says the PA announcer. "You're blocking the Tyson trucks."

The sun goes down. The noise grows. The band plays. Scores of blue balloons are ready to fly into the crisp night. The referees enter the field house:

"Eight minutes, Coach." Peacock nods, then kneels with his team and lowers his head. "We thank you, Jesus," he says, "for the bigness of this game."

ROGERS TAKES the opening kick, and everything goes right. Kirby chucks the ball all over the field. Ziemba is a one-man Hoover Dam, holding back every rush. The Mounties offense moves as if in practice. When they score, the stands in old Gates Stadium creak and sway. Peacock crosses his arms over his clipboard, hugging it like a teddy bear. Rogers scores again, and again. It's 21-0 at half.

The field house buzzes at halftime. Peacock pleads: "Do not let up! Do not give them hope!"

But they do. Bentonville scores immediately, then recovers a mishandled kick. The visiting crowd, clad in black and gold, screams. The Tigers score again, and again. Lunney, Bentonville's high-priced coach, shows he's worth every penny, taking advantage of Rogers' overpursuit. The game closes to 28-20. Bentonville has one final fourthquarter drive to tie.

After converting two fourth downs, the Tigers are down to one more fourth-down red zone play with 30 seconds left. The Bentonville quarterback launches a pass into the corner of the end zone. It wobbles in the haze, then falls. Peacock squeezes his clipboard again. The fans, seemingly miles away, cannot see where the ball lands. Neither can the radio announcers, who call it incomplete and assume the game is over. There's no JumboTron in this stadium, just a referee, who squares himself to the Rogers sideline and raises his arms. The twopoint conversion is good. Overtime.

The Rogers side goes silent. Peacock's chin juts a little farther as the Bentonville fans congeal into a rolling mob. The ref tosses the coin and places the ball on the 10-yard line. Rogers scores in two plays. Bentonville ties it quickly. Now Bentonville gets the ball and, it seems, inevitability with it. Can you feel Peacock's last best chance vanishing in the chicken-plant smoke? Bentonville will return almost all of its stars next season—guys from Oklahoma and Oregon, and one from Louisiana who came after seeing the stadium on the Internet. Rogers will be visiting that fancy stadium next year with a young team. And then the school will split in two, leaving Bentonville as a still-unified power, getting better with every new kid who decides he wants to be a Tiger. Hugs won't help. The Big Blue Train is here.

Peacock sends out offensive tackle Ziemba with the defense, and on his first play, he reaches, feels the nub of the ball and pulls it free. There's a scrum.

Ziemba emerges from the pile and slices his meaty arm toward the plant like a cleaver. Rogers' ball.

Peacock and his players creep from the sideline to the edge of the field. Kirby follows Ziemba down to the goal line and beyond. Game over. A glob of blue spills everywhere. Peacock runs to meet Lunney, who smiles at him. Then Martina falls into his arms, her cheeks red from the cold. Everyone funnels into the field house. A new banner will hang. Peacock climbs onto a chair, and the room goes quiet. He raises his arms and screams: "How 'bout them Mounties!" Helmets and roars go up, tears fall down.

Do I make you proud? Yes.

Outside, in the cold, the Tyson trucks pull out of their docks and lurch away. Down the street, Wal-Mart is still open. Around the corner, orange reflectors flash back at every slow-moving headlight. The wind blows the smoke from the chicken plant toward the still-new interstate. In the days to come, Rogers will find itself ranked in the top 20 in the nation, and after a couple of playoff wins, competing in the state championship game, events unthinkable three months before. Word comes down that the town of Rogers has set aside $17 million for a new stadium.

One night, Peacock stays in his office until 3 a.m. watching film, and his wife joins him. An assistant turns to them and says, "Now you can stay and influence more lives." But Martina, the coach's wife and a coach's daughter, knows different. "Sometimes you lose and you leave," she says, "but sometimes you win and you leave."

Here in the new Arkansas, there's always a train on the way. And what's wrong with that? So many towns need the boom. But sometimes it's hard to remember, as the single headlight appears in the distance and the rumble grows louder, that when one train comes, another has to move out of its way.

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