42 years, 289 wins, and an Arkansas High School Football Championship lands Tommy Tice in Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Long-time Harrison football coach and athletic director Tommy Tice has received enough votes to be inducted into the 2022 class of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Tice is the 2nd winningest high school football coach in Arkansas history and retired from Huntsville High School as the football coach and Athletic Director in 2019. However, his legacy with the Harrison Goblins is unmatched.
Tice went to Arkansas Tech to play football in 1969 and said, “they figured out that I wasn’t as good a player as I thought I was.” From there he went to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and got a call from Huntsville Athletic Director Charles Barry who offered him a part-time position as a physical education teacher that would allow him to also attend school at U of A and so he did from 1970-71. Class schedules then got in the way of his P.E. job and so he left Huntsville and finished his education in 1973.
From there he became the head basketball coach and football defensive coordinator at Ramay Junior High in Fayetteville. At the time he didn’t know whether he wanted to coach basketball or football. Tice said, “It kind of helped me out, I think, about that 15th technical foul I got in basketball, I got to thinking my emotions might be better suited for football.” In 1974 Barry called him again and said that the head football coaching job at Huntsville was his if he wanted it. So, his first head football coaching job came to him at the age of 22.
His 29-year tenure with Harrison started in 1982 and lasted until he returned to Huntsville in 2011 to finish his career and retire. During his 42 years in coaching high school football Tice amassed a record of 289-160-6. When he retired from Harrison in 2011 the Harrison Daily Times reported that he led the Goblins to a state championship, four final four appearances, nine district titles and three district runners-up.
Today Coach Tice says that he spends a lot of time watching football practices of high school and colleges but, “grandkids come first so if they’ve got something going on that’s my number one priority right now.”
Tice said he had wondered if he would one day be inducted into the Arkansas High School Coaches Hall of Fame but never dreamed that he would enter the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Tice said he wants to thank the people of Harrison including the players he’s had and the parents, “for trusting me with their most prized possessions.”
The 2022 class also consists of six former Arkansas Razorbacks including basketball star Corey Beck who was a member of the 1994 national championship team, football player Tommy Brasher who also coached defensive lines in the NFL for Philadelphia and Seattle, Razorback and Pittsburg Steeler rusher Barry Foster, legendary Arkansas men’s track and field coach Tyson Gay, and Razorback quarterbacks Matt Jones and Brad Taylor.
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