Dierks gets the hometown win

By STEVE BRAWNER

Senior Dierks High School football players are given a key ring with a leather attachment. On one side, the school’s “D” logo is engraved. On the other are Ayers Field’s GPS coordinates. 

The purpose of the latter, Outlaws Coach Paul Ernest explained in a school video, is “so that no matter where they go in life, no matter what they do, they can always find their way back home, and they’re always going to be welcome.”

Ayers Field isn’t moving. But it is changing. Next year, it no longer will slope almost eight feet from one end to the other. 

That’s because Dierks High School was the runaway winner of Friday Night 5G Lights, a $1 million football field makeover sponsored by T-Mobile. Dierks generated almost 2 million of the 8 million votes tallied between 25 finalists in the nationwide contest.

The community celebrated its victory Nov. 14 at the Dierks High School gymnasium. T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan presented the check along with former NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski. Country music star Bailey Zimmerman performed.

One million dollars doesn’t buy what it used to, but it can make a big difference for a field that hasn’t had much work done in a couple of decades. The school will level out the surface for sure. Next on the priority list is replacing the visitors bleachers. Superintendent Grover Hill, a Dierks native, hopes to redo the bathrooms and concessions if money allows.

In addition, the high school is receiving a consultation with a stadium expert, a weight room upgrade courtesy of Gronk Fitness, and 16 all-expense-paid tickets to the SEC Championship game that will allow the seniors to attend. Next August, T-Mobile will be back for a tailgate party. 

How did Dierks (generally pronounced “Derricks” by natives), a southwest Arkansas community of about 900, generate 2 million votes? It started because a booster club member believed it could win.

Krystal Greene was watching a morning news show when she saw Gronkowski talking about the contest. The mother of two future Outlaws ages 6 and 3 called her sister and started rallying the troops. 

More than 2,100 schools entered. To advance in the contest’s early rounds, Dierks submitted social media videos featuring its schools festooned with T-Mobile-related decorations and students wearing T-Mobile shirts.

The top 450 schools advanced to the second round and won $5,000. The top 25 won $25,000. 

A nationwide election decided the winner among those 25. Anyone with an email address could vote once each day. 

Which Butch Brown did, every day. He played tackle on both sides of the ball on Dierks’ 1975 Class B state championship team – the only championship team in school history. His son in North Carolina got his hospital co-workers to vote for Dierks. Brown’s daughter-in-law enlisted the help of her relatives and friends in Florida. Brown called his former supervisor in Missouri asking for help. A brother-in-law in Louisiana encouraged people to vote for Dierks.

Schools in Arkansas lent their support. Meanwhile, Dierks attracted celebrity endorsers such as comedian Jeff Foxworthy and country music star Tracy Lawrence, a native of football rival Foreman.

Greene, the booster who started it all, called Dierks’ victory “an emotional journey.”

“It was honestly overwhelming in the best way,” she said. “Everybody from our surrounding towns and our competition towns, everybody was supporting us. … We had all the support not just from the state but from the country. It was amazing.”

Hill, the superintendent, doesn’t know exactly why Dierks’ story caught on. He said it had something to do with “a small town from nowhere competing against the world.”

“After about the first week, we were like in the top four,” he said, “And then, hey, it’s getting serious. If we’re going to play, let’s play hard. And about a week later, we got in the number one position and maintained that until the contest was over.”

After the check presentation, Mason Smith, a senior middle linebacker, told reporters at the gym that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had played for the Outlaws. On Ayers Field, sixth grade quarterback Tyler Tedford did some passing drills in preparation to lead the offense someday. Greene’s six-year-old was throwing a football around, too.

If their story is like so many others, they’ll all share the experience of playing at Ayers Field. When their playing days are over, they’ll return to cheer on the Outlaws. 

That’s because no matter where they go in life, that field will always be home. And they’ll always be able to find it. 

They won’t even need the key ring.

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 21 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.