NW Democrat-Gazette

Longtime UAFS coach Whorton dies

KEVIN TAYLOR

FORT SMITH — Louis Whorton, who led Westark Community College to a women’ s national basketball championship in the mid- 1990s and guided the program from junior college into a four- year program, died Sunday after a short illness. Whorton was 71.

Chanlee Bottoms, now an assistant coach at Alma after playing for Whorton, tried unsuccessfully to hold onto her emotions when talking about her former University of Arkansas-Fort Smith coach.

“I was talking to one of my teammates yesterday,” Bottoms said, tears streaming down her face. “I said, ‘He brought student-athletes from all over the world with different types of backgrounds, and he taught us to love, battle, and to care as a unit.’

“He was like a father to so many players.”

Bottoms led Alma to a 2005 state basketball championship, then later signed with Whorton’s UAFS Lady Lions.

Christy Looney, another former player for Whorton, also recalled the personable coach from his early years as a prep coach.

“He came to County Line [High School] when I was a freshman, and back then the junior high coach [Bill Gossage] coached the junior high, and the high school coach [Whorton] coached the senior girls and boys,” Looney said. “I was terrified of him. Being a freshman, and him coming over from Subiaco, he was intimidating.”

Whorton spent two seasons coaching the Lady Indians before being picked to coach at Westark College, now UAFS. The Hartford native never left.

Longtime Fort Smith Trinity Junior High School Coach Jeff Meares said Whorton would break down kids at practice and then ask them what they were doing that night.

“When it was time to coach, he coached,” Meares said.

When Whorton recruited you, players rarely said no, said Meares.

“Louis had a special way when it came to recruiting,” Meares said. “He didn’t walk in looking like Pat Riley, but he got you to sit down and talk with him, you were done — you were a Lady Lion.

“He and Pat [Whorton] may have had one son [Jeremy], but they had 1,200 daughters.”

“There isn’t anything Pat and Louis wouldn’t do for anyone,” Alma Schools Superintendent David Woolly said Monday. “It’s really hard to put into words.”

Whorton had six 30-win seasons for the Lady Lions, most of those coming when the school was among the top junior college programs in the nation. Even after UAFS became a NCAA Division II school in 2009, Whorton held his own by compiling a record of 110-82 between 2009-16, his last season to coach.

In the seven seasons since, UAFS coaches Elena Lavato (2016-18), Tari Cummings (2018-21) and Ryan McAdams have a combined 67-69 record.

Longtime Alma softball Coach Charla Parrish coached with Whorton right out of college.

“I was young and naive, and we’d go to Texas and play,” Parrish said. “When you go to Texas, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Well, Louis got thrown out of the ballgame. He told me, ‘Whatever you do, just don’t get thrown out!’

“There I was 21, being the head coach of a junior college team.”

Former UAFS women’s basketball coach Tari Cummings, now an assistant at Baylor, was choked up following news of Whorton’s passing.

“Words can’t describe the impact that Coach Whorton has had on my life on and off the court,” Cummings said in a statement through Baylor. “He was my coach, my mentor, and he was like a father to me; I’m thankful God brought us together.

“I will forever love and cherish him.”

Meares said Whorton taught him plenty about coaching women’s basketball.

“He gave me a chance to be a young coach,” said Meares, who spent four seasons working with Whorton and three more coaching with Jeremy Cox’s men’s squad before signing on with Fort Smith Trinity Junior High.

“I love basketball and wanted to coach,” Meares said. “He told me, ‘You’re awfully young, so just give them [players] encouragement and no hugs.’

“He had such a way with kids.”

Like Bottoms, Parrish struggled to get through Monday.

“Louis was a mentor,” Parrish said. “I was right out of college coaching kids that were just a couple of years younger than me. It was a part-time assistant job back then, and I left and got the job at Alma. He got a [fulltime] paid assistant job and I was here for one year and I was going back. [But] at the last minute, I didn’t think that was the best fit for me.

“And the next year [199495] they were 35-0 and won the national championship.”

During his 23 seasons of competition at the junior college level, Whorton compiled an impressive 538-195 record — an average of 23 wins per season.

In that span, Whorton guided the Lady Lions to one Arkansas JUCO conference championship, three Arkansas State Tournament championships, seven Bi-State East Conference championships, and seven Region II titles.

His teams were also Region II runners-up six times.

Whorton was the NJCAA National Coach of the Year in 1994-95. His overall collegiate record was 648-277.

Parrish recalled recruiting trips to Texas.

“We would go recruiting to Dallas every Christmas when I was there, and Pat would drop me off at one school and Louis would go to another school,” Parrish said. “There’s a lot of good memories. It’s heartbreaking.

“Louis and Pat Whorton were like mom and dad.”

In a newspaper story in 2016 upon his retirement, Whorton said he knew it was time to hang up his whistle.

“Everything good comes to an end, and certainly, I’ve had a great thing as far as my coaching career,” he said. “An old coach told me one time that when you start looking at things in the past and remember what has happened, more than you look at things that are going to happen in the future, that it’s probably time to be doing something else.”

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2021-12-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

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