Legendary college coach Marvel named to lead Bryant High School boys basketball program
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University of Central Arkansas Hall of Fame coach Ron Marvel has agreed to become the boys head basketball coach at Bryant High School.
Marvel, who led the UCA Sugar Bears for 24 seasons, succeeds Mark Smith who has accepted an offer to become the head basketball coach for the Bauxite Miners.
The winningest women’s basketball coach in Arkansas college history with 489 victories, Marvel retired from UCA at the end of the 2004 season. He and his wife, Jeanette, moved to Bryant and have frequently been in attendance at Bryant basketball games and other activities since then. His daughter Rhonda Hall, wife of former Benton coach Tim Hall, was the Lady Hornets basketball coach from 2003-04 to 2005-06 and is currently the eighth grade girls coach at Bethel Middle School. Marvel’s son-in-law (husband of his daughter Robbie), is former high school basketball coach Randy Rutherford, the current Bryant High School principal.
He will be assisted by Jim Pennington, a former head coach at Hot Springs.
Smith came to Bryant from Benton Junior High to start the 2002-03 season. He takes over the Bauxite position just a few months after his assistant Chad Withers took over the Glen Rose program. Ironically, they’ll be competing against each other this season.
Marvel coached at Fountain Lake and Magazine High Schools before he began his career at UCA. The Sugar Bears reached the post-season in 21 of his 24 seasons there.
