RISON - Chad Cope, the current baseball coach at Class 6A North Little Rock High School and a 1996 graduate of Rison High School, was approved as the new baseball coach for the Rison Wildcats during the Cleveland County School Board's regular monthly meeting Monday night.
In addition, the board approved hiring Cicely Greene-Simpson as the head coach for both the junior high and senior high girls basketball teams and girls track teams. She previously served as an assistant basketball coach under Glory Slater at Dumas High School. The Lady Bobcats made some deep state tournament runs when she was at Dumas during the mid-2000's.
Cope replaces Josh Smeltzer, who stepped down to become head baseball coach at his alma mater, Magnet Cove. Greene-Simpson replaces Head Girls Basketball Coach Seth Taylor, who resigned at end of the season.
Both coaches take over programs that saw success this school year. The baseball Wildcats will be playing in the Class 2A State Tournament this week after finishing second in the regional tournament last week. The Lady Wildcat basketball team also finished second in their region and made the state tournament as well.
Cope was a standout football and baseball player at Rison. He was a member of the 1995 state championship football team and was also a member of the team that made it to the state finals in 1994.
After graduation, Cope earned a scholarship to play baseball at Southern Arkansas University. His first head coaching job after college came at McGehee followed by Star City. He eventually joined the staff of former Watson Chapel Head Baseball Coach Wayne Richardson, succeeding Richardson for the Wildcats after he retired.
Cope took the Watson Chapel Wildcats to two state championship game appearances during his tenure there before resigning in 2019 to become head baseball coach at Greenbrier. He took over at North Little Rock two years ago.
Cope has always maintai...
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