5/19/23
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
A youthful Travis Biggs remembers Charla Parrish doing things the way he figured they should be done.
Attention to detail rarely takes a day off. And for Parrish, the longtime Alma softball coach who announced this week she is retiring after 30 years on the job, doing things halfway wasn’t ever part of her vocabulary.
“When I started coaching back at Chaffin, I remember there was something about Charla that stood out, and even more so during my four years here, she was true dedication to her sport,” said Biggs, who is about to complete his fourth year as Alma’s Assistant Superintendent. “She put the time in, but more importantly, she paid attention to detail. To me, that’s what I saw more than anything.”
Parrish will retire as the school’s all-time winner (440 wins, 336 losses, and two ties). She had just eight losing seasons.
Parrish’s first team, in 1995, finished 16-6-1 and reached the state title game, where they lost to Bryant in the finals.
“Her legacy will be (having) more winning years than losing years,” explains former standout Haily Ostrander, who would follow Parrish into coaching. “(She) always put the kids first, because they are the ultimate reason for what we do, and to give it everything you’ve got but to have fun.”
A 1984 Alma High School graduate, Parrish played on legendary coach Alene Crabtree’s last team during the 1983-84 season. Crabtree, for whom would later have a gym named in her honor, coached the Lady Airedales for 37 seasons (1947-1984).
And, because she was always good at basketball, Parrish initially sought to become a head basketball coach.
But things don’t always play out the way you visualize them.
“That’s what I went to school for,” Parrish said. “(But), you know how things change. I was coaching ninth-grade basketball, volleyball, track, and softball, and then it got to the point where I had to let something go. Whenever Paige (Jones) came, I decided to get out of basketball, because there was no true moving up at that point and time. I decided I would stick with softball and volleyball because at least I got a little bit of a break.
“I love all the sports, but I think my passion had changed more toward softball, but I still like volleyball, and I still like basketball.”
Back in the mid-90s, not too long after being hired by Madelyn Flenor to coach seventh-grade basketball, Parrish took the reigns of Alma’s fledgling softball program. She never left.
“She’s been the only softball coach since the beginning,” Alma High School principal Kirkendoll said. “(But) she’s been a great faculty member. Obviously, you want great teachers and great faculty members, but rarely do you get both. Stan Flenor was a great example of that. She knows everyone and is always willing to help. She’s a true team player.
“She’s a company person.”
Farm life
Parrish’s dad, Charles DeShazo, ran a dairy farm about five miles from Cedarville High School in an unincorporated little area locals called Kenner Chapel, a picturesque area whose road of the same name darts west before morphing into Wagon Wheel Road.
By pure coincidence, the DeShazo’s Crawford County homestead was in the Alma School District. Parrish and her siblings, older brother Dewite and younger sister Lynn, began their Airedale academic careers in the mid-1970s.
“I moved here in the middle of third grade, I think about 10 weeks in, from Van Buren, and I started playing little league basketball for Suzie Ferguson’s mom (Betty Cole) in the third grade,” Parrish said. “I saw a lot of growth here, too, from non-airconditioned schools to the stadium changing (1995), re-working Crabtree (Gym), and moving over here for softball after the complex was built.”
In 1984, Parrish played on Crabtree’s final team.
“When she (Crabtree) retired, I was her last class,” Parrish said. “I went to Arkansas Tech and played for Jim Dickerson for three years and graduated early. I did not play my senior year, and that was the first male coach I ever had, too.”
Parrish actually did her student teaching under the late David Hale in the spring of 1987. She graduated from ATU in December of ‘87 and, as fate would have it, spent the last semester of the 1987-88 school year subbing for Cheryl Edington’s ‘Home Economics’ class before landing an assistant coaching position with the late Louis Whorton’s Westark Lady Lions for five years.
Parrish returned to her roots in 1992.
Birth of a program
Having cut her teeth with Whorton, for whom she would remain close until his sudden passing in December of 2021, Parrish soon found her way to the softball field.
“I really didn’t play softball when I was a kid,” Parrish said. “My parents lived on a dairy farm and couldn’t afford to drive me to Fort Smith to play slow-pitch softball. I did play it once I got out of high school.”
In 1993, the late Ray Holt asked Parrish to help coach a group of players that would include, among others, at least two future Alma School District teachers, Raelynn Holt, and Angela Roark.
“Ray Holt got me interested in it,” Parrish said. “He’s the one that put the team together. He said, ‘Why don’t you come out and help me?’ He said it’s supposed to be a school-sanctioned sport next year, and you can take it over. And that’s what I did.
“Raelynn and Julie Ann both played for me. Raelynn, to this day, is the best arm I ever saw play shortstop.”
Parrish’s first softball teams played on a field adjacent to the Middle School.
“We actually started off playing softball behind the middle school,” she said. “We moved over here after the (little league) baseball field was moved and they built that complex.
“When you think about Alma athletics, coach Parrish has always been a part of that,” Kirkendoll said. “I told her the other day when she told me she was retiring, ‘Good for you; that’s what retirement is for.’
“You’ve earned it.”
The players
Parrish believes first-year Eastern Oklahoma State College freshman pitcher MaKenzie Martin may have been the best overall player she coached - though there were many more.
“Coach Parrish taught me to be a leader,” Martin said. “As a pitcher, I’m playing in the middle of everyone, so it’s important to be encouraging and keep good composure, not only for me but my teammates as well.”
Former Lady Airedale Hailey Ostrander wasn’t bad, either.
Ostrander is among the last big-time three-sport athletes to play for the Lady Airedales, having excelled in volleyball, basketball, and softball. Ostrander was a two-sport college star at the University of the Ozarks, too.
“Being able to say that I played for and coached under Coach Parrish is such an honor,” Ostrander said. “When you think about Alma Softball, you think of her; she is Alma Softball. Her legacy will truly live on forever. She has done an absolutely amazing job building this program.”
“I think coach Parrish’s legacy will last forever on the Alma softball field,” Martin said. “She was always there early getting equipment set out for practice and working with us every single day to become better players and even better people off the field. She would stay after practice to take care of the field, just to do it all again the next day.
“She put a lot into the team and is still one of my favorite coaches I’ve played for.”
Both Martin and Ostrander were four-year starters.
“All four years that I played for her we played in the state tournament, and that is always the goal,” Ostrander said. “She truly heightened my hate for losing just because winning is what we always want. Going into college, I always remember that I’m supposed to go out and give everything I have, whether it’s practice or a game.”
Grab a hard hat
Suffice it to say things were far different when Parrish signed on to coach at Alma, too. Parrish didn’t just coach basketball or help start the softball program.
She lugged jackhammers, planted sod, and poured concrete, too.
“At that time, as coaches, we worked during the summer as maintenance people,” Parrish said. “We sodded the whole football field one summer. We tore the whole back of Crabtree out one year. As a matter of fact, that might have been the same summer we sodded the football field. We had jackhammers, poured concrete, and knocked down walls.
“We did all that before they built the Arena.”
Parrish’s respect then, and now, never wavered from her fellow coaches.
“I’ve been a lot of places, and I’ve been coaching for a while now, and to have a person in one place for 30 years is amazing,” Alma football coach Rusty Bush added. “She’s at work every day. I see her dragging that (softball) field and working hard. They’ve won a lot of softball games since I’ve been here. For people to stay in this business for as long as she has, and to be able to grind like she has, it’s pretty special to see.”
Like her mentor, Ostrander’s first official job with her alma mater involved coaching seventh-grade basketball.
“Competing and giving my all has always been my goal,” Ostrander added. “(Parrish) also taught me to always put in extra work. Whether that’s going out and doing it on my own, or playing extra games with (my) travel ball (team).
“She truly is a role model for me.”