Pulse: The Football Issue

www.nwacc.edufacebook.com/nwacc1

THE FOOTBALL ISSUE

september 24 | IssUe 1

2 |

Letter from the Editor 6 What is “Pulse” anyway?

App Spotlight 3 We scour the app store so you don’t have to.

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Recess 4 Puzzles, trivia and other stuff to keep you from doing your homework.

Tweet of the Week 6 The best of what’s going on @PulseNWA.

2012 NWA Football Preview 8 A school from the 7A-West has won the last five state championships. Which team has the inside track on the crown this season? And what’s in store for the two conference newcomers?

Not the News 13 Some stories are too good to be true, and some things are just completely made up.

Popcorn Previews 15 Don’t go to the movies until you know what’s there - theater and DVD reviews of the films you want to see.

Leading Off

PULSE | 3

THE NEW BALANCE STORE1720 west walnut street | 636-9200 | rogers, arkansas | newbalance.com

APP SPOTLIGHT: FlipboardAPP: FlipboardCOST: Free!GENRE: Social

Flipboard bills itself as “Your Social Magazine,” and there’s no better description of the app than that.

Flipboard is a digital magazine, right on your phone or tablet, and you pick the content! You can sync to facebook and twitter and view your news feed or home page like a

professionally designed magazine, with big pictures and smooth page-flipping (hence the name Flipboard).

Flipboard mixes in other feeds with your social networks like Sports, News and Technology, as well as “Flipboard Picks” - cool stuff that the Flipboard folks find around the Internet, from a photoblog of beach scenes to a list of ways to improve your grilled cheese sandwichs.

It’s completely customizable, so if facebook is old news for you, it’s gone. Not quite on a twitter?

Not a problem. You can search the app for whatever your interests are, and Flipboard pretty much designs You Magazine.

Flipboard also boasts radio and video channels, so you can access the latest ESPN.com videos or lis-ten to a hand-picked music genre, all in the same app.

Did we mention it’s free?If you’re an iPhone or Android

user wishing you had the cool magazine-style apps of your friend’s iPad, this is as good as it gets on a mobile device.

And did we mention it’s free?

4 |

RECESS1. What Arkansas high school

has won the most state championships all-time?

A. BentonvilleB. Pine BluffC. Fort Smith SouthsideD. Little Rock Central

2. Which NFL team’s real life players were featured as the fictional “Gotham Rogues” in the 2012 movie The Dark Knight Rises?

A. Dallas CowboysB. Pittsburgh SteelersC. New York GiantsD. Chicago Bears

3. How many feet long is a regulation football field, including the end zones?

A. 100B. 360C. 520D. 1,000

4. What is the name of the former Friday Night Lights TV star who starred in the films John Carter, Battleship and Savages in 2012?

A. Taylor KitschB. Ryan GoslingC. Nicolas CageD. Tom Hardy

5. Which of the following isn’t a real penalty in the NFL?

A. Horsecollar tackleB. Crack-back blockC. Clear path foulD. Tripping

6. Who is the only athlete to play in both a Super Bowl (football) and a World Series (baseball)?

A. Bo JacksonB. Jim ThorpeC. Michael JordanD. Deion Sanders

7. What is the Arkansas high school record for touchdown passes in a season?

A. 59B. 64C. 77D. 82

8. How many points does an NFL defense get for blocking an extra point and returning it to the opposite end zone?

A. 1B. 2C. 3D. 6

Games & Trivia

PULSE | 5PULSE | 5

9. Reigning 7A state football champions

10. Points for a touchdown

12. Inside the 20-yard line

ACROSS

3. Points for a safety

5. It’s thrown for a penalty

6. Picked off a pass

14. Line to cross for a touchdown

20. Football plus dresses

21. You wear on your head

22. It’s worth three points

18. It’s raining Springdale and Har-Ber mascots

16. Low line-drive kickoff that bounces

8. Rogers Heritage mascot

13. One of two new 7A West schools

15. The other new 7A West school

11. You get four to advance 10 yards

17. “_______ THAT KICK!”

19. Offensive position that blocks and receives

DOWN

7. Name of this publication

4. Site of football state championship games

2. Football Intermission

1. It’s fl ipped to start the game

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Trivia Answers:1. D, Little Rock Central2. B, Pittsburgh Steelers3. B, 360 feet (120 yards)

4. A, Taylor Kitsch, and what terrible movies5. C, Clear path foul (NBA rule)

6. D, Deion Sanders7. C, 77 (Thomas Thrash, Pulaski Acad.)8. B, 2 points

FOOTBALL FRENZY

6 |

tweetof the week

“tweet number one. Lots more to come, and soon!”

@pulseNWA

For a chance to be featured in @PulseNWA’s tweet of the week, drop us a line with the hash tag #PulseNWA.

[LETTER] FROM THE EDITOR

First things first, thanks for reading. Hopefully if you found this column,

you’re enjoying the first ever issue of Pulse. If nothing else it should entertain you while you wait in line for the iPhone 5. Spoiler alert, Siri still doesn’t do your homework or laundry.

Pulse is an exciting new pub-lication because the content is audience-driven. We want to write what you want to read. The tar-get is high schoolers in Northwest Arkansas, and we’re going to have high schoolers in Northwest Arkan-sas writing for us.

Pulse won’t be a list of home-work tips or afternoon specials, it’ll be something worth consum-ing. Part ESPN The Magazine, part The Onion, part Seventeen We’ll cover anything from TV to fashion to sports to snowcones. If you don’t think reading is fun, don’t worry, there will be plenty of pictures. Something for everyone.

If you have something high school-related you want to hear about and we’re not writing about, tweet us @PulseNWA and the story will find its way back to you.

Add it all up and it’s a one-of-a-kind publication that you can be apart of, whether it’s by writing or tweeting us photos or telling us

what we’re doing wrong. We’re all friends here.

PulseNWA represents the six biggest high schools in Northwest Arkansas: Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers Heritage, Rogers High, Springdale Har-Ber and Springdale High. That’s some 4,500-something opinions total, and we want to hear all of them.

This will be an evolving project that continually adapts as we strive to live up to our namesake. We want to reflect the pulse of the people, and as the people part of the equation, it is your responsibility to keep us in line.

We’re going to strive to make Pulse a forum for two-way interaction, not a once-a-month tabloid that we print and don’t care if you ever read or not. We’ll pub-lish this about every three weeks, but we’re developing a website to complement our twitter feed so that we’re pretty much pulsing all the time.

After all, what good is anything without a steady pulse?

Matt Watson is the editor of Pulse, and can be reached via twitter @PulseNWA with questions, comments, complaints or recipes.

presented by@CricketNation

PULSE | 7

$5 OFFPURCHASE OF $25 OR MORE

Must present coupon.

Not valid with any other offers.

Only valid at Fayetteville and

Rogers locations.

Expires 10/31/12

NWA BIG SIX FOOTBALL 2012 SCHEDULES

BENTONVILLEDATE OPPONENT SITE

8/31 KC ROCKHURST HOME

9/7 Broken Arrow Away

9/14 SOUTH PANOLA HOME

9/21 Springdale Har-Ber* Away

9/28 SILOAM SPRINGS* HOME

10/5 Rogers* Away

10/12 ROGERS HERITAGE* HOME

10/19 Van Buren* Away

10/26 Springdale* Away

11/2 FAYETTEVILLE* HOME

ROGERSDATE OPPONENT SITE

8/31 Mountain Home Away

9/7 TAHLEQUAH HOME

9/14 Fort Smith Northside Away

9/21 SPRINGDALE* HOME


10/5 BENTONVILLE* HOME

10/12 Fayetteville* Away

10/19 Springdale Har-Ber* Away


11/2 Rogers Heritage* Away

HERITAGEDATE OPPONENT SITE

8/31 FORT SMITH SOUTHSIDE HOME

9/7 FORT SMITH NORTHSIDE HOME

9/14 HARRISON HOME

9/21 Siloam Springs* Away

9/28 SPRINGDALE HAR-BER* HOME


10/12 Bentonville* Away



11/2 ROGERS* HOME

HAR-BERDATE OPPONENT SITE

8/31 Webb City Away

9/7 Columbia Rock Bridge Away

9/14 FORT SMITH SOUTHSIDE HOME



10/5 VAN BUREN* HOME


10/19 ROGERS* HOME



FAYETTEVILLEDATE OPPONENT SITE

8/30 MEMPHIS UNIV. SCHOOL HOME

9/7 Jefferson City Away

9/14 MUSKOGEE HOME


9/28 Springdale* Away

10/5 ROGERS HERITAGE* HOME

10/12 Rogers* Away


10/26 SPRINGDALE HAR-BER* HOME

11/2 Bentonville* Away

SPRINGDALEDATE OPPONENT SITE

8/31 BATESVILLE HOME

9/7 TULSA CENTRAL HOME

9/14 Bixby Away

9/21 Rogers* Away

9/28 FAYETTEVILLE* HOME





11/2 Springdale Har-Ber Away

SPRINGDALE

8 |

HOW THE

WESTWAS WON

NWA’S NeW FOOtbALL DOmINANCeThe northwest corner of the state has produced the last fi ve state champs in Arkansas’s

highest classifi cation, but just three titles in 30 years before that. What’s changed?

PULSE | 9

Arkansas high school football history has been dominated by schools from Little Rock, Pine Bluff, El Dorado and Fort Smith. When the calendar turned 2000, history went out the window.

The long time population centers with the older schools in the state boast the all-time records when it comes to state championships – no current 7A/6A West football team is in the top 10 in titles – but the north-west corner of the state has been hogging all the success in the past decade.

Since 2001, there have been two state champs from Little Rock in the highest classification, two from Fort Smith, and seven from Washing-ton and Benton Counties. Fayette-ville has two state championships in school history, both since 2007. Bentonville has three, all coming since 2001. Springdale Har-Ber won its first title in 2009 in just its fourth season of competition. Springdale High has the longest record of suc-cess, with titles in 1969, 1982 and 1989, and 2005.

The easy answer is population – from Fayetteville to Bentonville, the area population approached jumped 33 percent from 2000 to 2010. More citizens means more football play-ers.

“We’ve got great numbers this year – when you’ve got 160 kids and you’re trying to find 22, you’ve got a shot at being successful,” said Daryl Patton, head coach at Fayetteville.

But it takes more than quantity to bring quality, and it Northwest Ar-kansas has found both on the foot-ball field.

“Population growth, and the em-

phasis from the schools to be good athletically – that can be from facili-ties, to paying the coaches,” Patton said. “A lot of people here, you move in and half your team is getting pri-vate workouts or gym memberships on the side.

“There is a lot of competition and a lot of people realizing there is competition just to play – they’re go-ing to do everything they can to give their kids a chance.”

Patton’s Fayetteville team is the defending 7A champion in part due to the drive of the players within the program to outdo each other – sev-eral Bulldogs have gone to position camps across the country, and work out upwards of 10 times per week during the summer.

“They’re going to get private les-sons, going to quarterback camps, football camps all across America – these guys want to be good, and once you get some tradition, and I think we’ve got that now, you don’t want to be the team to break it and go backwards.There’s pressure to work hard,” Patton said.

But how did that tradition spring up so quickly?

Bentonville coach Barry Lun-ney, who watched the area grow up from Fort Smith where he won four state titles at Southside before com-ing north to win two more with the Tigers, said the competition within schools for players just to get on the field is the byproduct of the rivalry between schools and communities.

“Their came a time where the coaching in our league was good, and the coaching brought the lev-el of ball up from top to bottom. Northwest Arkansas became a nice

[HOW THE WEST WAS WON]

place to live, and the growth started to happen 15 years ago or so, and Walmart really started to take off with J.B. Hunt and Tyson,” Lunney said. “But for football, the facilities were on par with everybody else’s at that point. There were outstanding coaches though, and everybody in the different communities really sup-ported the athletic programs, espe-cially football.

“Once one started having

some success on a statewide ba-sis – Northside was going through their height at that time in the 80s and early 90s, and then Southside started winning championships – the other teams they were playing upped the antes, and they hired more staff, more people, and it just started going.”

With the growing talent pool, the community support and the finan-cial health of the region, the schools

RICHEY MILLER CLEAR CHOICE PHOTO

Brice Gahagans helped Fayetteville run past Bentonville in the state finals, the second straight finals matchup between the two 7A-West foes.

10 |

north of Fort Smith started to de-velop aesthetically how they hoped to develop competitively. The com-bination of it all transformed North-west Arkansas to a football-rich re-gion with no signs of slowing down.

“Then they started building bet-ter facilities, redoing stadiums, put-ting in turf fields. It really started in the communities, and they desired to have good athletic programs that could compete,” Lunney said. “The competition between communities through football just evolved. While it began to evolve, then people wanted to move in to those pro-grams so their kids could be apart of it.

“Was it the big business that brought it all together? That cer-tainly helped, but the league started taking off well before that. It’s con-tinued to improve, and everybody’s pushing each other to keep getting better.”


Springdale Har-Ber won the 2009 state championship in its fourth year as a program after splitting from Springdale High.


Springdale High helped kick off a run of Western division dominance with a 2005 state title.

PULSE | 11

BENTONVILLE TIGERSThe Bentonville Tigers only lost one game

in 2010-11 combined, but it happened to be their last game last season in a high-profile overtime loss in the state champion-ship. That’s all in the past though, as the Tigers started out with three impressive non-conference wins against teams from

out of state by a combined 85-21.Bentonville has all the pieces to make its

third consecutive trip to Little Rock for the state final, led by an experienced defensive unit and a playmaker at tailback in Tearris Wallace.

HAR-BER WILDCATSSpringdale Har-Ber is just three years re-

moved from a state championship, but the Wildcats have been overshadowed by their two neighbors that have been to the title game two years in a row.

Har-Ber has gone 5-2 or 6-1 in confer-ence each of the previous five seasons, but the the Wildcats fell short of the state

semifinals for the first time since 2006 last season.

Har-Ber opened the 2012 season with two losses in the state of Missouri, but it’s the games at the end of the season that the Wildcats judge their season by. They’re hoping defense does win championships this December.

FAYETTEVILLE BULLDOGSThe champs are still the champs until

somebody beats them, and it didn’t take long for the Fayetteville Bulldogs to get beat. Twice. The defending champion Bull-dogs opened the season with two losses against teams from Tennessee and Mis-souri, but bounced back in a big way in

their first game at Harmon Field.Fayetteville has the offensive firepower

to compete with anyone with senior signal-caller Austin Allen, and three University of Arkansas commits in Allen and defensive stars Alex Brignoni and Brooks Ellis.

HERITAGE WAR EAGLESRogers Heritage fans won’t look kindly

back on the 2011 season that saw their War Eagles finish winless in conference, but there is reason for enthusiasm in 2012.

Junior quarterback Josh Qualls was thrown into the fire as a sophomore starter, and the War Eagles started another eight sophomores on defense last season.

Qualls passed for close to 2,500 yards and tallied 24 touchdowns, numbers that should only improve this season.

Heritage opened the season with three non-conference wins, two more victories than the War Eagles totaled all of last season, so it’s clear that Heritage is a team on the rise.

12 |

VAN BUREN POINTERSVan Buren is the other new addition to

the 7A/6A West this season along with Siloam Springs, and the Pointers at least have a subtler transition coming from the 7A/6A Central.

But Van Buren opened the season with a non-conference tilt against rival and 5A powerhouse Alma and was crushed 47-21,

and then followed that opening loss with another defeat at the hands of 4A Poteau (Okla.).

The Pointers released some frustrations on a weak JA Fair team with a 42-point shutout in Week 3, but they still have plenty of work to do before competing against the best 7A teams in the state.

ROGERS MOUNTIESIn their second year in the option offense,

the Mounties look like they’ve got some things figured out. Rogers stumbled to a 2-8 record last season as they installed new offensive schemes, but the Mounties are off to a 3-0 start in 2012 like their cross-town counterparts at Heritage.

Senior quarterback Nick Wary heads the option attack, and Rogers put up 147

points in its first three wins to start the season the right way.

Rogers may do things differently than other teams in the high-flying, pass-heavy 7A/6A West, but a possession offense can act as a good defense to throw faster-paced offenses out of rhythm and give the Mounties a chance to make some noise this season.

SILOAM SPRINGS PANTHERSWelcome to the state’s most competitive

football conference, Siloam Springs. The Panthers jumped from 5A to 6A in 2012, and in doing so were grouped in the 7A/6A West with the most successful programs in Arkansas in the last decade.

And despite its size, it’s not like Siloam was dominating the 5A-West either - the

Panthers last made the 5A playoffs in 2008.There will surely be growing pains, but

the good news for the 2012 team and for the program is that after facing the gauntlet that is the 7A/6A-West conference sched-ule, the Panthers will compete in the 6A playoffs and should benefit in the long term by playing a higher level of competition.

SPRINGDALE BULLDOGSIt’s been seven years now since the “Year

of the Dog,” and the Bulldogs have been in a constant fight to regain prominance ever since.

Second-year coach Shane Patrick took over a team that started 0-6 last season, but the Bulldogs progressed in season to win three of their final four games and

sneak in the playoffs.In 2012, the Springdale opened the sea-

son with two shutouts, winning by a com-bined 76-0, before losing at Bixby (Okla.).

Running back Deandre Murray provides a spark out of the backfield for a revamped offense hoping to keep up with the team from the other side of town this year.

PULSE | 13

NOT THE NEWS: stuff wemade up

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moreHEADLINES:

NWA high schools cancel basketball season, institute second football season

Source: Fayetteville High to change colors to orange and white to match construction signs

In a fi rst-of-its-kind decision, representatives from each high school in Northwest Arkansas unanimously voted Tuesday to cancel the upcoming 2012-13 basketball season in favor of a second football season per school year.

“Representatives? We just took a show of hands from the entire school, and every single person

raised his hand without even thinking about it,” said one area basketball coach, who wished to remain anonymous as he raised his hand to vote for more foot-ball.

The rising popularity of foot-ball in the United States, from the NFL down to college to the high school ranks, has captured the attention of fans of all sports.

“Don’t get me wrong, basket-ball’s great. At our school we actually canceled every single sport except football, and we’re meeting later this week to dis-cuss tabling our academic cur-riculum too so that students can just concentrate on playing or watching football year-round,” the coach said.

With a massive and ongoing overhaul of campus going on at Fayetteville High School, the Bulldogs have decided to tem-porarily change their colors to orange and white to match the all of the construction signs and barrels.

School offi cials say teachers and students had grown tired of their traditional purple clashing

with all of the orange signs, so they made the decision to try to go with the fl ow and blend in with the construction, as a new school and basketball gymnasium are being built, while the football fi eld and parking lots were updated during the summer.

“Looks don’t matter, it’s what’s inside that counts,” says no high schooler ever

Cafeteria food not that good, guy says

No one attends welcome home party for teen who comes out of 7-year coma, despite announcement on MySpace

orange and white to match construction signswith all of the orange signs, so they made the decision to try to go with the fl ow and blend in with the construction, as a new school and basketball gymnasium are being built, while the football fi eld and parking lots

Source: Students “not really feeling” tests, homework this year

PULSE | 15

Wouldn’t it be funny if Will Ferrell did a movie entirely in Spanish?

No. No it wouldn’t.When you’ve been as

successful as Ferrell, you get plenty of room to develop your own ideas and explore new mediums. Sometimes it turns out pretty cool, like Will’s FunnyOrDie.com for sketch comedy or his hilarious low-budget beer commercials for Old Milwaukee, one of which aired during last year’s Super Bowl only to viewers in one small corner of Nebraska.

But other times, he’s allowed to make an entire movie in a different language with a ridiculous plot and not a lot of laughs, and no-body stops it from reaching theaters and eventually DVD.

Let me do you a favor and stop you from seeing Case de mi Padre, if no one else has.

Maybe Will Ferrell is your

favorite actor, and you just want to claim you’ve seen all his movies. It’s just not worth the 84 minutes of your life you’ll have to spend reading an unfunny fi lm. Will Ferrell parodying athletes is funny. Will Ferrell pretending to be a cop, a news anchor, an elf - all funny. Will Ferrell making fun of Spanish telenovelas is not.

If you want to watch Will Ferrell pretend to be foreign, go rent the origi-nal Austin Powers (Mustafa) or Zoolander (Mugatu). Otherwise, save your Will Ferrell movie money for Anchorman 2. Will Ferrell is awesome, but Case de mi Padre is not.

Go ahead, write down every successful fourth movie in a fi lm franchise that replaces the lead ac-tor. I’ll wait. Okay, now take your blank piece of paper and draw yourself a prize, you earned it.

Who asked for a fourth Bourne movie, one without Bourne in it? Imagine if someone made another Spiderman movie fresh off the heels of the Tobey Maguire trilogy, without Tobey Magu-ire. Oh that happened too? Well, Hollywood’s not even trying.

Bourne Legacy certainly could’ve done worse without Jeremy Renner, cast in yet another mov-ie as a man’s man super soldier, and the action scenes and cinematography certainly feel like a Bourne movie. Which is appropriate because Leg-acy is “like a Bourne movie” but not one.

Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz add some credibility to the fi lm, and you won’t leave the the-ater un-entertained, but this isn’t something you schedule your weekend around.

The movie predictably sets up for another in-stallment, which makes the tagline all the more ironic: “There Was Never Just One.” No, there wasn’t just one Bourne movie, or even one Bourne trilogy apparently.

rAtING: 5/10

rAtING: 3/10

IN tHeAters:

tHe bOUrNe LeGACY

ON DVD:

CAsA De mI pADre

in theaters soon:

POPCORN PREVIEWSPOPCORN PREVIEWS

KATY PERRY: PART OF MEKaty Perry

THE BABYMAKERSPaul Schneider, Olivia Munn

HYSTERIAHugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal

RED DOGJosh Lucas, Rachael Taylor

THE MAGIC OF BELLE ISLEMorgan Freeman, Virginia Madsen

THE CABIN IN THE WOODSKristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth

NEW TO

SEPTEMBER 28

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

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OCTOBER 12

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