Remembering Jim Rowland

Biggs recalls ‘coach’s’ impact

By Kevin Taylor

Alma Schools 

Alma Assistant Superintendent Travis Biggs could have taken a different path out of high school. The same could be said about his professional career. 

But sometimes, things work out for a reason. 

Biggs fondly remembered the late Jim Rowland this week. The longtime Fort Smith Public School athletic director passed away on Wednesday at the age of 83. 

Rowland worked for Fort Smith schools for 53 years, including the last 25 (1991-2016) as athletic director.

“In my career, my athletic director was Jim Rowland, and my principal when I was an assistant principal, was Wayne Haver,” Biggs said. “I worked under both of them for 21 years, and nobody was more fortunate to work under the two best men in the world. 

“I wouldn’t be sitting here today if it wasn’t for those guys.” 

Biggs, who has been with Alma Schools since 2019, played football and baseball at Northside High School before landing his first coaching job in 1997. Rowland hired him to coach at Chaffin Junior High. 

“Like everybody else, you get emotional when you start talking about him,” former Fort Smith Southside coach and administrator Travis Biggs said. “Everybody he was around, he made better, and one of the reasons he made you better was because he lived the life he preached. He didn’t preach, (but) you just did better because you always knew he was paying attention.

“That’s a man you didn’t ever want to lose the respect of.” 

“The coaching tree that man had, everybody talked to him - he was the athletic director for the River Valley, for Arkansas, for the whole area,” Alma Athletic Director Jerrod Burns said. “The people that he influenced, it’s unbelievable, and everybody’s going to say the same thing. He wasn’t just a coach; he coached life.”

"Rowland had an impact on small schools as well,” Biggs said. 

“When word started getting out that ‘coach’ passed away, nobody had to say, ‘Coach, who?' … everybody in Arkansas knew who ‘Coach’ was,” Biggs said. “When I was in Fort Smith, anytime we went anywhere, small school or big school, they would call Coach Rowland and ask about this or that. Coach Rowland was the epitome of an athletic director. He did not care about PR, or getting his name out there, he cared about Lavaca Public Schools, he cared about Charleston Public Schools … he cared about Alma Public Schools. 

“Anytime you had a rule change, or was building something, everybody called to get coach’s opinion, and whatever he said, that’s what you did.”

Rowland had a profound effect on the number of schools that opted to change from grass to artificial surface, Biggs said.

“For a man that loved grass more than anything in the world, he knew it was the best thing for public schools,” Biggs said. “Injuries, maintenance, practice availability for everyone … he knew that was the way.

“And he loved cutting grass more than anything else. We would lay sod in the summer, and he could have said, ‘Y’all do this, but he was out there with us.’ 

“That’s the type of man he was.”