New West coach, AD Mark Little readies for 2008 season

By Charles Curcio

Thursday, August 7, 2008 August 07, 2008 02:40 pm

— The locker room may be different six years later, but the fire and determination of West Stanly’s new head football coach and athletic are easily recognizable.
Mark Little returns this season to West Stanly High School, familiar grounds for the Whiteville native.
After spending six years as the Whiteville head coach, Little comes back to familiar stomping grounds where he spent 15 years as a coach.
“When I first walked in again, it felt like I had hadn’t been gone, it was a really weird feeling,” Little said.
“I couldn’t have gone anywhere else and felt like this when I came back to West Stanly. Coach Rick Williams and the administration have done a great job in the past six years of improving the facilities.”
According to West Stanly principal Bud Smith, the timing of Little’s hiring could not have been better.
“It was an opportunity that both of us weren’t looking for but they seemed to coincide with each other,” Smith said.
“He’s had a really good summer as far as setting the foundations for our athletic program and it’s been a very smooth transition.”
Smith believes that Coach Little brings a lot to West Stanly, stating that “he has worked with a lot of kids and is very familiar with our program. You are not going to find a harder worker anywhere with his dedication and passion for football.”
When Smith called him about the open West Stanly position, Little had taken a job at West Bladen, but the position at West was “a situation that I couldn’t pass up.
Prior to West Bladen, Little’s plans were to be the county-wide athletic director when West Stanly called.
Little’s six years as the head man at Whiteville include an impressive overall record of 48-22 and six straight 2A playoff appearances.
“The six years I spent in Whiteville changed me as a coach, hopefully for the better” Little said.
“When you experience different things as a coach, they can change you. Whether or not that will show in the win-loss record or not, I don’t know.”
According to Little, his time at Whiteville has helped to change his philosophy as a coach.
“I think that I realize now that you have to be more balanced on offense,” Little said. “We try to work on that more in practice, spreading the field and making it tougher for the defense.”
However, the more that things change, the more they stay the same as Little still believes in the basic fundamentals of football.
“I have a quote on the wall in the locker room from Vince Lombardi,” Little said. “It says that you can forget the trick plays and fancy offenses, that football comes down to two things: blocking and tackling. Also, you are not going to be successful unless you have a good offensive line.”
Coaching is all in the family for the Littles. Marko Little, Mark’s son, is an assistant at West Stanly and also the head baseball coach for the Colts.
Mark’s other son, Luke, served as an assistant for him at Whiteville and now is the head coach at South Stanly, meaning the two will coach against each other on October 24.
The situation is not unique for Mark Little coaching against his son Luke. When Mark was at Whiteville, Luke coached against him as offensive coordinator at West Brunswick.
“The only difference that week was that I didn’t talk to my dad every day which we usually do,” South head coach Luke Little said.
Regarding what coaching against his son as a head coach will be like this year, Mark Little said “We have Q

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