Steve Quattlebaum coaching final game on ‘Coach Q Court’ after 3 decades with CAC
It was not in Steve Quattlebaum’s long-term plans to stay at Central Arkansas Christian when he was initially hired as the school’s girls basketball head coach.
Three decades later, after compiling a Hall of Fame career on Mustang Mountain that includes 699 wins, 13 conference championships. 10 regional tournament titles and four state championship rings, plus two runner-up finsihes, Quattlebaum — who is commonly referred to as ‘Coach Q — will coach his final home game Friday night in the Mustangs’ regular-season finale against Joe T. Robinson.
The thought of retirement has been on Quattlebaum’s mind for a while, but he made the final decision over the holiday break that his 30th season being on the sideline of a court that now bears his name will be his last.
“It entered my mind last year and then it really hit me this past Christmas,” Quattlebaum said in an exclusive interview. “I still enjoy the coaching, but the classroom was getting a little hard for me because I have had about five surgeries in the last three or four years. I also have grandkids who are starting to get into sports, so they have stuff that I would like to get to.”
Raised in Harrison before moving to Sherwood his sophomore year of high school, Quattlebaum, 66, finished his prep career at Sylvan Hills. After a semester at Harding University, Quattlebaum transferred to the University of Central Arkansas.
Growing up watching his father, whom Quattlebaum says is the “greatest influence” of anyone in his life, he always knew he wanted to coach, and he got his first taste of it at Henderson State while working on his master’s degree.
From there, once he got into the world of work, Quattlebaum had a brief stint in northeast Arkansas before ultimately landing back in central Arkansas for good in the mid-1980s. He worked at a few different schools around the area before interviewing at CAC, where his brother, Russell Quattlebaum, was the principal.
His initial intention was just to make ends meet for a short period. Little did he know, Quattlebaum would end up spending nearly half of his life, as well as retire, there.
“I will be honest with you — I was just trying to find a job that spring; I didn’t really have any intention of staying,” he said. “After not very long, I realized that place just gets to you, and I quickly figured out that it was a special place.”
As a proud 2008 alumnus of the school, I can vouch for that as well.
When Quattlebaum was hired to take over the CAC girls basketball program for the 1995-96 school year, he was the next one up to build success for a team that had not experienced much of it.
With each passing year the progress was evident, but his first team that broke through and made the state tournament was during the 2000-01 season, which would be the first of 20 consecutive appearances. That year’s sophomore class, headlined by future Arkansas State Hall of Honor inductee Adrianne Davie, played a major part in that run in which the Mustangs made it all the way to the state semifinal round.
Davie’s senior season was my first year at CAC as a seventh-grader, and while our baseball program was established and football was on its way up, it was apparent to anyone who paid attention that girls basketball was a sleeping giant.
When Davie’s 2003 class graduated, Quattlebaum gained another future Division I post player in freshman Whitney Zachariason, who moved up to the varsity squad as a ninth-grader. I grew up down the street from Whitney, so I knew from a young age what a great athlete and competitor she was, and she would become the centerpiece of the soon-to-be dynasty while also compiling an incredibly decorated career.
There were many that come to mind, but one of the most impressive performances I have seen from a high school athlete came from Zachariason during her sophomore year. Our girls were playing defending Class 5A — the highest classification at the time — champion Little Rock Parkview, led by Texas signee Crystal Boyd, in an early-season nonconference matchup that ended up needing two overtimes to be decided. It did not end until around midnight as there were 106 — yes, one hundred and six — combined fouls.
Whitney ended up with 50 points, including 26 in the first half. It was about that time that everyone in the state realized something special was about to happen with this team, and it did. The Mustangs got through the 3A state tournament and took down Rivercrest in the 2005 final to win their first of three trophies.
The next season, sophomore Kelsey Hatcher, who went on to play Division I basketball herself, was added to an already loaded returning roster that included Zachariason and Amanda Morris, who played on the first two championship teams. While I might not have paid attention to teams statewide to the extent I do now, I wholeheartedly believe Morris was the most underrated guard in Arkansas during that time.
The Mustangs were even better in 2005-06 as they went on to win their second state championship in a lopsided triumph over Ashdown. They finished that year 32-2 and No. 1 overall in the state. The 2006-07 season was themed “Tic-tac-toe, three-in-a-row” as the girls were once again the favorite to win another ring. Like the two years prior, they once again hoisted a state championship trophy, this time in Class 4A after a reclassification overhaul in a narrow victory over Lonoke.
During that incredible three-year run, CAC finished with a record of 95-12. The Mustangs won another state title under Quattlesbaum’s direction in 2018, finishing with a 36-1 record, led by future Connecticut Husky and WNBA player Christyn Williams.
As great as the memories are running through my head of days gone by writing about that three-peat run, there were additionally some tough times mixed in. Of course, we all dealt with typical teenage issues like breakups, failing a test, etc., but our school endured two very unexpected tragedies in about a 10-month span.
In mid-February of 2006, right as postseason play for the second state title run began, beloved senior cheerleader Tiffany Brown and her mother were killed in a car accident coming home from a college visit in Fayetteville. I did not know Tiffany extremely well, but I did briefly talk with her the day before it happened. Still thinking about the excitement she showed breaks me up to this day knowing all that she had in front of her.
The next school year around winter break, student-favorite teacher Andrew Brady passed away about a month into the season. The CAC alumnus, as well as my eighth- and ninth-grade algebra teacher, was Quattlebaum’s right-hand man as the assistant girls basketball coach.
As a tribute during both events, the girls wore t-shirts during warmups honoring Brown and Brady. What they might not have known at the time is that the way they carried themselves on the court, as well as just solid young people in society, honored them both in the highest regard. The players, as well as his youngest son Blake, who served as a manager with the team, were also who helped get Quattlebaum through losing the man who sat directly beside him on the bench.
“We attended his funeral on Wednesday, then got on a bus to Paragould to play Thursday, Friday and Saturday in a tournament,” Quattlebaum recalled. “That game Thursday, they played one of the best games a CAC team has ever played against a team from Missouri.
“Normally on long drives like that they would ride home with their parents. They all rode home on the bus Saturday and I am driving the bus as they are singing gospel songs in the back. Tears were running down my face all the way home.”
What Q and the girls might not realize is they helped all of us get through that together. As a small school, we were already a pretty tight group, but whether we were needing an escape from reality or not they were just a ton of fun to watch — so much so that my friends and I used to forge our parents’ signatures (sorry, administration) on ‘get out of school’ notes to travel and be a part of the student section during state tournament time. Man, our student sections were rowdy and loads of fun.
Whether you were a player or just a student like I was in his civics class, I think we all have at least one Coach Q story. He even sacrificed more of his time by serving two different stints as the Mustangs’ boys coach.
While Quattlebaum’s achievements as a coach speak for themselves, not only did he coach the best girls basketball players in CAC’s history but also some of the best to come out of Arkansas.
The high Division I players included Adrianne Davie (2003 alumna), who got it all started when she signed with Arkansas State, followed by Whitney Zachariason (2007) who played collegiately for Arkansas and Baylor, then Kelsey Hatcher (2008), who played for Oklahoma State, SMU and Arkansas. Gracie Frizzell signed with Mississippi in 2011, then Christyn Williams (2018) inked with national powerhouse Connecticut, where she had a successful career and then was selected 14th overall by the Washington Mystics in the 2022 WNBA draft.
While his name might be on each side of the basketball court, the players who competed within the boundaries are the ones who deserve the most credit, and that is the first direction Quattlebaum points.
“It really just comes back to players,” Quattlebaum said. “Usually the teams with the best players win. We have been fortunate to be in that position several times, and there are a lot of things that go into success that we had. It has just been a great ride for me.”
What a ride it was, for many of us, whether a part of the teams or not. Though the seasons will continue to come and go, the trophies and banners in the gymnasium will be eternal reminders of what so many great teams accomplished under Q.
Quattlebaum won a lot of games, along with multiple championships, and I am grateful to say I had a front-row seat to a large portion of the success. Q will exit the CAC gymnasium Friday one final time as girls basketball coach, but with him he will take lasting memories that impacted thousands of lives.
I am certainly one of those thousands and very thankful to say that.
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