Editor’s note: The author of this story, Debbye Harrison, is a reporter for The Grand Prairie Herald.

Tucked in her easy chair, Margie Carlisle Speight of Hickory Plains recalled those early school days playing basketball on the dirt playground early in the morning before it turned to mud by recess.

She started her basketball career at Hickory Plains and was fortunate to play her senior year of high school on the first girls’ basketball team at Beebe High School 75 years ago.

She remembers playing in homemade red shorts at the old Armory. The high school didn’t have a gym and the boys’ team played at the college. There wasn’t room for the girls, so they made do on the open concrete floor of the Armory.

“Making do” was their motto. Bro Erwin, the boys’ coach, had to be begged into allowing a girls’ team. The final hurdle was “find you a coach.” So the English teacher took the job. She knew some basics and the girls did the rest on their own.

The Armory was their practice place as well as their competition venue. They played teams like Griffithville and Bald Knob which had had girls’ teams for a while, and they held their own.

It was Speight’s Senior Year in 1950. After that year, she took off to work a year or two at Young’s Department Store and the local bank. When she started her college career at Beebe Junior College, she picked up where she left off. Basketball had been her love since she pounded the dirt court in elementary school.

College ball started out with College President Boyd Johnson coaching. He had a daughter on the team. The next year Marvin Speight moved from Jonesboro to Beebe to coach both boys’ and girls’ teams. He didn’t know the difference when he practiced and played each team.

However, it paid off with the girls. They played teams in Missouri, Mississippi and North Carolina. It was in North Carolina where they scheduled a pick-up game with a pro team, Hanes Hosiery, which featured a Des Arc native and outstanding player, Lurlene Greer.

Speight had the fortune, or misfortune, to guard her. Speight confessed that every time she went up to shoot, Greer would sneak in a hard belly slap. Greer knew all the pro secrets.

The Beebe team was on its way to the National Tournament in South Carolina. They didn’t win, but they had many chances to sightsee and get a lesson in money management. Coach Speight allocated all of their meal money at the beginning of the trip. He told them they could spend it whenever and on whatever they wanted; however, no more would be forthcoming. It was up to the girls to see to it that they had money to eat on the whole time.

When Margie Speight got her teaching degree, she coached Des Arc girls’ high school basketball and track. Her girls’ track team walked away with the Ouachita Track Meet during her 1961-64 years. 

Coaching was different. She wore a dress and spike heels to each game.

“I think today’s coaches dress too casual. It’s disrespectful to their team,” she said.  

Teachers couldn’t wear pants at school, so she had to wear a dress to school, change to athletic wear to coach her classes in the morning, change to a dress for lunch, change for afternoon classes, and change again to go home. Finally, Coach Rollins gave her a raincoat to wear at lunch so she wouldn’t have to make that switch.

Margie Speight at 93 years young is an avid sports fan. She is still seen in the basketball arena, on the sidelines at football and softball games, watching grandchildren at rodeos or volleyball games.

Does she still coach? 

“From the sidelines, you bet!” she said.