Brad Bolding’s Return to NLRHS Shares a Lot with Unlikely Twist for Petrino

Brad Bolding, North Little Rock High School, Bobby Petrino, Arkansas football, Arkansas high school football
photo credit: Nick Wenger / Craven Whitlow

Freshly removed from the most successful stint of his two-decade tenure as an Arkansas high school football coach, Brad Bolding is leaving Little Rock Parkview to return to the place where he endured possibly the lowest point of his coaching career a decade ago that resulted in a controversial – and highly publicized – exit.

In a rather stunning move, the North Little Rock School District announced on Thursday that Bolding will return to the same post he held from 2007-14, hoping he can revitalize a struggling program.

“Is it just not wild?” Bolding said in near disbelief himself on an episode of the Coaches & The Mouth podcast

“It is still kind of crazy to me. I was not looking really anywhere and perfectly happy winning three in a row. I had a great staff and great players coming back, but I have been talking to them for about three weeks off and on, talking about everything you can think of.”

The Charging Wildcats are coming off of a forgettable 0-10 season, the program’s first winless campaign since 2001, and finished last in the 7A-Central conference standings while scoring 20 or more points in only two games. Current times have been a far cry from when NLR went to four straight state championship games from 2017-2020 and advanced to another semifinal round as recently as 2021. 

Meanwhile Bolding, 55, just led Parkview to 38 wins and three straight Class 5A championships since 2022.

Following a series of investigations by the Arkansas Activities Association that started in 2013 and involved not following procedures for equipment purchases, and later the alleged recruiting of former star wide receiver K.J. Hill, Bolding was given his notice of termination in early February 2015. It was sustained at a hearing two months later when he was voted unanimously to be let go, ending a tenure in which he went 64-30 over eight seasons and won 10 or more games four times.

Per Bolding’s recollection, there has been a complete overhaul within NLRSD.

“It is a whole bunch of new people there, not anybody still even on the school board that I know of that was there when I was there before,” Bolding said on the podcast. “It is a whole new community.”

Bolding has also continued to live in North Little Rock since he moved there in 2007. 

“My kids have always attended North Little Rock so we have always been in Dogtown since we moved here, so we are really a part of the community,” Bolding added.

As Razorback football fans have seen with former head coach, now offensive coordinator, Bobby Petrino, time heals all wounds – or most of them, at least. Petrino won 21 games between 2010-11, which was the first time the Hogs accomplished back-to-back double-digit win seasons since the late 1980s.

Petrino was fired after four seasons in 2012, only to return in November 2023 with the goal of making things right. He came through in the big picture as the Razorback offense finished top 10 nationally in total offense, opposed to an abominable 107th in 2023 prior to Petrino’s arrival. 

While the details of Petrino’s disgraced firing and Bolding’s exit from North Little Rock differ substantially, both men stepped away from coaching before taking new jobs elsewhere. It seemed unimaginable that each would return to the places where such controversies occurred. 

Success at NLR Followed by Hardships  

For decades, what’s now NLRHS was known as Ole Main High and produced a number of great football players, including former Razorback Jerry Jones, and won four state championships from 1965-72. A 45-year title drought finally ended in 2017, when the Charging Wildcats took down Bentonville under head coach Jamie Mitchell.

While Mitchell got the Charging Wildcats over the hump, the foundation was laid by Brad Bolding during his first stint as head coach from 2007-14. With the help of future Razorbacks like Martrell Spaight and Juan Day, North Little Rock reached the 7A semifinals in 2009 and then again from 2011-14. However, NLR failed to get to the championship game despite being a play away three different times.

Coming into 2014 with plenty of motivation, the Charging Wildcats started 1-2 in non-conference play before reeling off nine consecutive wins, with only defending state champion Bentonville in their way of yet another semifinal matchup. The Tigers thumped North Little Rock 42-10 in what was Bolding’s final game and Bentonville went on to win another title as Hall of Famer Barry Lunney Sr. rode off into the sunset of retirement.

About two months following the Bentonville loss, Bolding was notified that the North Little Rock School District intended to fire him for the allegations of spending “more than” $94,000 on football equipment from a private foundation that was in turn provided to the school district. There were also recruiting violations regarding K.J. Hill. 

The reports stated that Bolding had improper contact with Hill’s stepfather, Montez Peterson, in February of 2013. That was prior to Hill transferring before his junior year from Bryant High to North Little Rock and a payment was involved. 

“In February 2013, you unprofessionally and in violation of the Arkansas Activities Association rules gave the stepfather of a prospective student/athlete a check drawn on the NLR Athletic Foundation in the sum of $600 prior to the student/athlete’s enrollment in the District on March 4, 2013,” the NLR School District wrote in Bolding’s termination letter, according to USA Today.

Hill famously committed to the Razorbacks at the Arkansas Hall of Fame in the fall of 2014, only to flip to Ohio State and end his career with the Buckeyes as the program’s all-time leader in receptions. In the below video, he said his final decision really came down to Ohio State and Alabama, but he threw Arkansas into the top three “just so I wouldn’t get a lot of backlash on my signing day – even though I did.”

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Hill ended up selected in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Chargers and caught 10 passes for 102 yards in two seasons. He signed with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League in February of 2024, but was released three months later.

After getting the termination notice, Bolding filed an appeal for his firing and appeared before the North Little Rock school board on April 9, 2015. The hearing began about 5:30 p.m. and did not conclude until around nine hours later at 3 a.m. the following day when the firing was upheld by unanimous vote.

Bolding ended up suing the North Little Rock School District, claiming that the district violated the Fair Teacher Dismissal Act. The judge ruled in favor of North Little Rock. 

Another Chance for Brad Bolding

Bolding then stepped away from coaching for two seasons. He returned to the sidelines when he accepted the job at Parkview in December 2016. Coming off a 1-8 season, the Patriots were struggling mightily.

Of course, turning around programs was right in Bolding’s wheelhouse.

In his first head coaching job, he inherited a three-win squad at Mayflower and won 16 games over his first two seasons, from 2005-06. While Bryan Hutson had North Little Rock at a respectable status prior to Bolding’s arrival, Bolding rebounded from a 3-7 campaign his first year with the Charging Wildcats to earn five trips to the Class 7A semifinals in six seasons. 

It took some time at Parkview, as the first three seasons under Bolding all resulted in losing records, but the Patriots won nine games in 2020. The following year, they reached the Class 6A semifinals. When they dropped down to 5A, Bolding reeled off three straight titles for the school’s first three-peat.

The star-studded 2025 class that featured Arkansas signees Quentin Murphy and Cam Settles, plus Power Four signees Omarion Robinson (Oklahoma) and Monterrio Elston (Kansas State), finished with a 39-3 record in that span with all three losses coming to 7A opposition.

Better Days Ahead in Arkansas

While Bobby Petrino returning to Arkansas certainly received polarizing responses when reports first surfaced, there seemed to be a comforting ease among the fanbase as evidenced by the reaction he received during the basketball game against Duke in November 2023. Most fans in the arena emphatically expressed their approval by repeatedly chanting his name

That game, of course, was played in Bud Walton Arena on a court named after the legend Nolan Richardson.

Like Bolding suing the North Little Rock School District for wrongful termination, Richardson did the same to the University of Arkansas following his termination after almost two decades with the team. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2004 and much healing has ensued since then. Now, Richardson regularly attends Razorback basketball games, while his signature is in plain sight on each end of the hardwood.

As Bobby Petrino’s presence on staff at Arkansas helped propel the Razorbacks from four wins to seven, including head coach Sam Pittman’s third bowl win in five seasons, Bolding has yet another uphill climb and likely the steepest one he has faced yet.

On top of that, he will be back competing in a 7A-Central conference that features other decorated coaches such as Quad Sanders (Bryant), Buck James (Conway), Anthony Lucas (Pulaski Academy) and Scott Reed (Cabot).

Just as the University of Arkansas and Bobby Petrino reconciled, so have Brad Bolding and the North Little Rock School District. After suffering through a winless season, there is nowhere to go but up for the Charging Wildcats and Bolding has the proven track record to get them rolling once again.

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