By Dr. Curtis Varnell
Seeing that horrible burnt orange all week leading up to the national championship brought back memories of the great rivalry that existed between Arkansas and Texas during the sixties and seventies. During the days leading up to those games, students took turns running mile relays to deliver the game ball from Little Rock to Fayetteville, Orville Henry wrote page long sports editorials on the coaches and players, and the games were attended by presidents and broadcast nationally. Even churches got into the mix with the First Baptist Church of Fayetteville sporting a church sign stating, Football is only a game, eternal things are spiritual, nevertheless, BEAT TEXAS.
Those games were truly rivalries and, those raised during that era, still view Texas as the ultimate foe. Not to be forgotten during that same time period were the great in-state rivalries that existed within the old Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference(AIC). Made up of five state colleges and five private colleges, the AIC sported some of the most intense and exciting sports found at the small college level. The schools were located within short driving distances of each other, recruited the same kids, and were similar in size and educational offerings. Those in South Arkansas talk about the Battle of the Ravine between Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist, both located in Arkadelphia, but in my neck of the woods the real battle was between my alma mater Arkansas Tech and the University of Central Arkansas. Located less than an hour apart and both sporting exceptional football teams, both schools developed rabid fan bases that carried the competition to extremes. The 1971 ATU team were runner-up national champions in the old NAIA and featured a running back from Fort Smith named Benny Shepard plus several other exceptional athletes but UCA had an exceptional team as well. Russellville was packed for the annual game and cars were parked all along the highway. A colleague, with whom I later taught, arrived just prior to game. Parked a good distance from the field and sporting a purple UCA jacket, he hiked toward the distant stadium only to have a car pull up beside him. “Need a ride,” they asked? “ Jump in, were going right by there.” Four miles down the road, they let him out at the bridge over the Arkansas River. “We said we were going by the field, no one said we were delivering a SCAB (the pet name for UCA’s prior title of State College of Arkansas Bears) to the game.” That was minor compared to some of the shenanigans I observed or heard about later as a student. It was a yearly occurrence to play the football game on a field featuring your opponents team colors painted in your end zone or the turf oiled and killed featuring your opponents’ initials. The purple bear statue on the UCA campus was six inches thicker than original due to the alternating layers of purple and green paint left by student vandals.
During my freshman year, UCA students delivered a purple Buick to the Tech campus during the middle of the night. Removing all the wheels, it was left directly in front of the student center. Not to be outdone, ATU cheerleaders obtained several sledge hammers and allowed students to whack the car into pieces for a dollar a hit. Tech students had heard a rumor that UCA was on the way to Tech that night and had a scout placed at Atkins who was supposed to be watching for a long line of cars coming up 65 highway from Conway. Unfortunately, he was unable to report the incident due to his visit to the emergency room. Appears, he climbed into a tree to better observe the highway, fell asleep, and then fell from the tree breaking his arm.
My sophomore year, students abducted the UCA student body president and kept him in a dorm at Tech for the week leading up to the annual game. Most of the incidents were just childish pranks supporting your team but, on occasions such as the one above, the various campus authorities had to remind students that we were neighbors and friends and would one day be working together at our various jobs.
In 1993, UCA moved from the AIC and NAIA and joined division 2 NCAA. Henderson State soon followed and the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference ceased to be. Today, the rivalry no longer exist as UCA has moved to Division 1A athletics and most of the remaining conference members have joined with the smaller Oklahoma universities to form the Great American Conference.
My son and daughter in law graduated from UCA, my stepdaughter loves the school, I enjoy the planetarium and science activities there. I guess I am going to have to give up my wishes for a good can of green spray paint every time I walk by the purple bear statue.
