I was the SID at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. The home of the Reddies. We were actually in the NAIA during my years 1978-89 but now they are in the NCAA Division II as members of the Great American Conference which is made of schools from Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Directly across the street is Ouachita Baptist University, we actually call it "on the other side of the ravine. It makes for a wild rivalry, the two stadiums sit opposite of each other and for some crazy reason the conference now schedules home games for the two schools on the same day. OBU kicks off at 1:00 so I can go catch the first half and then go across the street to see HSU play at their 3:00 kickoff. While my daughter was at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway about two hours away I could leave the Henderson game at the half and meet her there, I have seen quite a few triple headers.
When the two schools meet on the final day of the season it is quite a sight to see. When Henderson goes across the "ravine" as they will do this November, the State Police block off the road with lights flashing while the Reddie band and cheerleaders play the fight song as the players trail behind walking from to the game. The Henderson fight song Give Me that Old Reddie Spirit is to the tune of Give Me that Old Time Religion as Henderson was a Methodist school up until 1928. The OBU fight song is May the Circle Be Unbroken. During the game it often sounds like a revival meeting other than the ferocity that the two teams play with on that day. Those games attract well over 10,000 fans for two small schools, HSU has 3,500 students while OBU has 1,800.
Henderson's most famous football grad is Roy Green who played both ways for St. Louis in the late 70's and 80's while Ouachita proudly has Cliff Harris or "Captain Crash" of the Dallas Cowboys.
When I was at HSU we were in the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference which had such colorful nicknames as the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys (where I played briefly), the Muleriders of Southern Arkansas University and the Boll Weevils of UA-Monticello. Also the Harding University Bisons, yes with an "s", don't really know why??
The SEC and D-I football in general is fantastic but I also love the small schools. I traveled to Conway a few years ago to see Hendrix College play their first game since 1960 and to Batesville the next year to see Lyons college play their first game since 1951.
Sorry to be so long on this post.
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