Looking back through his old books on Friday, former University of Central Arkansas sports information director Jim Schneider said it had been more than 17 years since UCA squared off against Hendrix College in basketball — until Friday night.
It’s not a recent rivalry, but it does have a long history, starting before World War II, according to Schneider, when the pregame college shenanigans included UCA students sneaking onto Hendrix’s campus to paint things purple and orange paint-wielding Hendrix students doing the same at UCA. It was all in good fun, Schneider said, but it resulted in the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference putting a halt to games between several teams hailing from the same hometown, including the Warriors and the Bears, from around the time of World War II until the early 1960s, when the ban was lifted and play resumed.
“There were no ugly incidents on the floor or in the stands during the games, and if there were, they were mostly minor,” Schneider said. “It was just mostly the raiding of each other’s campuses, and it was intended to be in good fun, but the boundaries were somewhat more narrow in those days than they are now. Back then they frowned at those things that we now would probably just laugh at.”
Schneider said that when play resumed for the 1962/1963 season, the rivalry was rekindled. The most memorable game, he said, probably came when UCA played against Hendrix to open the newly built Farris Center in the early 1970s.
“That game probably drew 3,500 or 4,000 people, and I don’t think there had ever been a crowd that big for a basketball game in Conway,” he said. “It may have drawn more than that.”
Hendrix typically held the edge, he said, until play between the two rivals was again halted at the end of the 1991/1992 season, UCA’s last season in the AIC.
“From after the rivalry resumed until they quit playing Hendrix probably had the edge, because that was during the era Lawrence Mobley came in and built a really strong program in the ’60s, and after Mobley’s era Cliff Garrison came in and Cliff Garrison enticed so many of the really good Conway players to come into the Hendrix program,” Schneider said.
In the intervening years, things have changed. Both schools have grown, but UCA’s growth has been exponential, elevating them to Division I-AA, whereas Hendrix’s team will be playing in Division III with no athletic scholarships on offer.
“UCA should win,” Schneider said. Mayor Tab Townsell, a UCA alumnus, said he was “thrilled” that the two teams were playing again.
“When I was in college it was the heyday, in my opinion, of Hendrix/UCA basketball rivalries,” Townsell said. “It was always good, honest, hard-nosed basketball, and I’m thrilled that they are back together playing again. We loved those cross-town rivalries. It’s great to see it again.”
(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached at 505-1238 or by E-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit.)
