On the whole, college football programs don’t scale down. Why would they? As their schools’ student populations grow year after year, the lists of potential alumni donors only get longer. And in the arms race that is Division I – and increasingly Division II – football, there are always more stadium seats to build and fill.
Hendrix College, meanwhile, is bucking the trend. Early in the 20th century, it had a 5,000-person stadium and played the likes of the University of Arkansas and Ole Miss with players who didn’t receive athletic scholarships or stipends. The state’s biggest schools, however, subsidized their players. And those players starting pulverizing Hendrix’s smaller players, which ultimately caused the program to fold in 1960.
Cue an ace-bandaged hand bursting through cemetery ground, slowly grasping at air.
After a 53-year long hiatus, football again lives on Hendrix’s Conway campus. It won’t, however, be the same caliber of ball your dad’s dad wrote home about. This iteration has the Warriors playing as Arkansas’ only football member of Division III, reserved for the NCAA’s smallest schools, in a new 1,500 stadium. Head Coach Buck Buchanan aims to fill 65 roster spots by a September 7th season opener against Westminster College (Missouri). By 2017, he hopes to have more than 100 players – all, of course, men. This is a major reason Hendrix is resurrecting football: In recent decades, the female-male ratio at liberal colleges nationwide has tilted in favor of women, and football helps straighten that imbalance.
Per NCAA rules for all DIII athletes, Hendrix football player won’t receive athletic scholarships.
Unlike in the 1950s, the private school’s leaders think this time around the lack of subsidies actually helps the program. “It’s not gonna be the Arkansas Razorbacks, or really the University of Central Arkansas,” says athletic director Amy Weaver. “That’s not really what we’re about. Division III lends itself to the true student-athlete. These guys are playing because they love to play the game not because they’re getting paid to play.”
This article originally ran in Arkansas Life magazine as part of a “Twenty To Watch” feature in the January, 2013 issue.