Harding Magazine

A page out of history

Bison athletics celebrates 50 years since its return to intercollegiate competition

By Amanda Pruitt
Photos courtesy of Gerald Casey

Open tryouts, long hours of sprinting baselines, and shooting baskets were finally over. Opportunities to impress the coach and secure a place on the team had passed. Now came the decision.

The players gathered around the bulletin board of Rhodes Field House that October afternoon as coach Hugh Groover (’50) tacked up the varsity roster for the 1957 basketball team.

Although 47 men tried out for the team, only 20 would represent Harding on the basketball court for the first time in almost two decades. Dwight Smith (’59), then a junior, was among the lucky athletes who spotted his name on the roster.

“I know there were some who were disappointed, naturally, like I would have been had I not made it,” Smith said. “But it was like, ‘Yes!’ There’s just no way to describe the emotion that you had inside.”
Although the first game against Arkansas Baptist College was more than six weeks away, excitement was already building. Intercollegiate athletics would be restored after an 18-year absence.

The Bisons had returned to Harding.

Previously …

The crack of the softball bat and beat of the basketball during pickup games in the gym were typical sounds at the College. Searcy offered few attractions in the ’50s, and only a handful of students owned cars, so entertainment was often confined to the growing campus of nearly 1,000. In many ways, sports helped fill the void.

Although varsity athletics were absent, sports served as a major social event since many students participated in intramurals. Not unusual was the sight of 400 fans attending a softball game on the field in front of Rhodes Field House.

The football program had disbanded following the 1931 season largely for financial reasons as a result of the Great Depression. Baseball, basketball and track continued through the spring of 1939. The College then focused its efforts on a strong intramural program.

M.E. “Pinky” Berryhill (’34), who had arrived at Harding in 1937 as its first faculty coach, encouraged the decision to move ahead with intramurals. Not only were intercollegiate athletics difficult to maintain financially, but also Berryhill wanted more of the school’s then 300 students to be involved with athletics.

Intramurals grew in popularity until nearly 90 percent of  men participated in the program. Still, students held an interest in intercollegiate sports. Dr. Clifton L. Ganus Jr. (’43), a freshman in the fall of 1939, noted that while he enjoyed playing intramural sports, he always wished for the opportunity to play on a varsity team.

Ganus was not alone. When Berryhill began to voice concern about the difficulty physical education majors were having finding jobs because they had never competed in intercollegiate sports, Ganus, now vice president, and Dr. Joseph Pryor (’37), physical science professor, joined him in efforts to reinstate varsity athletics. Both Ganus and Pryor were sportsmen and actively participated on faculty intramural teams.

“I really felt it would help Harding increase its student body a great deal,” Ganus says. “Whether you like athletics or not, they’re a part of our fabric of life in America, always have been.

“Secondly, athletics provided an atmosphere and entertainment that we didn’t have otherwise. Being a Christian school, we said, ‘No, no, no, no. You can’t dance; you can’t drink.’ The rest of America loved athletics, and we didn’t have them. Wouldn’t that open another avenue for Harding’s students to enjoy?”

While students largely favored the return of intercollegiate sports, Berryhill, Ganus and Pryor had to convince the person who mattered most — President George S. Benson.

“Dr. Benson ran the show in those days,” Ganus says. “While he was president, there was no question that he was in charge, and everyone knew it. That’s not a bad thing, and there were times when that was necessary … but it made it a little more difficult to get him into something.”

Finances topped the list of concerns for Benson and other faculty members. After all, such athletic programs as baseball and football were far more costly than intramural sports because of equipment and travel expenses. Ganus said some faculty feared the character of students that a sports program would attract and were strongly opposed to athletic scholarships. Intramurals, which had so much participation, might also suffer with the reintroduction of varsity sports.

Whatever concerns the faculty harbored, members passed the vote by a nearly three-to-one margin March 2, 1957, to reinstate intercollegiate sports without scholarships.

“We were all so happy about it,” says Harold Norwood (’59), who played on the basketball team that fall. “I was in the gym every afternoon anyway. There were six baskets in the gym, and six games going on there all the time.”

Berryhill, Ganus and Pryor, along with several students, formed the athletics committee that would supervise the program. Pryor acted as committee chairman and went on to become Harding’s faculty representative in the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference for 30 years.

As the sports seasons approached, interest grew. Smith says students and teachers supported the players and team.

“Dr. Benson would meet me coming out of chapel or around campus,” Smith says. “He’d always ask, ‘Smithy, are we gonna win tomorrow night?’ I’d tell him, ‘Dr. Benson, I don’t know, but we’ll try.’ There was just that interest that everybody had.”

Unlike football and baseball, the basketball program already possessed a suitable facility — Rhodes Field House, a surplus World War II airplane hangar Benson had purchased for $124,000 in 1949.  

The coach was also an easy find as Groover transitioned from Harding Academy to the College. Many varsity athletes were former intramural All-Stars or had played with each other on one of several Searcy AAU teams.

But not everything proceeded without a hitch. During the first season, the team lacked a bus for transportation, so Groover and Pryor used their own cars to drive players around Arkansas and Tennessee.

“We would almost fight to get in Dr. Joe’s car,” Smith says. “Not that we didn’t like Coach, but Dr. Joe had such deep discussions. He would talk about anything, and we could ask him any question.”

The Bisons, often outsized against schools offering scholarships, finished the year 4-17. The first victory finally came in the eighth game of the season when the Bisons defeated Ouachita Baptist College 69-66 in overtime at Rhodes.

That spring Berryhill, who had coached the baseball team in its final years during the 1930s, resumed his position as head coach with Harry Olree (’53) serving as his assistant.

Although Harding was in the midst of constructing Alumni Field, a facility that would accommodate baseball, football and track, the field was not finished by the time the season started. Thus the team played at the intramural field behind the library and in front of Rhodes, making for close outfield fences.

The team had scheduled 18 games, but due to many afternoon rains, played only nine, finishing 5-4.

“It was a real pickup type of a program,” Olree said. “Since we didn’t have any scholarships, we couldn’t really do any recruiting.”

The track program returned with a 20-member team competing on limited facilities. With the track under construction, runners practiced on a dirt track surrounding the intramural field in front of Rhodes. Groover coached the track team for several years before handing the program to John Prock and eventually to Ted Lloyd.

Harding also planned to add tennis in 1957-58 with Olree as head coach. The season never materialized, however, as Olree could not find schools to play except University of Arkansas.

Athletics grew in the following years. The College was accepted into the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference in February 1959 after assuring the conference the school would add football, which happened in the fall of that year. The team played its first season in the AIC a year later.

“Who can guarantee the future of Harding?” Pryor wrote in a letter addressed to the faculty. “If we remain dedicated to our purposes; keep humble; ever realize our dependence upon God and his help, grace and mercy; and staff our college with men dedicated to these principles, the future can be bright. The same is true with an athletics program.”

Even Berryhill might be surprised by today’s intercollegiate program that boasts eight sports each for men and women. And the roar of the crowd in the revamped Rhodes would convince him Bison athletics have not only returned, they are here to stay.