Persisting without exception: the '59 Harding Bisons
By Armo Wood
October 13, 2014
Upon hearing Harding fans add the phrase "modern era" to any reference concerning Bisons football, the first thought that comes to mind is "what?" The phrase "modern era" conjures up images of a football equivalent of coming out of the Dark Ages. And in a way, that's what Harding fans mean.
The "modern era" in Harding football refers specifically to 1959 as a restoration point. The year Harding football returned to the Searcy campus. This week Harding will unveil a tribute to the '59 team and those involved in the rebirth of Harding's football program, along with the new scoreboard, that will greet fans upon entering First Security Stadium.
Thanks to television, American households watched the "Miracle on Ice" live, while Hollywood put "We Are Marshall" on a bigger stage and retold the story of a small Indiana high school basketball team in "Hoosiers." The schools in the Great American Conference have their own feel good sports stories that are waiting to be told. What is it that makes a team in 1959 from a small college in a small Arkansas town special?
Ronnie Huckeba, the current Head Coach of Harding and a former Bisons player himself, who played from 1973-1976, phrased it this way. "I would say that obviously those guys are the pioneers for the modern Harding football program. Even though it was 55 years ago, our return to competitive college football was very significant in our history. And those guys, any time you start a program up you're going to have some struggles in the initial phases. The fact that we have what we have today is a great tribute to those guys." Huckeba continued, "You just continue to look back at that group and the struggles they went through. They played some very difficult games that year. Those guys were warriors."
The 1959 team overcame a lot to play on the field. When Harding opened in 1924, like any typical American college, they fielded a football team. That early incarnation of Bisons football existed until after the 1931 season, when due to finances the school discontinued the program. For the next 28-years the college did not field a team. Then in 1958 Harding made a momentous decision: to bring football back.
In the 1956-57 school year, a trio of department chairs, M.E. Berryhill, Dr. Joe Pryor and Dr. Clifton L. Ganus, Jr., approached Harding's then President, Dr. George S. Benson, about the idea of Harding resuming intercollegiate athletics. Benson gave the go-ahead to present a proposal in favor of reinstating intercollegiate athletics to the Harding faculty.
Restoring the program was not easy. The Harding faculty had concerns about the impact of intercollegiate athletics on academics, in particular taking away from academics, and concerns about chapel being used as a daily pep rally. According to Dr. Ganus, current Chancellor Emeritus and Vice President of Harding at the time football was reinstated, "People felt that, well, football is a kind of rough sport, and you're going to have a lot of rough guys, not people that you may want to have at Harding, and that's going to be something to overcome. We tried to emphasize the fact that our coaches were going to be Christian men, and that they would see we had the best players, the best ones we ought to have at Harding." Ganus continued, "That's how we tried to overcome it, by emphasizing the fact we had coaches that tried to maintain the standards of Harding."
Once faculty approval had been given to resume intercollegiate athletics as a whole, Harding needed to find a conference home. The natural choice at that time was the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The trio of Berryhill, Pryor and Ganus went to an AIC meeting on December 12, 1958, to present Harding's case for joining the conference. After that meeting Harding was accepted as a member by the AIC.
By the fall of 1958, plans were underway to resume football, and in the spring of 1959, Harding hired a young 26-year-old football coach from Oklahoma by the name of Carl Allison. That fall the Bisons fielded a football team for the first time in 28 years. The struggles didn't end there. The 1959 Harding team did not look like the typical college football team loaded with college experience and size. That first year the Bisons only had 34 players, 19 of them freshmen. Harding battled teams that out-sized them week-in and week-out with an offensive line that averaged around 188 pounds, while the Bisons' opponents averaged 200-plus pounds. That did not dampen the spirits of members of that '59 team. "As a young player at that time it was tremendously exciting to say the very least. It was challenging to say the very most. We enjoyed the experience," said Dr. Jim Citty, who played tight end and defensive end for the '59 team and is currently the Harding football team doctor. Jerry Mote, another member of the '59 squad, who played halfback and cornerback and is the current color commentator for Harding football radio, added, "We all really loved Harding and we wanted to play football. I was excited, everything was new."
Back in 1959 the Bisons played a six game schedule over the course of October and the first week of November. They won only one game that season, a 7-6 victory over the Arkansas State Freshmen. They lost their other five games by an average of 32 points, including Homecoming against Southern Arkansas (Southern State as it was known in 1959). Losing never kept the team down. In every game they fought with the tenacity today's college football fans are used to seeing out of the military academies. "As a matter of fact one of the scouting reports that was given to the coach was don't play them. We got wind of that and determined to play the best we could. I think really, more than anything else, the fact that we were outmanned gave us the determination to fight as hard as we could as long as we could," said Citty.
Lathan Garnett, who played linebacker and was the place kicker for the '59 team, attributes part of that determination to keep moving forward to Harding's first coach in modern era, Carl Allison. "I remember one game in which we were soundly beaten. Matter-of-fact, we ran a trick play and scored on an undefeated team about the first play of the game and it was their Homecoming. They didn't try to win after that, they tried to kill us. When we came back we were pretty well beat up. On the next practice day Coach Allison led us around the track, a race with him, and back into the locker room where he had ice cream and cake and sent us home. He was that kind of morale builder that got us back on when many might have hung up their helmet after that."
Harding football has come a long way from where it was in 1959. Back-to-back post-season appearances, a playoff berth in 2012 and a berth in the Live United Texarkana Bowl in 2013 that resulted in the GAC's first post-season victory with a 44-3 win over Texas A&M-Commerce. "With any experience in your life like that, over time to see it do well, it's a feeling of pride. To see how well, how far the program has come, and the athletes it's attracting now. … I just think watching the program develop over the past 55 years has been an awesome experience," said Garnett. Added Mote, "I think we have made giant strides, and we've been blessed to have people, not only our coaches, but administrators, Dr. Ganus and others, that really took an interest in this and brought this along. … We actually made progress and got those moral victories, which is kind of what you look for in the early days. Now we're kind of disappointed if we don't win. The expectation now is to win every game, because the talent level is there, the coaching is there, the facilities are there. … Back then we were expected to try to do the best we could and to not embarrass ourselves and the school by our effort when we played in games where we were overmatched."
When the Harding Bisons play against the Ouachita Baptist Tigers more than just the Traveling Trophy will be at stake. The Bisons will be taking the field as they honor the 34 players from 1959. The tribute on the back of the new scoreboard that will greet fans as they enter First Security Stadium is more than just a visual sign. It's a monument to the 34 young men that resurrected a college program after 28 years of college football exile. Thirty-four young men who battled in the grass and mud, rain or shine in the fall of 1959, and became college football players. Thirty-four young men whose ethos forged the foundations of the modern era in Harding Bisons football.
Today's Harding Bisons football team has a motto: "I will persist without exception." The 34 members of the '59 team didn't just aspire to those words, they lived them.
The 1959 Harding Bisons Football schedule:
10/3 L 0-19 Itawamba Junior College
10/10 W 7-6 Arkansas State Freshmen
10/17 L 13-33 at Tennessee-Martin
10/24 L 14-42 Southern State (Homecoming)
10/31 L 7-60 at Delta State
11/7 L 7-47 at Mississippi College
Armo Wood is the Great American Conference Blogger for D2football.com. Questions or comments can be emailed to armowoodd2@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter @ArmoD2sports for updates on Great American Conference football.
