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NEWS
| December 1, 1999
Athletics
An enduring legacy
From beginning to end, UTA football
scored big before the final whistle
By Sally
Claunch and Jason Hoskins
The Shorthorn Staff
Donna Darovich couldn’t believe that
the football program was gone on a cold, fall day in 1985.
As a student here in the late 60s and early 70s, she had attended
many games and had memories of chilly Saturdays sitting with her
boyfriend in the fraternity section of the crowd and cheering the
team to victory.
Later, as a campus administrator, she had season tickets on the
50-yard line and attended every game as she sat directly behind
Wendell Nedderman, the university president at that time.
“I knew the inside story of the financial situation, and I
know Nedderman had no choice,” she said. “I knew back
in the 80s that the death knell had sounded when the fraternities
started having parties at the same time as the ball game.”
Darovich, the university’s public affairs director, said she
was sad for the coaches who lost their jobs and the players on scholarships,
but mostly she was sad for the university.
“When we dropped football, it was one of the most emotional
situations that I had ever been through,” she said. “Lots
of people literally cried over it.”
Football for Texans is a passionate subject, and emotions ran high
for college football in Arlington. UTA football survived, and at
times thrived, through four stadium changes, four mascot changes
and low attendance.
Death of a program
David Bates, the quarterback of the final team at UTA, said the
news of the program’s end hit the team hard.
“That was a little like a funeral day,” he said. “We
didn’t have a clue it was even in the works.”
The end of the program also stretched to players who had left the
team before 1985.
Bill Miller played strong safety until 1977 and said the termination
hurt even if it was logical on paper.
“Maybe things that look good on paper aren’t good for
the big picture,” he said.
Former Athletics Director Bill Reeves said he understood that Nedderman
didn’t want to kill the program, but he said he felt the campus
needed football.
“My heart just sank,” he said. “The act of terminating
football was extremely traumatic to me.”
At the time of the termination, Reeves said, the public relations
for the Dallas Cowboys had done so well that the media in the area
were ignoring college football.
Joe Ewen was a chairman of the Mav’s Club, the booster organization
for the team. Ewen, a former city councilman, said the death of
the program hurt the community.
“It (football) provides a real bonding opportunity between
the university and community,” he said.
Emory Estes, who played guard until 1973, agreed that the community
was hurt by the termination.
“The business community just got dropped in the grease,”
he said.
The pain of ending football also affected the university community,
especially the man who killed the program. Nedderman said he was
greatly disappointed that he had to end football here.
“For 13 years, I tried to make football a viable program,”
he said. “But the students didn’t seem to want it, or
weren’t willing to support it by attending. We made a decision,
and the Board of Regents agreed.”
Low attendance and the burdensome financial cost force Nedderman
to end the program. Attendance began to drop sharply after the 1969
season, and officials estimate that the program was costing about
$850,000 each season. Nedderman said he wanted to concentrate on
the other sports.
“Let’s be good at what we do,” he said of his
decision at the time. “The thing that was bad was that to
support football, we were starving all our other sports.”
He said after football was gone, the other sports improved.
“I received several hundred calls, and the sentiment was three
to one in favor of the decision,” he said.
Mac Whiddon, a 1971 alumnus, said that when football was dropped
in 1985, he still kept up with the program.
“I think somebody who goes to UTA just to sit in class and
get job training is missing out on the complete educational college
experience and is thus poorer for it,” he said.
Glory days
Former students, especially from the 1950s and 1960s, had more than
an average team to watch.
The football program at Arlington State College, which was a junior
college, reached a high point in 1956. Arlington State won the Junior
Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., defeating Compton College, 20-13.
After that game, Arlington College students dismantled the goal
posts, brought them home and erected them in front of what was then
the Student Center.
Arlington College went back undefeated to the bowl the next year,
beating Cerritos Junior College, 21-12. In 1963, the college joined
the Southland Conference.
The only national championship the team won was in 1967 when it
won the Pecan Bowl in Abilene over North Dakota in a game where
the wind chill reached 20 degrees below zero.
Even though the support for the team at the Pecan Bowl was bad because
of the weather, former walk-on fullback Dan Griffin said fans turned
out for other away games.
He said the support for the team didn’t stop with the students.
“There was a good degree of involvement with the teachers,”
he said.
Whiddon said football was popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“Attendance was good on campus,” he said. “We
would even drive to away games. It was really fun the years we beat
TCU.”
Players say that fun translated to the team.
“It was a family, not a team. I don’t think a fraternity
could compare with a football team,” former tailback Jerry
Massey said of the 1967 team. “It’s a lifetime relationship.”
Stadium issues
The football team play in four stadiums through the years, and some
of stadiums were off campus.
Football was played on campus at Memorial Stadium until 1969, when
the stadium was torn down to build the Activities Building. The
average attendance that year was 8,460 and the team’s record
was 5-5.
The team then moved in 1970 to Turnpike Stadium, which was renamed
Arlington Stadium when the Rangers moved there in 1972. The Ballpark
at Arlington was completed in 1994, and Arlington Stadium was torn
down.
Reeves said the support was hurt when the team played at Turnpike
Stadium because it wasn’t suited for football.
Because the games were moved off campus and the team record in the
1970s was usually terrible, attendance began to decline severely.
In 1970 the average attendance was 4,580 and the team record was
0-10, the worst record the program had ever suffered.
Whiddon said people stopped attending the games.
“For the same reason that less than 8,000 fans attended the
SMU game last Saturday (Nov. 6) in the Cotton Bowl, attendance took
a dive,” he said. “I think it is a universally accepted
truism now that college football teams need to play their home games
on campus.”
The team moved again to Craven’s Field in 1977, where Lamar
High School plays football. Average attendance in 1977 was 4,489.
In 1980, Maverick Stadium was finally finished. Nedderman thought
the stadium would encourage more students and community members
to attend the games.
“My biggest concern was how we were going to expand the stadium,”
he said.
Darovich said the first game was a huge success and the stadium
was packed. Officials erected 5,000 temporary bleachers to hold
more than 18,000 fans that came to the game.
“But it never happened again, the students had other things
to do,” Darovich said. “When I was a student here, Arlington
didn’t have all the entertainment things they have now. We
didn’t have all the professional sports, Sundance Square,
the West End and Reunion Arena. There were only two restaurants
here then and one movie theater.”
Cliff Odom, a former Maverick linebacker and NFL player, said the
fan support could have been better if the team played on campus.
Even though there was a lack of support for some teams, former players
said the support the team received was terrific.
“It was not what you would like it to be,” said Robert
Howard, a former Maverick defensive end from 1980 to 1984. “There
was a core group that was very supportive. Just not the numbers
you typically see.”
Mascot controversy
The team changed mascots as many times as it changed stadiums, another
factor that supporters of the team say led to its demise.
Four colleges have sat on the same plot of land that UTA has occupied
since 1917, and all of them have had a football program.
While part of the Texas A&M System, the first school was Grubbs
Vocational College with its mascot, the Grubworms. The name then
changed to the Hornets in 1921. In 1923, the school became North
Texas Agricultural College. In 1940, the school became Arlington
State College and its mascot was the Rebels.
But as the civil rights movement picked up steam, some students
became offended that the team mascot was a Rebel. Confederate flags
were waved at the games to support the team, and tension increased.
Students displayed signs demanding the mascot name be changed.
Whiddon said the controversy took its toll on the attendance.
“The Confederate flag, Dixie and the Rebel theme were not
just the symbols of UTA, but were actually the theme of Arlington
itself,” Whiddon said. “A significant sector of the
students decided they did not like the Rebel theme, and despite
student referenda to the contrary, (they) were able to persuade
the dean to abolish the Rebel theme.”
Estes said that when the Rebel theme was playing, it changed the
atmosphere of the stadium. “It was an electric experience.”
Dan Griffin, a fullback who played on the last Rebel team, agrees
with Estes.
“I get goose bumps just talking about it,” he said.
Former halfback Calvin Lee said that when the band played Dixie,
it gave the players a boost.
“You kinda got the feeling you could run through a brick wall,”
he said.
The mascot changed to the Mavericks in 1970, three years after Arlington
State College became the University of Texas at Arlington.
The end
With the Rebel theme done away with and the Maverick in place, attendance
declined again in the 1980s.
In 1985, average attendance was 5,600 with a team record of 4-6-1.
During this period, the team had a winning record only in 1981 and
1984.
“Football became not a priority for our students,”Darovich
said. “We would look over at the student side of the stadium
and it was so embarrassing because the fraternities weren’t
there and ROTC that used to always be there wasn’t there.
The band was there, but at half time when the band took the field,
there was nobody on the student side.”
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