LITTLE ROCK — I’m the wrong person to debate the pros or cons of playing games in War Memorial Stadium. My roots are too deep with that stadium.
So don’t ask me to belittle the decision to break the 77-year-old streak of no games against other schools from Arkansas. I came away with pleasant memories from the 45-3 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Saturday.
There was an 80-yard punt return by Nathan Parodi that might be memorable. Along with KJ Jefferson’s four first-half touchdown passes were three total touchdowns by Treylon Burks (two receiving, one rushing) that might be all that I’ll recall longterm.
Yes, I’ll remember the battle of the bands at halftime, won by the UAPB’s Marching Musical Machine of the Mid-South if the cheers from the stands mean anything. And, I’ll probably recall that the coaches agreed at halftime — with the Hogs ahead 45-0 — to shorten the third and fourth quarters to 12 minutes. The game was shortened further by some clock errors.
There was a 12-second runoff after a change of possessions. And, the clock wasn’t fixed after an 80-yard interception return was overturned by video review. Yes, I remember stuff like that.
Outside of the smoothness Jefferson showed to beat all-out blitzes with lasers to Burks, there was hardly anything else that will supplant all of my favorite thoughts of War Memorial Stadium.
I could dissect some of the riveting fourth-down plays, but please excuse me as I return to the good old days of the grand old place on Markham Street.
For anyone who has been in the area, if you pull into the Wendy’s on Markham, you have been in my old yard. There was once a house on that lot and my family lived there until I was 2 years old. For the record, I’m 67.
A Christmas tree was planted in the front yard just weeks after Arkansas beat Ole Miss on the Powder River Play. My father always reminded me that I was in diapers when he dug the hole for the tree. It was a massive tree that covered the entire front yard when the lot was leveled to build the Wendy’s.
More than once, I’ve pulled up to the drive-thru window after a night game to order a Frosty for the return trip to Fayetteville with this message to the teenager at the window: “I used to live here.”
Two houses later, our family moved to 1821 Fair Park, and that’s generally the same road that winds past the Little Rock Zoo and turns into Van Buren Street, splitting what formerly was a golf course in front of War Memorial Stadium.
What I can tell you about the highlights of the house on Fair Park were walks to nearby Ray Winder Field in the summer for Arkansas Travelers baseball games. It wasn’t difficult to walk to the golf course or to football games. Heck, there were many walks home after football practice at Pulaski Heights Junior High.
After digesting all of that, understand that I like the occasional game at War Memorial Stadium. Nevermind that it isn’t just old, but antiquated in many ways, too.
I do not care. It does my heart good to walk into that stadium, full or empty.
I wasn’t in the stadium in 1954 as an infant when it’s said that Arkansas football became a rage throughout the state with the 6-0 victory over Ole Miss. Buddy Bob Benson threw a halfback pass to Preston Carpenter for the lone points in that game.
Coach Bowden Wyatt called it the Powder River Play, named after a river in Wyoming. Wyatt once coached for the Wyoming Cowboys.
It was with great joy this summer that I drove my truck through Kaycee, Wyo., on a fishing trip to Casper. Yes, I drove over the Powder River, wide and dry with sand as fine as powder.
As a 35-year-old, I met Carpenter as he watched his son play football for Conway High. We discussed the Powder River Play at length standing on the sideline watching the Wampus Cats practice. His take, “No one has ever been more open than I was on a game’s deciding play.”
If pinned down to pen more WMS memories, many don’t have anything to do with an actual game.
My high school golf matches were often played at the golf course that featured three holes next to the parking lot on the southwest corner of the stadium. The 15th green was the highest point on that little island of golf holes separated from the rest of the course by Van Buren.
I admit that the high school players in my group (and probably other groups) in city tournaments had a tradition of dropping an old golf ball beside the green at No. 15 and firing a high iron shot over the stadium wall. It wasn’t a difficult carry. The only thing that could keep you from hitting a ball into the stadium was a light standard.
Workers at the stadium told me they found many golf balls inside the stadium through the years. So it wasn’t just my high school buddies who tested their skills.
As a teenager, there were always odd jobs at the stadium where you could pick up a few bucks. I always held jobs at Ray Winder Field, from stacking bats in the visitor’s dugout to retrieving foul balls off the roof to selling popcorn, there was money to be made.
But the best payout came when I helped ABC Sports for the Arkansas-Stanford football game in 1970. My job during the game was to help feed statistical information to the broadcast team; basically carry stat sheets up one flight of stairs in the press box.
But the real job came afterward when a young assistant producer handed me $300 for my pay to cover two days of work. That was odd. I thought I was done after one day.
Terry Jastrow, not much older than me, said I had to get 20 luxury cars parked outside the press box used by the ABC Sports crew that weekend back to the airport rental facility.
I didn’t dare tell Jastrow that I didn’t have a driver’s license. I had turned 16 but was still working on my learner’s permit, meaning an adult had to be in the car with me.
My mother was the only available adult driver on Sunday as we took those 20 cars back to the airport. After we took the first one back and grabbed a cab back to the stadium, she decided I was OK to drive solo and we took them back two at a time and enlisted an older brother to shuttle.
The broadcast team for the Arkansas-UAPB team sat just a few feet away from my seat in the press box, with a glass partition between us. I glanced over at the end of the game to make sure they didn’t need me to return rental cars.
Considering inflation, TV folks are probably paying four figures now.