UALR Football? Really?

Football frenzy has reached such a pitch in Arkansas that one employee at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is proposing that maybe it’s time UALR again fields a team.

Grayson Shelton, manager of information services in the university’s development office, has posted a lengthy article online (Lit.LivinWorld.com/?p=615) arguing in favor of Trojan football. Shelton has even designed some prototype Trojan football uniforms.

Shelton told Arkansas Business that back when UALR was Little Rock Junior College, it had some pretty successful football teams. In 1948, the team played in the Junior College Sugar Bowl, and in 1949, it won the Junior College Rose Bowl.

The Trojans’ website confirms this, adding some interesting history with at least one name likely familiar to the older members of the central Arkansas business world:

“The undefeated 1949 Little Rock Junior College football blazed through their season winning the Little Rock Shrine Bowl to earn the right to represent the East at the fourth annual Junior Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. The Trojans defeated the Santa Ana Dons 25-19.

“The team was led by Jimmy Karam, who took the reins of head coach in 1947 and led the Trojans to a victory in the Coffee Bowl in 1947 and a spot in the Junior Sugar Bowl in 1948.” (Spelling errors corrected; it’s a sports, not an English literature, website.)

It’s hard to determine exactly when football at what is now UALR died, but an Internet search indicates sometime around 1955.

Shelton shared the link to his story with UALR co-workers and said he’d gotten more than 1,500 hits in one day alone. He said the response to his football dream so far had been 50-50, with academic types generally not so enthusiastic, but others in the world of UALR encouraging the proposal.

Check it out. It’s headlined “’It’s Time for UALR’, is it Also Time for Trojan Football?”