As the UT Arlington Athletic Department prepares for homecoming week today, This Day in UTA Football History will take a peek at 1963 season's homecoming match.
Back in the days of the Arlington State College / UTA football program, homecoming centered around the football game. Nowadays, the University has done a good job of incorporating all three team sports in the week-long festivities. Today, the Volleyball team hosts California Baptist. Monday, the men's basketball team opens the season with a mid-day game against North Texas-Dallas while volleyball team will play Abilene Christian at College Park Center in the evening. On Thursday, the women's basketball team plays Arlington Baptist at 6:30 pm. On Saturday, volleyball has a mid-day match against Utah Valley while the men's basketball guys take on Louisiana Tech at 5 pm.
There are other myriad activities as well that include students getting involved in the University. This link shows many of those activities.
Back in the day, there were other various events, notably a bonfire and a football game. Other events came and went. Others like Bed Races or Oozeball had staying power, though aren't exclusively homecoming anymore. When I was a student, homecoming occurred in February. There have been changes over the years, but I can't think of a better way than how it is now. If a football resurrection occurs in the future, I hope nothing changes in the current line-up and the just add a football game to the lineup.
In 1963, Northeast Louisiana, or Louisiana-Monroe as they are known now, was up for the homecoming game. I've featured the then-Indians, now Warhawks in prior History features and will stay to today's homecoming theme. NLA was a common opponent, appearing on the non-conference schedule often, than later becoming a Southland rival.
After dropping a road match to McMurray, the team played at home against La Tech, a 34-14 loss in front of the largest crowd of the year. At 7,000 fans, it was approximately 70 percent capacity.
That really is one of the marked differences in the 1960's versus subsequent years. You have to give a fan base a reason to care. Why does Alabama draw more than Vanderbilt? Why does UTA draw so well in Volleyball relative to their peers? Winning is a primary driver of that. There are other factors but I can't think of any that are higher.
Moving off campus, changing the mascot and playing fewer opponents that were geographically close all contributed, but if they beat Southern Mississippi, West Texas State (now WT A&M) and New Mexico State regularly in the Texas Rangers ballpark, fans would have showed up.
In the final year, 1985, the Mavs lost to Angelo State to open the year. They didn't draw above 5,800 the remainder of the year. The enrollment in 1963 was about 10,000 students. In 1985, that number had grown to about 23,000. I don't know the alumni base numbers for either year, but in later decades, I would expect it to be near exponentially higher. It is in the ballpark of a quarter million today.
The losing culture developed in the 1970's really killed support. The entire athletic department, which consisted of football, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf and track and field won no championships for an entire decade. While the '70's only saw men's sports in the NCAA, that level of middling is hard to overcome. At least on the women's side, the teams were going to national tournaments frequently. They carried little weight back then, so it was a very minor help to change the culture.
Baseball ('71) and golf ('71) each had one second-place finish in the decade. Basketball ('69-'70, '73-'74) and cross country ('75, '76) had two runner-up finishes. Men's tennis didn't field a team much but had three seasons near the bottom of the standings. The swimming team went from NCAA championship contenders to mediocrity to disbandment in the 1970's. There were no conference meets, so success was judged on a national scale. Each team except golf had more last place finishes than second place honors.
It was a rough decade.
The 1980's were better, but that didn't move the needle much. Outside of football's 1966,.'67 and '81 trophies, cross country was the first men's sport to win a title in the Southland. Basketball had a bried run of success before going back to their losing ways. Volleyball dominated when the NCAA opened up for women's sports. Baseball became competitive. Track was top half, but that was about it. How do you build a winning culture with that result?
After losing to La Tech, the 1963 Rebels football record stood at 1-5. The season was going down the drain fast. The Rebels were hoping the homecoming crowd would reverse fortunes on this day in 1963 as Arlington State held its annual homecoming game.
Taken from the Dallas Morning News, November 3, 1963.
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