Editor’s note: The induction of the first group in the Bryant Athletic Hall of Honor will be held this Saturday, May 30, at Bryant High School. A reception will be held at 6:30 p.m., with the induction ceremonies commencing at 7.
The first Bryant High School football team of 1949 (nicknamed the 49ers) will be among those inducted as a pre-1975 honoree.
It’s uncertain who decided that Bryant High School should have a football team but the superintendent of schools at the time, T.D. Henson, liked the idea and called on Leonard Rollins, a physical education and history teacher, to coach.
According to John Farchman, one of the original players, “Some men in Bryant organized a booster club and some boys went door to door raising money.
“The uniforms were second hand from a defunct semi-pro team in Malvern,” he recalled. “They were mostly blue with white numbers.”
That was what they could scrounge up even though the school colors at the time were black and orange.
“One size fit all,” Farchman said of the uniforms. “We were all a bunch of skinny kids. You might cinch up your belt and find the buckle on your hip.”
Rollins had been an all-AIC basketball player at Henderson State University.
“His problem, as was ours, he had absolutely no experience in football,” said Farchman.
But he adopted his alma mater’s plan of attack, deploying his team in a single wing on offense.
“We had no home field,” Farchman noted. “We played any home games at Bauxite. In 1949, there was one baseball field in Bryant, located at what is now Ashley Park. Bryant football, I guess you could say, started in the outfield of that baseball field. That was our practice field.”
Lettermen on the team were Kenneth Bierwirth, Ted Boswell, Gene Brewer, Conrad Brown, Bobby Carmichael, Jerry Clark, Bill Crawford, Jack Davis, Kenneth Davis, Bill Elrod, Farchman, Bobby Garner, Johnny Harrell, Richard Hoffman, Raymond Papan, Jimmy Pelton, Floyd Ray, Bobby Sample, Jody Styles, Sherman Sossamon, Frankie Ulmer, Jimmy Vandergrift, Stuart Wise and Donald Zuber. The managers were Darwin Green and Len Neal.
Brown, Carmichael, Clark, Crawford, Jack Davis, Elrod, Garner, Harrell, Papan, Pelton, Styles, Ulmer and Wise have passed away.
As might be expected, the team got off to a rough start, going 0-8 against Magnet Cove, Lakeside, Bismarck, Jacksonville, Glenwood, Amity, Clinton and Mabelvale. They were shut out over their first five contests but got on the board in each of the last three.
In 1950, they opened the season with their first victory, beating Ouachita 20-0 on the way to a 4-6 season.
