The Ouachita Tiger

This tiger marks the campus of Ouachita Baptist University, founded here in Arkadelphia in eighteen eighty-six and running continuously ever since. The school colors are purple and old gold, and the Tiger has been the mascot for well over a century. Some of the earliest sketches of it show up in student publications around nineteen eleven.

The Tigers fielded their first football team in eighteen ninety-six, and they have a place in the state's football history. In the fall of eighteen ninety-seven they played Arkansas in one of the earliest intercollegiate football games in the state, and the Razorbacks won twenty-four to nothing.

The team plays today at Cliff Harris Stadium, named for a Ouachita alumnus who became a star defensive back in the National Football League.