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BEARS: The Bears open their season with a retro feel. They will host Hendrix in an exhibition Friday night that will mark the first times men’s basketball teams from the two schools have played each other since 1992. No one on the coaching staffs of both sides has been involved in the rivalry before and they have to go on stories.

“Our guys are excited because it is the first time we get a chance to play,” said UCA coach Rand Chappell, whose team has had a couple of scrimmage. “We came off our last scrimmage and had our best practice, probably the best practice we have had in years.”

CONWAY, Ark _ For the first time since 1992, the University of Central Arkansas Bears and the Hendrix College Warriors will face off on the basketball court Friday night at the Farris Center.

UCA, an NCAA Division I member, will host Hendrix, an NCAA Division III program, for the first time since Feb. 2, 1992 when both teams were still in the NAIA and part of the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference. UCA won that last meeting 83-73 at the Farris Center. The Bears lead the overall series 69-54.

NOTE: The main entrance into the Farris Center will be located on the west side of the building nearest the parking lot this season. Fans will enter at the top of the outside steps while students will enter through the north tunnel under the steps.

Tim Horton, an assistant football coach at the University of Arkansas, got one of his first views of the University of Central Arkansas-Hendrix basketball rivalry shortly after he had fallen in love as a Conway High student.



One of his first dates with Lauren Malpica, who would become his wife, was to a Hendrix-UCA basketball game at the old Grove Gymnasium. The couple sat four rows behind the UCA bench with Horton’s father, Harold, UCA’s football coach at the time, along with several UCA officials. Horton noted that Scottie Pippen scored, and he and all the UCA fans around him cheered loudly — except Lauren, who had strong family ties to Hendrix. The Warriors’ Kerry Evans scored and Lauren was the only one in the section who cheered. “I had really fallen for Lauren at this time, but I told her she couldn’t be cheering for Hendrix in this section,” said Horton during an appearance before the Arkansas Sports Club last year. “She looks at me and says, ‘If I can’t cheer for Hendrix, we just might not need to be dating.’”