Ouachita Stories

Ouachita Baptist University again will have one of the largest radio networks in NCAA Division II with seven Ouachita Football Network stations this season. The combined signals of those stations cover most of Arkansas and parts of Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas and Louisiana.

Ouachita is the only college football program in the state at any level that has posted five consecutive winning seasons. Ouachita is also the only NCAA Division II program in the state with radio affiliates in Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas.

The Tigers open the 2013 football season at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14, in Bethany, Okla., against Southern Nazarene University. The broadcast will begin at 5 p.m. with the Baptist Health Tiger Countdown to Kickoff.

Network affiliates for the 2013 season are:

•  KHTE-FM, 96.5, Little Rock
•  KYXK-FM, 106.9, Arkadelphia/Gurdon
•  KFMD, AM 1340 and FM 105.3, Springdale/Rogers
•  KAMD-FM, 97.1, Camden
•  KNAS-FM, 105.5, Nashville
•  KQOR-FM, 105.3, Mena
•  KBOK, AM 1310 and FM 101.1, Malvern

Rex Nelson of Little Rock will return for his 31^st season of play-by-play duties, making him one of the longest-serving college play-by-play announcers in the nation. He will be joined in the broadcast booth by Dr. Jeff Root, who has provided analysis for more than a quarter of a century.

Nelson, a well-known Arkansas writer and broadcaster, serves as the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges & Universities. Root is the dean of Ouachita’s School of Humanities. Root and Nelson grew up within blocks of Ouachita’s A.U. Williams Field and began doing the radio broadcasts of Tiger football when they were Ouachita students.

Richard Atkinson, Casey Motl and Patrick Thomas round out the broadcast team. The executive producer of the Ouachita Football Network is Russ McKinney of Capital City Broadcasting in Little Rock.

“The quality and reach of our football broadcasts are second to none in Division II,” said Ouachita Athletic Director David Sharp. “We take great pride here at Ouachita in the product we put on the air.”

The presenting sponsor of the Ouachita Football Network for 2013 is the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas. Each network broadcast begins one hour prior to kickoff.