John Clinton Futrall was the volunteer Coach and Manager when it all began. The first squad in 1894 picked on Fort Smith High School twice and, as would be expected, earned easy victories. For the third and final game of the year the "Cardinals" traveled to Austin to take on Texas. The Longhorns beat Arkansas 54-0 on November 11 in a series that would last nearly 100 years. J.C. Futrall coached for two more years and had a record of 5-2 (.714) with all wins coming at the expense of Ft. Smith High School while losses to Texas and Drury. For the next 19 years Futrall was involved in Arkansas Athletics as either Chairman of the Athletic Committee, Manager of the team, or both.
J.C. Futrall had a great love for athletics (especially football) but his first love was academics. He considered himself a "Classicist" as he studied and was later a Professor in Greek and Latin. Futrall became President at the University of Arkansas in 1913 where he remained until his death in 1939. While President of the University he also helped organize and write rules for the Southwest Conference in 1915 (which Arkansas was a charter member). Futrall came to Arkansas at the age of 15 (1888) to study Latin and Greek. While at the UofA he was a founding member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity (1890) before transferring to the University of Virginia in 1891 after being expelled from the UofA because he was caught playing poker. At Virginia he earned both the A.B and M.A. degrees in Classics along with a new love for Football. He returned to Arkansas to teach in 1894 where he also took on the responsibility of recruiting and coaching the first three football teams. Futrall died on September 12, 1939 in a car wreck just outside West Fork, Arkansas, he was 66 years old. In the days after his death he was remembered in this editorial from the Arkansas Gazette.
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