Wonder Boys

Second District Agricultural School put a football team on the field almost as soon as it opened its doors, and by 1920 an unbeaten season under coach Edgar O. Brown had already earned the side a nickname that outlasted the school's original name: Wonder Boys. Arkansas Tech University grew out of that agricultural school, and the football programme carried the identity forward through the 1909 founding date the university itself now marks.

For three decades the Wonder Boys were the team to beat in the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference, taking the title in 1931, 1935, 1939, and then in six of the seven seasons from 1945 to 1949, adding one more in 1961. That run, spanning the era before and after the Second World War, has no real match in the club's later history, though a Gulf South Conference championship followed once Arkansas Tech moved into Division II competition.

Eddie Meador wore the green and gold from 1955 to 1958, an All-America running back who went on to a career with the Los Angeles Rams — the sort of departure that gives a college programme its clearest measure of the level it can produce.

The Wonder Boys and the Golden Suns now play out of Simmons Bank Field at Thone Stadium in Russellville, a ground that holds 6,500.