Southern Arkansas University Athletics

Former Mulerider football player and football and track and field coach Raymond (Rip) Powell was selected to Southern Arkansas’ inaugural Sports Hall of Fame class in 2003.

Powell played football and was a four-year starting lineman at SAU from 1949 through 1952 for the late Elmer Smith.  The Muleriders won Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) championships in 1951 with a 9-1 overall record and in 1952 with a 10-1 record.  Their two losses were to NCAA Division I teams.

Powell returned to Southern Arkansas in 1963 and served his alma mater from 1963 through 1979 as football and track and field coach. He served as head track and field coach from the 1964 season through 1969 before being named head football coach in 1969.
 
The year before Powell came to SAU, the Muleriders scored one point in the AIC track and field championship meet.  His first team in 1964 finished third in the AIC title meet, while his next two were runner-up in the conference meet before his fourth team captured the university’s first AIC track and field championship in 1967.  Southern Arkansas repeated as conference champion in 1968 and was a narrow runner-up in ’69.
 
In 1969 Powell became head football coach, a position he held through the 1978 season. He compiled a 62-38-2 record over his 10 seasons for a winning percentage of .618, still the second best in SAU history for coaches with at least three years of tenure.  His 62 wins are surpassed only by Auburn Smith’s 63, which came over a 15-year period.  Powell’s 1972 team finished with an 8-2 record and won the AIC championship.

Prior to returning to Southern Arkansas, Powell was head football and track coach at Texarkana (Arkansas High) in 1958 and 1959 before serving as head football coach at Stamps from 1960-62.  His 1957 track team at Arkansas High captured the state championship, while his three-year mark on the gridiron at Stamps was 25-7-3.  Powell’s 1961 team went undefeated at 11-0-1, while the ’62 team was 10-2.  He began his coaching career at Jefferson Avenue Junior High School in Texarkana (1955-57).

After resigning as football coach at SAU in 1979, Powell served the university as an instructor in the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation until his retirement in 1990.

Powell was inducted into the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2002.