Southern Arkansas University Athletics

Jerry Camp played football at what was then Southern State College (Southern Arkansas) from 1957-1960.
 
In his senior season of 1960 he was an honorable mention selection on the Little All-America team, at a time when there were few postseason honors available as today, and was named first team All-AIC as both a center and linebacker.  He was also selected All-AIC as a center on the 1959 team.
 
A walk-on at SAU, Camp earned a scholarship in his first few weeks, much needed as one of eight children in his family.  He started his final three years, with the 1959 and 1960 teams going a combined 11-7 under Head Coach Auburn Smith against a schedule that included Arkansas State, Louisiana-Monroe, Stephen F. Austin State, Louisiana-Lafayette, McNeese State and Central Arkansas, all Division I schools today.
 
Camp graduated from Haynesville (La.) High School in 1957, playing football for four years, and as a senior, the Golden Tornado lost only one game to Louisiana powerhouse Monroe-Neville.  Haynesville defeated Minden that year, which won the state championship of the second highest classification in Louisiana at the time.
 
Out of high school, he was offered a scholarship by then Northeast Louisiana (Louisiana-Monroe) to red-shirt, and was also approached later by Louisiana Tech.
 
Football ran deep in the Camp family, with Jerry’s older brother, Ivan, starting for four years at LSU as a center and linebacker, and his younger brother, Kenneth, was a two-year starter at cornerback and wide receiver for the Muleriders.
 
After earning his degree from Southern Arkansas, Camp coached for two years in Camden, three years in Magnolia and five years at Springhill, La.  He moved into education administration at Springhill in 1971, working his way from assistant principal to principal.  In 1989 he moved across the state line to become principal at Taylor and was named superintendant in 1991, before retiring from Taylor in 1999.
 
Camp now spends most of his time devoted to church work and on eight local golf courses.
 
He and his wife, the former Sally Allen of Haynesville, and a former SAU cheerleader, now live in Bella Vista.  They have two daughters, Dorothy, married to former Mulerider baseball pitcher Robert Upperman (SAU, 1980), and both work for Wal Mart in Bentonville, and younger daughter Suzanne, who played tennis at SAU, and is an administrator in the Bentonville School District, and married to Nick Nicholas.  The Camp’s have two grandchildren.