Southern Arkansas University Athletics

In his four years as a student-athlete at Southern Arkansas, Jim Solomon (1953-57) was the leading pitcher of the now defunct Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC), and one of the few conference baseball players of the 1950’s to be offered a professional contract.  He signed with St. Louis Cardinal Scout Fred Hawn after graduating from SAU.

Solomon’s four-year pitching record was 20-2, a .909 winning percentage.  The season-by-season breakdown: 4-0 in 1954, 5-1 in ‘55, 7-1 in ‘56, and 4-0 in ‘57.  The Muleriders won an outright AIC baseball championship in 1954, and shared the 1956 AIC title with the University of the Ozarks.

A good-hitting pitcher, he led the team in batting as an outfielder, when not on the mound, with a .467 average as a senior.  In 1956, he walked only eight batters in 69 innings, while striking out 50.  His earned run average was 1.89.

Solomon also was a four-year regular in Mulerider basketball, as a slender 6-4 center that specialized in screening, rebounding, and defending. 

In his senior season, (1956-57), the Muleriders toppled Arkansas Tech’s basketball dynasty.  SAU defeated Tech three times that season, and won the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) District 17 playoff, breaking Tech’s streak of seven consecutive trips to the national NAIA Tournament at Kansas City.