Southern Arkansas University Athletics

Louis Sanford quarterbacked Southern Arkansas from 1951-53 and led the Muleriders to AIC football championships in ‘51 and ‘52 with perfect league records of 7-0 and 5-0.  Overall, Coach Elmer Smith’s Muleriders were 9-1 and 10-1, respectively, those two years.
           
Sanford was not even associated with the SAU program before football practice opened in the fall of 1951.  He graduated from El Dorado High School in 1947, and was recruited by LSU as a running back.  From there, he entered military service where he played football before walking on and earning a scholarship at SAU.
           
Sanford was the starting quarterback in his first game, and every game after, in his three-year career at SAU.  He also punted and returned kicks.  It is estimated Sanford passed for at least 25 touchdowns in his Mulerider career, spectacular for conservative offenses of the era.  He was an All-AIC selection and a three-sport letterman in football, basketball, and track and field, where he was a key member of SAU’s sprint relay teams.

After a career as a high school coach and teacher, he is now retired in Bald Knob with wife, Bobbie.  He has three daughters, Rhonda Roberts, Stacy Harrell, and Sandy Sanford, and a son, former Mulerider football player Skip Sanford, Jr., and 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.