HSU seeks to be unique, won’t pay players

By STEVE BRAWNER

In 2019, Henderson State University in Arkadelphia was within a week of having no cash on hand. Today, its finances have recovered, its enrollment is up, and it’s looking for ways to distinguish itself from other schools. But it won’t be paying anyone to play football.  

Those were takeaways from a conversation with chancellor Dr. Trey Berry on the HSU campus Sept. 1.

Berry came to Henderson on Jan. 1, 2024, after serving as president of Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. He had grown up on the HSU campus, where his father, Clyde Berry, was a head football coach and baseball coach.

When he arrived, HSU was in a state of ongoing “financial exigency,” or distress. As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, it had a $3.2 million deficit in 2018. The next year, at one point it had only seven days of cash on hand. That year, the university had a total enrollment of 3,594. By 2024, it hd fallen to 2,061.

But things were turning around. The board of trustees voted in 2019 to affiliate with the Arkansas State University System. Dr. Chuck Ambrose came on board as chancellor in November 2021. He and the ASU Board of Trustees cut 25 degree programs that weren’t attracting enough students including theater, political science and history, along with 88 faculty positions.

The university is in much better shape now. Enrollment has reached 2,465. The university has a balanced budget and recently enjoyed its best fundraising year ever at almost $7 million, Berry said. It gave employees a cost of living raise without increasing students’ tuition. 

“All metrics are moving in the right direction,” he said. 

Berry said the school is strategically focusing on job placement. It has brought back its criminal justice degree and added a semester-long drone technology certificate course as part of its aviation program. The school is considering creating an air traffic control program, which Berry said isn’t offered anywhere in the Arkansas-Louisiana-Texas area. It’s also looking at reduced hour accelerated degree programs that a student can finish in less than four years.

As for other aspects of campus life, its band has grown from roughly 45 students to more than 100. HSU has resurrected its track-and-field program, which it ended in 1993. Ninety-one athletes recently arrived on campus. Next fall, it will be the only state school with a women’s flag football varsity team. 

“We’re trying to look at what can we do to be different?” he said. “The universities that are going to thrive in the latter half of the 21st century are going to be the ones that are unique, that are doing things that others aren’t doing, that are the first to get to a new sport, academic program, whatever. Those people who get out there on the cutting edge and innovate and do things that others aren’t – those are the universities that are going to survive and thrive.”

Which brings us to football. Henderson is one of 12 Arkansas and Oklahoma teams competing in the Great American Conference, which also includes across-the-street rival Ouachita Baptist University. 

It’s competing in an era when major colleges are paying some football players millions of dollars, perhaps for only one season until the player transfers to a higher bidder. 

The only hope appears to be for Congress to step in. The U.S. Senate this month is scheduled to consider bipartisan legislation, the Protect College Sports Act by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, that would provide some structure.

Sen. Tom Cotton, who visited the campus the same day I interviewed Berry, said the bill has bipartisan support and a “pretty good” chance of advancing. Both HSU and OBU had talked to him about the state of college sports. He said athletes are being taken advantage of, and sports fans want consistency and familiarity with players they can cheer throughout their college careers. Cotton expressed concern about the future of individual and Olympic sports.

“If we don’t take action to provide some basic rules of the road, I think we could get to the point in the not-too-distant future where most colleges can afford nothing but football and basketball, maybe baseball, and maybe not even all colleges can do that,” he said.

Berry said Henderson isn’t paying its players. It doesn’t have the resources, and it wouldn’t be right at a school where 50% of the freshman class members are first-generation students and need financial support. 

Henderson can still play good college football. But the players will be students, not professionals, whose main purpose for being there is to earn a diploma that leads to a job. 

Isn’t that what college is for?

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 24 news outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.