By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — A loyal season ticket holder through years of losing, Arkansas-Pine Bluff alum Jesse Mason has a plan for getting to Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday.
Mason and his wife will drive to Memphis and fly from there to see his alma mater go against Duke in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Before that can happen, there is the matter of UAPB beating Winthrop tonight in Dayton, but if perseverance results from tough times, the Golden Lions should be well fortified.
Despite opening the season with 11 straight road games for the good of the school coffers, UAPB finished with the first winning record since rejoining the Southwestern Athletic Conference in 1997. To fully appreciate the six-week travel grind, delete the numerous bus trips from Pine Bluff to the Little Rock airport and review the itinerary:
Fly from Little Rock to Denver, bus from Denver to Boulder and back, fly from Denver to El Paso, fly from El Paso to Little Rock; bus round-trip to Akron; round-trip flight to Phoenix; bus round-trip to Ann Arbor, Mich., Stillwater, Okla., and Atlanta in 12 days; bus to Manhattan, Kan., to Columbia, Mo., and back; fly from Little Rock to Portland, bus from Portland to Eugene and back, fly from Portland to Little Rock.
Mason, director of cooperative education at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, and a local politico, believes that early-season schedule will help the Golden Lions deal with Winthrop and beyond. “That builds character,” he said. “Going to sites where they’ve never been, that, in itself, is a learning experience.”
In addition, five of those opponents are in the NCAA Tournament.
Mason, who only missed one of UAPB’s home games when the weather interfered, was in Shreveport for the semifinals and finals of the SWAC Tournament.
After UAPB won the title, there was some talk around the hotel that UAPB would escape the play-in game because the NCAA tends to rotate the SWAC champion and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
But, the 0-11 start was too much to overcome and his flight to Dayton on Monday included a layover in Atlanta. “The flights that were available Tuesday would have put me there about an hour before game time and I didn’t want to take that risk,” he said.
Originally, Mason hoped to be on the UAPB charter from Little Rock to Dayton. Sunday evening, he talked with UAPB athletic director Skip Perkins to get an update on wheels up.
“Skip told me, ‘Mr. Mason, I need to tell you this,’ “When we win, we’re going straight on to Jacksonville,” Mason said.
Even though he is a boss, Mason decided to work on Wednesday.
He is convinced the UAPB program began to turn when Chancellor Lawrence Davis hired Perkins in the summer of 2007. The following spring, Perkins brought in George Ivory as the basketball coach.
“What I have seen is there’s a whole era unfolding down there now,” Mason said.
He is uniquely qualified to gauge progress of the program and critique a jump shot. A three-time all-conference player at UAPB in 1958-60, he led the SWAC in scoring in 1959 with an average of 27.6 points per game before a long jumper counted for three. The second-leading scorer that year was Zelmo Beaty, a two-time NBA All-Star.
For the first time in memory, there is a reason to watch the NCAA play-in game.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
