SAU Family Day features fun and football

This year’s Family Day this Saturday at Southern Arkansas University will offer visitors a mixture of fun SAU traditions, the honoring of an SAU icon, and will culminate with a football game featuring the undefeated Muleriders.

The day will begin at 11 a.m. with an SAU organization fair at the SAU duck pond. This year’s Residence Hall Association Bed Race at 1 p.m. is the 35th installment of SAU’s colorful and unique tradition. It pits two teams of five on a narrow strip of road at Crescent Lane starting behind the Greek Theatre with decorated beds hoisted up on bicycle tires. Four members of each team push the beds at harrowing speeds while the fifth brave and helmeted soul holds on, wishing all the while he or she would have stayed inside to study.

If you still need an adrenaline rush after the bed race, enjoy the rest of the Family Day activities, which includes the annual Great Greek Canoe Races at 2 p.m. the SAU duck pond and at 4 p.m. a free family picnic, Mulegating and pep rally at the lawn of the former Welcome Center.

At 5:30 p.m., the football field at SAU’s Wilkins Stadium will officially become “Rip Powell Field” during a pre-game ceremony. Coach Powell led the Southern Arkansas University football team to 62 wins during his 10 seasons as the Muleriders’ head coach. Nearly 40 years later, the field where many of those victories were achieved will soon bear his name. This ceremony comes after many of Powell’s former athletes joined together to raise more than $100,000 in his name.

The day will conclude with the 2-0 Mulerider football team taking on Harding University at 6 p.m.

The complete schedule for the 2015 Family Day is as follows: