Hey look, if you’re a Mississippi State fan, you should probably also be a Central Arkansas softball fan. If you’re someone who is just looking for a college softball team to fall in love with, Central Arkansas might be the team for you.
There’s a few good reasons for this.
First of all, the Central Arkansas softball team was a huge supporter of Alex Wilcox as she battled ovarian cancer. Roughly two years ago I wrote this, highlighting how the Bears went out of their way to help out Wilcox.
Wilcox’s name was on the back of every single uniform that Central Arkansas wore in their midweek game against Mississippi State. Those uniforms were then auctioned off, returned, auctioned off again, and so on and so forth.
According to David Kuhn, UCA’s head coach, they were able to raise over $4,000 for Wilcox in the process.
And they’re not done doing good things using that same formula.
Central Arkansas recently hosted the Adam Brown Memorial Shamrock Classic. The tournament, named in honor of a member of SEAL Team Six who was killed in action in Afghanistan, provides UCA with an opportunity to help future students.
The jerseys worn during the tournament are being auctioned off as part of a fundraiser.
The funds raised will be used as part of a scholarship for future students to attend the University of Central Arkansas. Helping students make it through college is a cause that anyone should be able to get behind and support, right?
Anyone who is interested in helping out with the fundraiser is urged to contact Kuhn by emailing dkuhn@uca.edu.
And now we come back to a huge reason why Mississippi State fans should continue to support Central Arkansas Softball: Kuhn.
Kuhn, a Delta State alumnus and native of Greenville, Mississippi, has been the head coach of the Bears since 2009. Prior to that, he acted as the head coach of Delta State where he had three seasons of 40+ wins and nine seasons of 30+ wins.
The head coach of the Bears is gracious with his time for interviews and has gone out of his way to help me out on multiple occasions. He’s very clearly someone who is focused on helping others, as evidenced by the multiple fundraisers hosted by his team.
Kuhn has told me before that softball is a game he’s glad to coach, but it’s just a game at the end of the day. He added that the impact he can have on his players and his community means more to him than the game itself ever could.
I fully believe that.
If you need another reason, Kuhn is a solid coach and this team is off to a solid start:
Look, if for whatever reason you actually need another reason to root for this team, they’re a relatively good team. They’re a bit of an underdog in their conference, but the Bears are still solid.
That’s certainly true this season.
Though they haven’t broken the 30-win threshold since 2016, the Bears are off to a hot start this season and are playing some pretty good softball right now.
So far, they’re 16-9 on the season and have a chance to make a statement in the Southland Conference. With a .640 win percentage and a total of 46 games on their schedule, the Bears are currently on pace to win 29.4 games.
But that doesn’t include a possible berth in the the Southland Conference softball tournament. It also doesn’t account for any hot streaks or slumps that might happen in conference play. But still, it’s a solid start for Central Arkansas.
So if for some reason good deeds and helping others aren’t enough to convince you to root for a team, maybe knowing that this team tends to win more than it loses will help.
Support them. They’re a ton of fun and they’re doing good things.
Why wouldn’t you root for the Bears?
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