An only-in-2020 moment took place late one night in November 1972.
The Arkansas Activities Association declared a cease-fire order in a championship football game. And crowned two teams state champions.
It was the last football game played at old Rix Stadium on Malvern Road, about where the Garland County Library now is located. For the second time in three years, Hot Springs played Jonesboro at home in a state final. Hot Springs won the 1970 game 14-9, Bobby Hannon's first team of Trojans defeating a Don Riggs-coached squad that had future Razorback Scott Bull at quarterback. It was Troy's third state title in football, the 1934 and '42 teams having been crowned without a playoff system.
Arkansas had introduced football playoffs in 1968, expanding from one to two games the following year. What football Nostradamus could imagine six championship games being played in the same year. And that an Arkansas football season would stretch from Labor Day (with some games in August) until almost Christmas.
The 1972 Class 3A final introduced a previously unknown, perhaps undreamed element to the playoff format, one that profoundly affected the future of Arkansas football.
Hot Springs and Jonesboro ended the regulation 48 minutes (four 12-minute quarters) in a 14-all tie. The score stayed the same through three 10-minute overtime periods. By then, not only was the concession stand running low on coffee and other items but, more importantly, concerns arose over the players' safety.
Finally, someone sought the advice of the AAA, the governing body of state high-school athletics. As legend has it, a phone call to Little Rock was placed (no cell phones then). With the hour getting late and the weather showing no signs of improving, not to mention that one team (Jonesboro) had a long bus ride ahead, an historic decision was reached: Co-state champions were declared.
Johnie Burnett, the AAA president, after reading the game officials' report and conferring with top aide Jerry Hall, explained the ramifications a few days later to a curious public.
"We realize and understand that the game was not finalized by the mechanics set up to resolve ties in our playoff system," Burnett said in a piece of KATV (Channel 7) footage available online. "Identical trophies to each school," he said, would be presented after "two exceptionally great teams played 78 minutes of hard-nosed football in deplorable conditions over which no one had control."
Sportswriter Leland Barclay gives it two listings in his yearly almanac of Arkansas high-school football: Hot Springs 14, Jonesboro 14 and Jonesboro 14, Hot Springs 14.
What was then Trojan Field opened the next year, 1973. The Trojans played in four championship games that decade (Little Rock McClellan winning 27-12 and Jacksonville 3-0 in 1976). They have not played in another.
Jonesboro would return twice in the 1970s, losing 17-0 to Jacksonville (the second of three titles at the school for former Hurricane assistant Bill Reed) in '78 and beating Texarkana (where Reed would move three years later) in '79. Jonesboro's semifinal win in '79 -- the year of "My Sharona" and that Rod Stewart asked "Da ya think I'm sexy?" -- came against Hot Springs. That was the first year as Trojan head coach for former Hannon assistant Joe Reese.
The '79 Trojans started 0-2 but beat Texarkana in a memorable midseason game against Texarkana. That team featured a Glenwood import (quarterback Shawn Wilson) handing off to Wallace Snowden, who later worked part-time in the sports department at The Sentinel-Record. Reese chided Lou Holtz, then high-balling at Arkansas, for not recruiting Snowden (who later played at Missouri) and other Trojans, saying that he told Lou of one player, "You won't catch him stealing a begonia plant," as was the case later with one of Holtz' Razorbacks.
The only overtime championship game since 1972 went five extra periods in 1985 with Little Rock Catholic, repeating in Class 5A, beating' Fort Smith Northside 35-28. Under the current rules, each team gets the ball at the other team's 10-yard line with four downs to score. They keep playing until a period ends with one team in front. No kissing sisters, no co-champions.
Under much different circumstances, the AAA recognized the growing coronavirus pandemic and this March declared boys and girls co-state champions in five basketball classifications. What then appeared an overly cautious move on part of the AAA was, as the Beatles might say, nothing to get hung about.
Somewhat surprisingly, we have reached the first championship weekend in this COVID-affected season, one in which even some playoff games were canceled.
Not so surprising are the two matchups Saturday at War Memorial Stadium. Bryant and North Little Rock play "let's do it again" in Class 7A for the third year in a row. Having beaten NLR 27-7 in 2018 and 21-7 last year, Bryant looks invincible, perhaps the best Arkansas team since Gus Malzahn's star-crossed Springdale squad of 2005. Buck James, a title-winning coach at Camden Fairview, has created a dynasty in Saline County.
Meanwhile, it's Greenwood and Lake Hamilton in Class 6A, reprising a November game that Greenwood won 38-28 at Wolf Stadium. The Bulldogs are undefeated in pursuit of the school's 10th football championship. Tommy Gilleran, the last Garland County coach to win a state football crown (2009 at Fountain Lake), leads his alma mater, winner of two state titles under retired coach Jerry Clay, to its first title game since 2011.
The winners Saturday likely will hear Freddie Mercury and Queen's recording of "We are the Champions." Hopefully, nothing will happen to require a AAA ruling. But since they're playing in Little Rock, at least it would be a local phone call.