CONWAY — A softball coach who led a team to a 52-victory season and a national championship; an award-winning Hendrix student-athlete; and one of the most successful football coaches in state history will receive the Conway Athletic Awards Commission’s 2010 Marvin Delph-Elijah Pitts Awards in February.
Jason Anderson, the softball coach at Central Baptist College, and Hendrix basketball standout Christina Byler will be the male and female recipients of the Delph Awards for sportsman and sportswoman of the year. Former University of Central Arkansas football coach Harold Horton will be honored with the Pitts Award for career achievement.
Under Anderson, the Lady Mustangs posted a 52-1 record and won the National Christian College Athletic Association’s national championship. During the regular season, the Central Baptist College women defeated NAIA, NCAA Division II and Division III teams. The national title was the first of any kind in Central Baptist College history and also the first for a college softball team in Arkansas at any level. The Lady Mustangs were ranked No. 1 in the NCCAA most of the season and won 41 straight games.
Anderson, who was National Coach of the Year in the NCCAA last season, has won Regional Coach of the Year honors three straight years. In building a program almost from scratch, the Lady Mustangs have compiled records of 29-9, 35-13 and 52-1. He has coached 14 All-Region Performers, nine All-Americans and the 2009 National Player of the Year and the 2010 National Pitcher of the Year in the NCCAA.
Byler had an outstanding junior year in leading the Hendrix Warriors to the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference West Division championship. She earned All-Conference honors in both softball and basketball. The Little Rock native led the SCAC in scoring with 17.3 points per game. She was a national leader in free-throw percentage. She was also selected as a member of the USA Division III Basketball All-Star Team that played in Brazil last summer.
Horton served as head football coach of the UCA Bears from 1982 to 1989, going 74-12-5 while winning seven AIC championships. He is the second winningest coach in UCA football history. His teams won NAIA national championships in 1984 and 1985. A DeWitt native, Horton is a member of the UCA Sports Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
“Christina [Byler] is the model student-athlete,” said David Grimes, CAAC chairman. “I’m not sure which stat from last season is more impressive: her 90 per free-throw percentage or her GPA, which was well above the 3.2 threshold required to place her on the SCAC academic honor roll. Anderson had a season all coaches dream about. Recording a .981 winning percentage capped off by a national championship is hard to top.
“Horton compiled a coaching resume at UCA that is not only impressive in Arkansas history, but nationally as well.”
The Marvin Delph-Elijah Pitts Awards, voted on by a group of local athletic officials and media, are named for two Conway sports icons. Pitts was a graduate of Conway’s old Pine Street High School and played with the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, helping them win the first two Super Bowls. Delph won back-to-back state championships with Conway High School before leading the Arkansas Razorbacks to the 1978 NCAA Final Four as part of the famed “Triplets.”
All three awards will be presented at the annual CAAC banquet to be held today at Central Baptist College’s Mabee Student Center. Tickets are $25.
Several eighth-grade students from Conway will also be honored with the annual Marvin Delph Student-Athlete Awards.