My wife, our 16-year-old son and I huddled in Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium on that cold morning of Nov. 23, waiting for the start of the University of Arkansas football game against Mississippi State University.

I’ve never hidden my love for the sport of college football. The UA-Mississippi State contest was the 15th involving an Arkansas college team that I witnessed this season.

Among the things that attract me to college football are the history and tradition. A favorite part of attending Razorback home games occurs when the honorary captain is announced. The honorary captain for the Mississippi State game was Marcus Elliott. Younger Arkansans know Elliott primarily for his radio work. Those of us of a certain age remember when Elliott played for the Razorbacks from 1982-84, earning All-Southwest Conference honors following the 1983 and 1984 seasons.

Three days later, I was driving east on Interstate 40 after having spoken to the Rogers Rotary Club at lunch. As I neared Morrilton, I tuned my radio to KABZ-FM, 103.7, and there was Elliott talking about the decision to cut in half the number of UA football games played at War Memorial Stadium. The UA had announced the move earlier in the day. Elliott, a Little Rock native, understands better than most the role that War Memorial Stadium has played in building the Razorback football tradition. He said the decision made him “sad.”

“Sad” is the perfect word to sum up how I feel. When I was younger, I would have been mad. As an aide to Gov. Mike Huckabee, I joined the governor in 1999 and 2000 in the fight to preserve Little Rock games, a battle that became known as the Great Stadium Debate. I was mad back then. Now, like Elliott, I’m simply sad. The new agreement calls for the UA to play one football game each season at War Memorial Stadium through 2018. Many Arkansans believe there will be no more Little Rock games after 2018,and that’s probably correct if the current administration is still in place at that time. Even with one game still in Little Rock, it’s likely I’ll see very few Razorback contests in the years ahead since those games will come earlier in the season when I have Saturday obligations elsewhere.

Attending the last game every other season against LSU in Little Rock had become quite a family tradition before that ended three years ago. On the day after last month’s loss to Mississippi State, the sports section of this newspaper noted that the crowd for the game had been one of the four smallest home crowds since Arkansas joined the Southeastern Conference in 1992. The smallest, it was reported, came on the day after Thanksgiving in 1996 as a cold rain fell and fewer than 23,000 people showed up to watch Arkansas lose to LSU by a score of 17-7. I was there in the rain with my brother in-law and nephew. Our oldest son was just 3 then and not ready for a game.

Six years later, though, that son was 9 years old and on the top row of War Memorial’s east side with my wife and I to witness the Miracle on Markham.He saw the Razorbacks drive 81 yards in 25 seconds and score with nine seconds remaining to defeat LSU, 21-20, and win the SEC’s Western Division. The beauty of sitting on the top row was that we could see hundreds of fans leave when LSU kicked the field goal to go ahead 20-14. We got to watch them running through the big east parking lot in an attempt to get back into the stadium as the Hogs began their drive. We were there with both of our boys as LSU won in 2004 and 2006. We were back in 2008 as Bobby Petrino’s first Razorback team scored with 21 seconds left and shocked the defending national champions from LSU, 31-30. And we were there in 2010 as a 9-2 Arkansas team beat an LSU team that came in at 10-1, earning a berth in the Sugar Bowl.

I could write a book of War Memorial memories. But this isn’t a column just about the past. Last week’s decision by the UA raises some troubling questions about the future. I’ve heard the arguments for moving all home games to Fayetteville, despite the fact that the Little Rock tradition goes back decades and is an integral part of the Razorback football heritage. The fact remains that we live in a state of fewer than 3 million people with low per-capita income. Given the economic reality that Arkansas will never have a football program that competes for national championships year in and year out, what are you left with when you abandon your most cherished traditions?

People say, “No one else splits home games anymore.” Exactly. That’s the point. The uniqueness of it sets the Arkansas program apart, just like the Hog call and that Razorback on the helmet. What if you jettison the tradition of splitting home games between two stadiums and play them all on campus like most everyone else? What if you occasionally replace those signature red helmets with gray helmets and your red home jerseys with gray jerseys because you’ve been told that “kids are different these days?” What happens when young people no longer know how to properly call the Hogs, choosing to sound like a wounded coyote instead?

In giving up your traditions, the very things that set you apart from the Iowa States and Mississippi States of the college football world, you lose something that took decades to build and can never be captured again. It should be enough to make any Arkansan sad.

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 12/04/2013