If Mrs. Janet Benson had any idea about Arkadelphia before moving to the city, it was this: "You came to Arkadelphia to get an education."

After her husband, Coach Buddy Benson, signed on at Ouachita as an assistant football coach in 1961, Mrs. Benson enrolled at the university. She graduated in 1964 with an education degree, becoming a junior high science teacher in the Arkadelphia Public School District. By the time of her retirement in 1998, Mrs. Benson had added a master's degree and shifted from science to history, teaching K-12 and collegiate courses at Arkadelphia, Henderson State University and Ouachita. In 1989, the Daughters of the American Revolution named her the Outstanding Teacher of American History for Arkansas.

"It was a perfect fit for me," Mrs. Benson said. "I love my students, and when you love your students, teaching is fun."

Along the way, she raised two children, Ouachita graduates Gary Benson and Laurie Jordan. Jordan followed in Mrs. Benson's footsteps, embarking on a 45-year teaching career. Gary Benson went on to play for his dad, who became Ouachita's head football coach in 1965. Even when their son wasn't on the team, the Bensons saw the Tigers as family.

"They were not my biological children, but they were our children," Mrs. Benson said of Coach Benson's players. "My job was to be a caregiver; somebody that would lend a sympathetic ear but hold firm."

Coach Benson once interviewed with the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles and earned an offer as a regional scout. Mrs. Benson remembered him walking in one afternoon shortly after the team had delivered his tickets for departure.

"I'm not going," Coach Benson said.

"What changed your mind?" Mrs. Benson asked.

"Why do I want to spend my time going around the region when I can stay right here and watch my own son?" Coach Benson replied. "And besides, we're happy here."

"I'd always loved him, but he became a giant of a man for me that day," Mrs. Benson said of her husband. "We didn't know it when we moved here, but this was our home. This was our happy place. And because it became our home, we have a great legacy."

That legacy is felt on Kluck-Benson Field, named after Coach Benson and one of Mrs. Benson's Arkadelphia students, Dr. Wesley Kluck. In the press box, two more former students, Rex Nelson and Dr. Jeff Root, continue their broadcasting partnership dating back more than four decades on the Ouachita Football Network. On the sideline, one of the players that Mrs. Benson used to look after, Tiger head coach Todd Knight, builds upon a foundation that Coach Benson laid.

"If we had moved around and gone place to place, I would have missed out on all these wonderful relationships that have enriched my life," Mrs. Benson said. "It doesn't matter if you're 25 or if you're going on 90 — relationships, stability, love. All those are stable things that any life needs, and we found ours here."