Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

MUSTAIN’S CHOICE: When we started ArkansasSports360.com, the Mitch Mustain saga was still fresh on everyone’s minds. He had transferred from the University of Arkansas earlier that spring in 2007 and surfaced at Southern Cal. At Arkansas, he had gone 8-0 as a starter before being pulled early in a Hog win at South Carolina. He wasn’t hanging around Coach Houston Nutt any longer. But at USC he would only start one game in his last three years failed to live up to his prep acclaim, which included being named Parade Magazine’s Player of the Year for 2006.

Last Monday at the Little Rock Touchdown Club, national recruiting expert Tom Lemming said that Mustain’s transfer to Southern Cal “was the biggest mistake of his life … It was a horrible decision.”

Lemming was among the recruiting gurus who built Mustain up during his prep career at Springdale and invited Mustain to the U.S. Army All-Star Game in 2006.

“I thought he could have been an NFL quarterback,” Lemming said Monday. “I thought he was a better passer than Tim Tebow,” who was also in the U.S. Army game. Lemming said he was more polished than any of the others at the game and “I put him in the same category overall as Matthew Stafford.”

Stafford, who went from Dallas’ Highland Park to Georgia and then to the NFL as a junior, is the Detroit Lions starter.

Mustain, of late, has been playing lower-level minor league baseball in the White Sox organization.

TIP-OFF CLUB STARTS: Make plans for the first Downtown Tip-Off Club meeting for Dec. 10, when Houston head basketball coach and Arkansas native James Dickey will address the club.

On Dec. 21, Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson comes to town to meet with the club. The Razorbacks play Alabama A&M the next night in Verizon Arena, the only trip to Central Arkansas for the basketball Hogs.

Arkansas women’s  basketball coach Tom Collen is scheduled for Jan. 7. Other speakers will be announced later.

The club, which is run by the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, will again honor the Arvest boys and girls player of the week at each meeting.

The three announced Tip-Off Club meetings will be at the Wyndham Riverfront in North Little Rock, with lunch at 11:15 a.m. and the program at noon. Membership is $40 and the luncheon is $15. Nonmembers may attend for $20.