Glory years with Broyles unforgettable
Back when John Unitas and Bart Starr quarterbacked professional teams, college football still played an important part of an Arkansas sports Sunday in the fall.
About 4:30 p.m., viewers statewide would switch to the local channel carrying “The Frank Broyles Show,” a recap of the previous day’s Razorback game with commentary from the University of Arkansas head coach. Some prominent boosters saw revenue from the coach’s show as a means of keeping Broyles, decades before the coach received $4 million base pay.
Think back to the 1960s, when Little Rock had two daily newspapers and three TV stations. Arkansas license plates were coded according to a county’s population. Lots of cars in Glenwood had plates starting in 63, designating Pike County. Before Winthrop Rockefeller pumped life (and money) into the state Republican party, anyone winning the Democratic primary had a virtual free pass in the November general election.
And Razorback football was, to borrow a gasoline company’s slogan from that time, the hottest brand going.
The hapless Otis Douglas, under whom the Razorbacks launched the 1950s, vowed to “beat all those Texas teams,” or words to that effect. He could not, leaving after three years. Bowden Wyatt stayed two years and Jack Mitchell for three. Wyatt departed for Tennessee, infamously in a Cadillac purchased by Arkansas boosters, after a surprise Southwest Conference championship in 1954. Arkansas then was seen as a place to make a reputation before going on to something better (something like Memphis and Tulsa today).
Frank Broyles was different. Arkansas, he maintained until his last days, was the job he always wanted after entering the Southwest Conference assistant as a Baylor assistant. John Barnhill, then Arkansas’ athletic director, passed over Broyles for the Razorbacks’ top job three times until, at Missouri in 1957, Broyles gained head-coaching experience.
Broyles could see the possibilities of an entire state united behind one team. It started with football, then and now an athletic department’s leading revenue source. Yet, Broyles vowed to deliver Arkansas an all-sports program that would take on the nation’s best teams — be it in basketball, baseball, track and field, whatever — without fear. It took time, and some feathers were ruffled, but Broyles kept his promise.
The pride Arkansas people felt in the mid-1960s cannot be described. Starting with a Fayetteville game against Texas Tech on Nov. 23, 1963, one of the few sporting events that went on in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Razorbacks reeled off a program-record
22 consecutive victories. By
14-13, 27-24 and 12-7 (the first and third games on foreign soil), Arkansas won three in a row (1964-66) against Texas, the Longhorns coming off one peak period under Darrell Royal and soon to begin another.
Arkansans burst with joy when (1) with help of friends in the media, the 1964 Razorbacks, 11-0 after a Cotton Bowl conquest of Nebraska, received the Grantland Rice Trophy as the best team in college football; (2) the week after beating Texas in 1965, the Razorbacks topped the Associated Press rankings for the only time in program history and (3) running back Harry Jones graced the cover of Sports Illustrated during a second consecutive
10-0 regular season for the Hogs.
Long before every game was televised, Arkansans huddled around radios to hear Bob Cheyne or Bud Campbell on Razorback affiliates. Someone driving through Texas could tune in to Kern Tips on the
Southwest Conference radio network, sponsored by Humble Oil & Refining. Arkansas fans helped fill stadiums in Austin, College Station, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Lubbock and Waco. They especially enjoyed driving to Dallas on or about New Year’s Day for a Cotton Bowl hosted by the SWC champion Razorbacks.
Though many of the key plays from those games (not to mention the final scores) have faded into memory, some vignettes remain. Not sure if I still have a styrofoam cup that bore the signature of Jon Brittenum, that “quarterbackin’ man” from Brinkley, and who cares if a forger was involved. Shaking hands with Frank Broyles on the floor of Rice Stadium in Houston, another time at old Barnhill Fieldhouse in Fayetteville, provided a special thrill.
And then there was the “Frank Broyles Show” on Sunday afternoons in the fall, a Mexican restaurant in Little Rock sponsoring a segment that someone opened a menu and jotted down the previous day’s score. In hindsight Arkansas never lost a game.