COLUMN: Arkansas: Say it right, everybody

People who tear up at the mention of Woody Hayes, Archie Griffin or Brian Baschnagel need only spell out the first name of their favorite team to communicate.

Razorback fans learned this at the Sugar Bowl after the 2010 football season. Wherever one went in New Orleans, a cry could be heard in the air.

“O-H,” said one group. “I-O,” said another.

The football team that plays its home games in Ohio Stadium in the state capital, Columbus, is that recognizable nationally. The Buckeyes wear scarlet and gray uniforms with helmets covered in buckeye stickers to recognize outstanding plays. You’ll need fingers on both hands to count Ohio State’s six Heisman Trophy winners and seven presentations, listing Griffin twice.

Hayes, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer come to mind as national championship-winning coaches at Ohio State. Although Jack Nicklaus played another sport, at which he won a record 18 major championships, the native Ohioan and former Buckeye student once was asked to “dot the I” as the school’s marching band completed the classic “Script Ohio” formation in a pregame ceremony at Ohio Stadium.

You’d think four references to Ohio in one paragraph would hammer home that we’re not talking about Michigan, the Buckeyes’ ancient rival and which the Scarlet and Gray plays on Thanksgiving Saturday, much less Vermont.

This is said because Arkansas doesn’t stick in the memory so well these days. Not how it’s

spelled, but pronounced.

In recent days, an ex-Razorback football player, Dre Greenlaw, and an ESPN announcer, Ohio State alum and former quarterback Kirk Herbstreit, called it Ar-kansas. People back home who might not know their congressman’s name felt really insulted.

I did not hear Herbstreit’s reference and can only imagine that he mentioned Arkansas on a program about college football, his metier (to borrow Jack Nicholson’s line playing a private detective in “Chinatown”), because unbeaten LSU played Arkansas last week.

I doubt that Herbie brought up the ongoing Arkansas coaching search or anything else about a 2-9 football team that last won a Southeastern Conference game in 2017.

Air time on ESPN is too precious for any discussion of who’s in line to replace Chad Morris in Fayetteville (that’s for the SEC Network, a frequent provider of Razorback games these days).

Greenlaw, a Fayetteville native, should know better. A linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers, Greenlaw blundered verbally during the ingame introductions for his team and the opposing Green Bay Packers in NBC’s featured Sunday-night slot. It became an instant classic of sorts on YouTube.com.

Arkansas people rose up in arms once when Les Miles, then coaching at LSU, called it “Ar-kansas” before a game against the Razorbacks. Perceptions change, and I’m guessing that some would not be averse to hiring Miles, now at Kansas (working for a fired Razorback athletic director, Jeff Long), if, say, Lane Kiffin or Mike Leach is not interested in the UA opening.

Arkansas people can be unusually sensitive, and greatly unpredictable, to which the 1968 presidential election is referred. A Fulbright-Rockefeller-Wallace trifecta, which carried the day in Arkansas, still blows the mind. Also that a state producing a two-time Democratic president of the United States has gone Republican in such a big way.

These comments are made after a Razorback basketball victory that sent fans into ecstasy. Does anyone remember a bigger Arkansas basket in November than that launched by Mason Jones in overtime Monday night against Georgia Tech? I can imagine youngsters across the state practicing bank shots with the shot clock running down, Jones making one that rescued Arkansas from a two-point defeat to a 62-61 victory and made the Razorbacks 6-0 under first-year coach Eric Musselman.

Basketball is big again in Fayetteville — wait until baseball, when Dave Van Horn’s Razorbacks pack Baum-Walker Stadium — because football is at such a low ebb on campus.

A loss to Missouri, in Friday’s season finale, would make Arkansas 2-10 for the second year in a row after playing since 1894 without a 10-loss season. Although on an interim basis, Barry Lunney Jr., a Fort Smith native and former Razorback player, is the program’s fifth coach in a decade that began with consecutive 10-win seasons under Bobby Petrino.

With his instate ties, I feel certain that Barry can pronounce Arkansas correctly, accenting the first syllable. That may not help beat Alabama (or even Missouri) but it’s a step toward the Hogs regaining credibility in a sport they have crashed since Petrino’s motorcycle ran off the road one April Fool’s Day.