Hogs’ brand overshadows state rivals
In good times or bad, most Arkansas sports fans march behind a flag bearing the image of a Razorback running free. Whether it should be salivating or not is open to debate.
In better times, real-life Razorbacks, representing the University of Arkansas, run for touchdowns on fall Saturdays. By studying the landscape, reading newspaper headlines or listening to talk shows, any latter-day Dickens might determine these are not the best of times in Razorback Nation.
Holding that train of thought, some would like to portray this battle for the state’s sports psyche as a tale of two cities, Fayetteville and Jonesboro. Trouble is, Arkansas State University can’t scream loudly enough to drown out what it perceives as static.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state newspaper and published in Little Rock and Lowell (a northwest edition available in selected areas), crammed its Wednesday edition with Razorback stuff. Football beat writer Tom Murphy’s story about Bobby Petrino’s impending UA return, 11 years after the head football coach left the state in disgrace, went out front, Page 1A. So unexpected was that item that it was not overplayed, not even on Page 2A in The Sentinel-Record.
In Section C, for sports, Murphy reported on UA’s plans to enhance its NIL (name, image and likeness) program by adopting a national brand. Meanwhile, basketball beat writer Bob Holt previewed the Arkansas-Duke game Wednesday night, the biggest at Walton Arena in many a season, and for which sports editor Wally Hall devoted a column.
In that weren’t enough, political writer John Brummett penned a piece about how the NIL program might work. Under the Brummett plan, the Legislature would appropriate “tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars” from the state surplus into a special fund that would benefit Razorback recruits, whether out of high school or from the transfer portal.
Four-star and five-star recruits would be sought as “spokespersons and otherwise endorsers of, say, UAMS, parks and tourism, for the state lottery or a hotline for poor people to call and restore their Medicaid coverage.” Quarterback KJ Jefferson, a Job-like figure in the just-completed 4-8 season, might be used to pitch the latter program. Brummett imagined this conversation: “Tell them KJ sent you. And, trust me, KJ knows from playing behind that offensive line that medical care is important.”
Call it black comedy, if you wish, but would this not benefit the state more than an office lectern costing $19.000, one imprint of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ first year in the governor’s office?
Anything goes in a state where a one-term governor lobbied long and hard for a creation-science bill, making one wonder if Darwin were not overrated and that man had not evolved past the monkey stage.
I can hear someone screaming now about where Arkansas State fits in this discussion. Good question. This moratorium on the Razorbacks is taking place during a football season that Arkansas State, at 6-6, qualified for a bowl game. Red Wolf fans became overwrought when the team’s football stories appeared on Page 11 of a 12-page Sunday sports section. Their placement has improved, one is happy to report.
Arkansas State, it says here, is worthy of your
support. Krishnan Collins, Sentinel-Record sports editor twice removed, got his training there as did former colleagues Jeremy Muck and Greg Harton — and one Ellen Grace Monica Lampkins. On top of a degree from Harding University, my late wife earned a master’s degree and teaching certificate at ASU; before that, she was a Jonesboro High classmate of future Razorback star Scott Bull.
In her memory, I endowed a scholarship for any incoming ASU student with an education major. The same program is in place at Harding for prospective journalists.
For the record, I have not attended a Razorback football or basketball game since 2019 and no longer contribute to the Razorback Foundation. That said, I consider myself qualified to write about the Razorbacks as one who attended hundreds of games as a fan or journalist. Let no one doubt my ability to rap UA’s knuckles, which on occasion is merited.
Like it or not, the Razorbacks are what Brummett says they are, “the dominant cultural influence of my time and place.” That is not likely to change in whatever times that follow. Arkansas State fans should get over it, heeding the advice of Edward G. Robinson to Steve McQueen in “The Cincinnati Kid” after winning a marathon poker game: “You’re good, kid, but as long as I’m around you’re second best; you might as well learn to live with it.”