Reality Football Canceled

Typically, I was sleeping at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 11, while the rest of mankind was learning that Bobby Petrino had been named - more than named, he was lassoed and tied down with a $2.85 million-per-year contract - head football coach at the University of Arkansas. Good for them.

I found out the next morning while listening to KUAR-FM, 89.1, probably the furthest radio from sports talk. It was a fanfare-free announcement made by local voice Tracy Allen, a brief item sandwiched between news about the Arkansas attorney general's payday lender settlement and the weather report. I'll admit to a little mental double-take. Just like that? Ten informative seconds? After the way KATV, Channel 7, interrupted prime-time programming Dec. 5 to announce that a previous candidate was really, really close to signing, I half expected sonorous NPR news duo Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne to be displaced for a press conference replay.

Of course, my next thought: What about "Arkansas' Next Top Football Coach"?

(I originally pitched this idea on Dec. 6 at ArkansasSports360.com in the "He Said What" column, though I think it should be titled "SHE Said What.")

***

The University of Arkansas can't seem to catch a coach. KATV, Channel 7, interrupted "Private Practice" last night (!!) to tell me a candidate was this-close to signing. A scrolling message at the bottom of the screen wasn't enough; viewers needed Live Details From An Actual Newscaster!

Wait, he's not coming? Houston Nutt's resignation has sent the University of Arkansas football program tripping down a path of false starts. It's a courtship dance gone wrong, every time. Watch, rinse, repeat.

And this search for a new head football coach has even me concerned - and I'm someone who experiences the sports world mostly secondhand though overheard water-cooler debates and the occasional sports roundup on the nightly news.

Is this process normal? Sports has always been a secret language of last names and acronyms and game rule interpretation so thick as to be impenetrable - indoctrination is beyond me at this point, I fear, though I was oddly swept up in the triple-overtime Arkansas-LSU game the day after Thanksgiving. So forgive me here, but do other schools face the swirl of media speculation and false hope and rumor about candidate after candidate?