Sometimes it’s orchestrated with the aid of the University of Arkansas pep squad. But the simple cheer is at its most magical when erupting spontaneously from within the stands.
The first shout might begin as a percolation with no more than a half dozen or so of the faithful: “ARK-AN-SAS.”
This humble launch might not elicit the desired response from the other side of stadium. No matter.
Those three syllables have unleashed powerful forces that go beyond the boundaries of mere sports. Raw emotions are tapped, melding love of state with an evocative sense of place.
Ears are now piqued, and pockets of support join in as momentum builds with each successive “ARK-AN-SAS.”
Eventually, a reply comes from across the football field. “RA-ZOR-BACKS.” The response, perhaps even feeble at first, inspires the first group to redouble its efforts. A circuit of psyches is complete and the fervor intensifies with each back and forth volley.
“ARK-AN-SAS.” “RA-ZOR-BACKS.”
The euphoric din unites country clubbers with country dwellers, big-money donors with low-rent bubbas, whiskey swiggers with teetotalers. All the state’s geographic regions are represented: the Ozarks, the Ouachitas, the Piney Woods, the Delta, the Grand Prairie and Crowley’s Ridge.
The sea of red and white has become energized as scores of voices grow to hundreds, then thousands and finally tens of thousands. The two-word cheer has transformed into a thunderous, heart-pounding, adrenaline-charged battle cry.
“ARK-AN-SAS!” “RA-ZOR-BACKS!”
The waves roar to and fro as the decibel-drenched words wash over the crowd, louder and louder still.
The oft-repeated scene transcends the event itself, really. The game serves as a rallying point where Arkansans by birth and choice can get together at a mutually agreed upon time and place for quality bonding.
State pride and cultural identity have become entangled in the image of the Arkansas Razorbacks. If sonic energy were a viable means of propulsion, pigs indeed could fly.
The symbol of the UA’s flagship sports program has become an enduring Arkansas icon. In a world of top 10 charts, some would argue it holds the No. 1 spot in the state.
“The Razorbacks are the most recognizable icon in Arkansas,” said Jim Bailey, Arkansas sports writer extraordinaire.
The marriage between the state and collegiate mascot is linked historically with the football program in Fayette-ville. The story of how the two came to wed began nearly a century ago.
The mists of time and absence of early chroniclers have cast parts of the saga in fuzzy hues of mythic daring do. A synthesized version of the epic revolves around a man, a game and a season.
Bohemian Style
Contributing to the Arkansas Razorbacks tale is a roster of thousands, many from outside the state. Some came and went after only a few short years, and a few of these creative transients occasionally played key roles in helping establish the Razorback icon.
One of these is Hugo Bezdek, a literal Bohemian who immigrated to America as a 5-year-old from what is today the Czech Republic.
Bezdek, a talented 24-year-old student and former player of the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago, was hired as the head football coach at the University of Arkansas in 1908.
But he actually functioned as an athletic director while also coaching baseball and trying to develop a track program. Bezdek showed the way in many respects.
Bezdek is remembered as starting the first marketing program for UA sports when he had schedule cards printed and distributed in places such as Fort Smith, Springdale and Rogers.
Bezdek understood publicity and the importance of building support and fan base. The added motivation of personal reward didn’t hurt either.
In those days, the coach’s salary came from the gate receipts, backed by a minimum guarantee of the students.
Introducing marketing precepts would’ve been enough to make the savvy, charismatic Bezdek memorable. Adding the all-important ingredient of success elevated his stature even higher.
On top of all that, Bezdek was a leading protagonist who helped tie Arkansas with Razorbacks. That required ditching the original team name: Cardinals.
How was a perky songbird known to some as a red-crested finch supplanted by a vicious, fleet-hooved, tusk-toting swine with an ornery disposition?
The earliest starting point for the mascot coup occurred during the Bezdek era, but exactly when and where is debatable.
Phil Huntley, a country boy from south Arkansas who played center on the 1908-1911 football teams and who was a graduate aide in 1912, offered a telling anecdote.
The place was the Dallas train station during a road trip in an unspecified year. When the players got off the train to stretch their legs, some mouthy Texan observed derisively, “Here come the hogs.”
The crack was taken as a slap against Arkansas. But for Bezdek, it was a moment of inspiration.
“Bezdek stopped and thought a minute,” Huntley recounted in “The Razorbacks: A Story of Arkansas Football.”
“He said, ‘Hmmm, boys, I like that. We’re the Razorbacks from now on.’
“I’ve heard and read a lot of ways it was supposed to have come about, but that’s how it really was. It took a year or two for it to catch on with everybody, but it started right there.”
Bezdek publicly proclaimed to the students that the Arkansas team “played like a band of wild razorbacks” in a 16-0 victory over Louisiana State University in Memphis on Nov. 13, 1909.
Whatever the point of origination, newspapers picked up on the catchy name and began using “Razorbacks” as the team name — no doubt with Bezdek’s encouragement.
When did Cardinals officially give way to Razorbacks? Again, tough to say for certain.
One report has the student body voting to make the change in 1910, but the UA yearbook didn’t change from the Cardinal to the Razorback until 1916.
The emblem of a wild hog posed in a hoof-flying charge first emerged as a symbol of the team about that time. The time-honored image was followed in the early 1920s by another mainstay: the famous “Whoooo Pig! Sooie!” cheer, now universally known as “Calling the Hogs.”
Perhaps the Razorbacks name clicked with Bezdek because of the play of his historic 1909 team, which went 7-0 in the days before national championships. Images of the team as ravenous, wild boars trampling over the opposition were fitting and reflected his coaching philosophy.
Bezdek pushed his team to move faster and faster when on offense. The tempo could be called a no-huddle offense except in those days there was no huddle, period. Or helmets, for that matter.
Star quarterback Steve Creekmore of Van Buren rapidly called a play, the offense executed it and quickly lined up and repeated the process down the field as far they could.
It was a furious method of moving the football built on the team’s strength’s of speed and stamina.
The fast-paced, run-your-opponent-into-the-ground style of play on the gridiron foreshadowed a hard-court version that 80 years later would manifest as “40 minutes of Hell” or “Hawgball” under Razorbacks Basketball Coach Nolan Richardson.
Bezdek set the stage for making the Razorbacks a statewide phenomenon. It would take more than 40 years of up-and-down toil by hundreds of players, coaches and boosters to reach the next milestone.
State Pride
The 1954 Ole Miss game in Little Rock is remembered as the first true sell-out of a Razorbacks game. The official tally at the Oct. 23 event was measured at 38,000 and marked the first of many sellouts to come at the team’s second home.
The hard-fought game entered Razorbacks lore as Arkansas emerged with a 6-0 victory. Both teams were undefeated, and Mississippi had the leading offense in the nation.
The game that came to symbolize statewide affinity for the Razorbacks came down to a single play, a sweep left with the half-back passing to a blocking back. The play was unleashed late in the fourth quarter with the ball on Arkansas’ 34-yard line on third and six. The pass from Buddy Bob Benson of De Queen traveled 33 yards in the air to a wide-open Preston Carpenter who ran untouched 33 yards to the end zone.
Contributing to the aura of the game was the 1954 Razorbacks team itself, coached by Bowden Wyatt of Kingston, Tenn. The undersized squad came to be known as the 25 Little Pigs, although debate remains over the exact number.
The overachieving group went 7-0 and was ranked as high as No. 4 in the polls before losing 21-14 in a Fayetteville game with Southern Methodist University.
The team slid to an 8-3 finish, but the spirited group ended with a Razorbacks first: a top-10 ranking in both major polls, No. 8 in United Press International and No. 10 in Associated Press.
Lack of face masks notwithstanding, the team is remembered as the first “modern” Razorbacks team. But for all of their memorable qualities, those hearty boys didn’t produce the season that cemented the Arkansas love affair with the Razorbacks.
But in the estimation of many, they captured the imagination of a state unlike any other team prior. And they helped transform War Memorial Stadium into a rabid cauldron of home-field advantage.
After 1954, it was time to start expanding stadiums in Fayetteville and Little Rock to meet the new demand for seats. The Ole Miss game that year was the starting point for a string of Little Rock sell-outs. Reserve seating sell-outs in Little Rock by June would become the norm.
Fayetteville may be the physical home of the Razorbacks. However, the rowdy Little Rock crowds now gained a reputation for sheer enthusiasm that on a game-for-game average was second to none.
The UA first started playing football games in Little Rock in 1901. Games were scheduled sporadically at first, eventually becoming once-a-season affairs.
That grew to two games after World War II, and three games became the norm after 1954. The stage was set for the political tug-of-war over ownership of the Razorbacks.
Geographically isolated in Fayetteville, the university was forced to share the Razorbacks for a number of reasons.
Opposing teams balked at the more cumbersome travel logistics required in reaching Fayetteville. Scheduling Arkansas home games in alternate years in Little Rock, with its easier access, helped ease that.
Political purse strings at the State Capitol also tugged on the university to keep the Razorbacks coming to Little Rock. The capital city, located near the center of the state and with a better road network, attracted a broader cross-section of Arkansans, too.
Times changed many of those variables, leading to the controversial shift of games back to the Fayetteville campus.
The Razorbacks needed Little Rock 50 years ago, and the zealous War Memorial fans delivered in the form of ticket sales and support. Little Rock provided the gathering spot for building statewide Razorbacks prominence.
During the intervening decades, northwest Arkansas demographics and affluence grew along with improved transportation venues. Economics simply lessened the allure of Little Rock.
In effect, the Razorbacks were ditching a longtime, ardent love who helped them ride to the top. Thanks for the memories. See you later.
Given the high emotions of the whole situation, it’s a wonder someone didn’t get killed. Relationships were certainly strained.
If only Little Rock had stepped up with that land grant needed to establish the university all those years ago. A fanciful thought, but it’s difficult to imagine the campus anywhere else but Fayetteville.
Jilted love syndrome aside, most everyone loves a winner. The 1964 football season brought Arkansas and its Razorbacks into the promised land.
The team hadn’t seen an undefeated season since Bezdek’s 1909 showing. The absence of polls in those early days prevented national validation of undeniable success.
That unsatisfying scenario was washed away in the sweet taste of an 11-0 season that was authenticated as National Championship. Leading the team on the sidelines was some guy from Georgia. What was his name? Oh, yes: Broyles. Frank Broyles.
It was the season that first saw the white running razorback logo stamped on the side of the team’s helmets and forever sealed the Razorbacks as state icon.
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