There’s a reason why the University of Arkansas will take the rest of the year to find a replacement for Coach Frank Broyles as athletic director.
Chancellor John White’s first choice fell through. I turned him down. Yep. Frank announced Friday, and by Sunday I let Johnny know.
It was an easy decision for me. The big ones always are.
You’re probably asking, why Ben Pollock to run the Razorbacks? The main reason is that I’m an idiot, but in a reverse-savant sense. That is, I know nothing about and have no gift for athletics.
“Savant sense” is funny, huh.
The goods on me are that I’m a born Razorback. Conceived and delivered in Fort Smith, with parents, grandparents and several great-grandparents also native Arkansans, Ich bin ein Razorbacker.
I played football in the back yard with neighbors Dana Daniel and Lance Daniel, recruiting fellow grade-school kids who lived a few streets up sometimes. I was terrible. Although I had the best driveway basketball set-up, with Dana, Keith Mason and Kevin Dawes I regularly lost at h-o-r-s-e. Tennis, same. Swimming, good endurance but boy was I slowww.
I wasn’t allowed to go “up the hill” to Razorback games. My sister would babysit me while Mom and Dad drove up old 71 on some Saturdays.
I watched on TV, though. In 1970, Stanford came to Little Rock, and I watched the game on ABC. I was hooked. I realized I had to work hard in school band, and if accepted after Southside I had to join the — Stanford Band. Yes, Palo Alto for four years. I lived for halftime, pregame and our famous postgame rallies. The football-playing quarters were when some musicians drank beer and others got out their books and studied. My pals and I efficiently did both.
Yet, I am a UA graduate. Earned a master’s in Fayetteville in 2003. In 1998, I attended a UA basketball game.
As athletic director, no one could be more impartial among all of the conference sports as well as the gendered teams (all 26 of them) than me. I know coaches are overpaid so I’d have no trouble firing them when a wealthy booster told me it was a good idea. Those guys always land on their feet, anyway.
Plus, Johnny knew I’d be a good boss to him, and that similarly I would let the governor run the state as he saw fit, too. As Frank designed it, the UA athletic director is the ranking official for the entire state, in and out of sports.
But I couldn’t accept the job. I wear size 6 shoes. I’d need to put on five or six pairs of tube socks to fill Georgian Broyle’s sneakers. As an Arkie, I’d rather go barefoot. -30-
