Sports memories with our fathers
The Pig Sty staff discusses the intersection of sports and fatherhood
Often portrayed as too busy at work, overly demanding of their kids and spouses, and always the butt of the joke in pop culture, dads are complex characters trying their best to provide for their families and teach their kids things they wish their dads had taught them; all while still trying to figure out life for themselves.
But, hey, dads get one day of the year just to themselves (unless Father’s Day falls on Juneteenth or your local Pride parade). The holiday was created by Sonora Smart Dodd from the small coal mining town of Jenny Lind in Sebastian County, Arkansas (WooPig, Y’all).
Her mother had died giving birth to her 5th sibling, and her father had raised the kids (including the infant) on his own. She had heard about Mother’s Day being celebrated on the East Coast, so on June 19th, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, she had a celebration for fathers in honor of her Dad. She wanted it to be on her Dad’s birthday, June 5th, but a scheduling conflict at the church pushed it to the 19th. The day began being celebrated around the United States on various June dates. Then, when Richard Nixon made Father’s Day a federal holiday in 1972, he chose the 3rd Sunday of June as the official date. And here we are today.
So, we at The Pig Sty wanted to honor our dads by sharing a few stories about them and the Hogs.
What were your earliest sports-related memories with your Dad?
Kyle - This could be me sitting on the bench as a pseudo-mascot/hype man while my Dad coached my older brother’s baseball and basketball teams. Still, I think it was me sucking on the corner of a Nintendo Entertainment System controller while Dad waxed me in the video game Double Dribble while I was 2 or 3 years old.
He was good enough at the game that we would change controllers at halftime (essentially switching teams) so he could see if he could score enough points to come back from the significant lead he had developed in the first half. And the love for sports games continued as we had epic battles on Madden 64 and countless versions of EA Sports NCAA Football series. When he bought the last version of the game made (NCAA ‘14) at Best Buy, the cashier ask him if he was buying the game for his son or grandson, and Dad replied, “No, it’s for me. I’m one of the best players in the country for my age demographic.”
I also have many great memories of Dad taking me to watch up-and-coming players play. We went to the King Cotton Classic in Pine Bluff to watch Jason Kidd and Corliss Williamson play in high school. We went to Conway to watch an AAU game between McDonalds All-Americans Sheldon Williams (Duke) and Kevin Bookout (OU). And one of the best games I’ve ever seen was with him in the 2002 Arkansas State Championship basketball game between Hector and Poyen.
Poyen won the game in double overtime on a last-second three-pointer, and Hector featured Brandon Cole, who would go on to play college ball at John Brown University and set the national record for career three-pointers made and the longest streak of consecutive games making a three-pointer.
So how did he know about all of this stuff pre-internet (or at least not the way we think of it today)? He’s a power reader. For those of you who have commented about all of the random facts I spit out in these articles, Dad’s the source for me being a lifetime learner filled with curiosity. Most days, he still drives to Little Rock to go by the Holiday Inn and pick up a copy of every newspaper they subscribe to so he can read them all daily. That’s how you know about diamond in the rough 2A basketball players before the general public.
Max-I’m going to be as cliche as possible on this one. I remember playing catch with my Dad.
My brother and I can be unbearable to be around. Our wives and our mother have told us this. We will have hour-long conversations that are entirely made up of pop-culture references and inside jokes.
I’ve realized recently that probably derives from our Dad who keeps Groucho Marx jokes locked and loaded. When we would play catch, it didn’t matter how I threw it, he’d hit me with the Bugs Bunny, “That’s the old peppa!”
That kind of thing builds confidence in a way that only a Dad can. And only Billy Hoover can make you feel confident by quoting Bugs Bunny.
Ricky - I like this question because my Dad is the reason I love sports. I always tell people I came home from the hospital wearing pinstripes, as Dad was born and raised in the Bronx and was a diehard Yankees fan. He (and my Mom, can’t forget her either) trained me to name all the professional teams and their mascots from football, baseball, and basketball before I was even in Kindergarten. He coached the majority of the little leagues I was on. My earliest memory of my Dad and sports was when I was about 5, he coached me on a tee ball team called the Jets. I hadn’t quite chosen a favorite NFL team yet, but he was a Giants fan so you would think I’d have followed in his footsteps. Well, if you know me, you know the rest of the story. I chose the Jets and have lived in a deep, dark sadness ever since.
So my advice to anyone reading this: just follow what your Dad does, it’s probably the better decision!
When did you know the Razorbacks were your family’s team?
Kyle - A core memory from my childhood came when I was around 4 years old and attended my first Arkansas State Indians football game (this was before they became the Red Wolves). My whole family, including grandparents, were there to support the team since my uncle was a student trainer there.
At some point in the game I started calling the Hogs. I remember my mom and grandparents getting on to me for supporting the wrong in-state team, but after the game Dad told me it was okay and to never be ashamed of my team.
That’s when I knew I was a Hog through and through. Just like the random fan you can spot at most sporting events wearing a Texas Longhorns t-shirt, I’m here to call those Hogs: anytime, anywhere, anyplace.
Max-This is such a hard one for me to answer because I honestly cannot remember a time when the Hogs weren’t a major part of our lives. There are very few sports fanbases that feel like a birthright, but ours is one.
I do remember that my Uncle Sammy lived in Memphis for a long time when we were kids and claimed to be a Tennessee fan as a result. My Dad would talk about it like some deep betrayal. It wasn’t anger, but it was one of the stages of grief for sure. Disbelief. Denial. Something along those lines.
Later, during a successful football season, my Uncle Sammy called my Dad to talk Hog football. After my Dad got off the phone he said, “I knew my brother wasn’t a damn Tennessee fan.” Order had been restored.
It’s not something I remember or see as having a clear starting point. It just is.
Ricky - We actually didn’t move to Arkansas until I was 12 as my Dad was in the Air Force and we had been moving every 3-4 years up to that point of my life. We lived in England before we came to Arkansas and American college sports weren’t really covered well over there. I didn’t even know Arkansas had won a national championship in basketball 2 years before our arrival to the state.
But as most Razorback fans know, when you move here, you’re family. Within a year of moving to Arkansas and just getting to learn about college sports, I fell in love with the Razorbacks. My brother and I shared a Kareem Reid jersey as kids. We went to at least 1 football game at War Memorial every year until I started attending college at UCA in 2002. I am the only one in my family still in Arkansas, but “talkin’ hogs” (in my sweetest southern accent) is always a topic of conversation for our family. I love getting videos of the nephews and niece calling the hogs!
What is one of your first Razorbacks memories with your Dad?
Kyle - This is an easy one because so many things happened that have been repeated over the years at family gatherings that it has grown into a legendary tale. It’s October 1995, 5-2 Arkansas is hosting #11 Auburn in Little Rock at War Memorial stadium. For younger readers or those not from Arkansas, until 2000 the Hogs played a majority of their home games in Little Rock because the stadium there was bigger than the one they had on campus.
It’s a Saturday night game in Little Rock, which means 55,000 Hogs fans have been tailgating on the golf course surrounding the stadium all day and are fueled up with liquid courage to cheer their team to an upset victory. Our seats were around the 10 yard line and pretty close to the field. When the players lined up for the opening kickoff, Dad starts yelling at Auburn’s return man and telling him he’s going to fumble. Like Dad was using a Jedi mind trick, he willed it into existence. The Auburn player fumbled the kickoff and the Hogs had the ball first and goal!
And the Hogs never looked back for the rest of the first half taking a 27-0 lead into halftime. The game included some Razorback greats like Barry Lunney, Jr., Anthony Eubanks, Anthony Lucas, and Madre Hill (who would set the single game rushing record with 45 attempts in this game).
At some point during all of that scoring in the first half, the Razorbacks cheerleaders led the crowd in one of their classic chants where they yell, “Give me a [insert letter]” to have the crowd spell out A-R-K-A-N-S-A-S. It culminates with, “What’s that spell?” and the whole stadium is supposed to shout “Arkansas.” But on that night, my Uncle Gene was with us and was pretty hard of hearing. He jumped up about 5 seconds earlier than the rest of the fans and shouted “Razorbacks!” We still joke about it to this day.
So we were up 27-0, what could go wrong? Well it is Arkansas, so everything. Auburn came roaring back and had cut the score to 30-28. As an aside, I discovered when looking back at the box scores from this game that Auburn had actually gone for 2 to cut the score to a 2 point game because college football didn’t have overtime rules until 1996, so they wanted to be able to win with a field goal instead of ending in a tie. And they came close. They recovered an onside kick and drove the ball into field goal range, but missed the kick. Hogs win! And so did those 1995 Apex uniforms!
Max-Simple. The 1994 National Championship game. It’s the first full game of any sport I vividly remember watching, which has set me up for disappointment for the rest of my life. That disappointment was cemented when I cried like a baby when they lost in the title game in 1995. I’ve yet to have a single game live up to that experience (though that Qualls dunk vs Kentucky was pretty, pretty, pretty close.)
Obviously, I remember the joy and excitement of being the champions, but what I remember more was my Dad saying, “I bet they’ll respect you now!” when talking about Nolan Richardson. The early lesson was more than just how fun winning could be. There was an inescapable lesson in equity there.
Looking back on it, it feels silly knowing that he’s the greatest coach in program history, but even as Richardson dominated the sport, some Arkansas fans hated him. A classmate in elementary school told me his dad hated Nolan circa 1997, just a few years removed from being the winningest program in college basketball for five years. We all know why.
None of them had the gaul (or awareness, maybe) to say it outright. They’d toss out euphemisms. He doesn’t run an offense. They just play ratball. Low IQ. A team full of athletes. We all know what they meant.
My Dad did, too, and he had the stones to call it what it was: racism. Sports are fantastic and fun, but don’t ever think they can’t be a microcosm of society’s goods and ills.
The “I’ll bet they’ll respect you now!” refrain was also important because it taught me something I take with me every day in my job: hope. With the right circumstances, everyone can learn and grow. That’s powerful stuff.
Ricky - August 30th, 2001. War Memorial Stadium. Arkansas was coming off of a disappointing Las Vegas Bowl loss to UNLV. It was ugly. We are late in the 4th quarter, and the Hogs were looking at a second consecutive loss spanning two seasons to the same team. We had about 100 yards in the entire game with only 2 minutes left. Ryan Sorahan, the 4th QB to line up under center on the day, finally led a long drive capped off by a Cedric Cobbs 1-yard touchdown run to win the game with under 20 seconds left. Heart Attack Hogs. My Dad taught me to never leave a Razorback game early which has stuck to me to this day.
What’s your best memory to-date involving your Dad and Razorbacks sports?
Kyle - There are a lot of good ones to pick from here including Dad checking me out of school to watch NCAA Basketball Tournament games or huddling around an old 15” TV in my Mamaw’s kitchen watching the Hogs beat Ole Miss in 7 overtimes. But one of the funniest moments to me came in 2019 at the Catfish Hole.
Since moving back to NWA, Dad and I have tried to make it to one coaches show at the Catfish Hole each season. A portion of the one-hour-long, live radio show allows fans from the crowd to ask the coach a question. Most people offer pleasantries or throw up softball questions, not Dad. Coming off a 31-24 loss to San Jose State, Dad asked then head coach Chad Morris why he had gone for a 4th and 1 early in the game instead of kicking a field goal, because “you should always take the points.”
Morris was caught off guard by the question but mustered a coach-speak answer to move on to the next question. This was just another great example of Dad teaching me never to be afraid to ask.
Max-Again, it’s hard to top that first one, but another one that’s pretty good comes to mind. Razorback fans of my Dad’s generation grew up hating Texas. I had never gotten to appreciate that rivalry until the 2000 Cotton Bowl.
At that point, Arkansas hadn’t played Texas in football since I was five. I had no real point of reference for this fury that lived in my Dad soul—that guttural hatred rivalries foster.
He talked about how excited he was for the game for weeks leading up to it, and Houston Nutt, Cedric Cobbs, and the Hogs delivered.
Ricky - In person memories other than going to War Memorial as a kid with Dad and watching the hogs were few and far between as, even though we went to the same games, I was usually in the student section. My favorite memories with my Dad are just being able to talk and text with him during games. It’s usually my job to remind him what time the Hogs play at any given time since he’s in California and 2 hours behind. I can’t remember the last time (basketball or football at least) that we didn’t communicate during a game. I love that connection and will cherish it as long as I have it!
Is there anything you’ve already shared with your kids or plan to share with them about the Hogs?
Kyle - Now that I have kids I get to defend the dad stereotypes and can definitively say “It’s not a dad bod, it’s a father figure.” But I do find myself more and more saying things to my kids that sound exactly like things Dad would say to me growing up. It’s funny how that works.
So I too taught my kids the Hog Call and the words the Razorbacks fight song at an early age. And they have gotten good exposure early on of the ups and downs of the life of a Hogs fan. My oldest daughter’s first game in Fayetteville was actually in 2015 when Texas Tech, a team the Hogs had dominated the year before in Lubbock, came to town with a new up-and-coming quarterback named Patrick Mahomes.
We can’t win them all, but we can create lasting memories along the way.
Max-Well, she’s three months old, so not a ton, though we have already read the Basketball and Knicks Legends alphabet books. When the time comes, I hope to impart a few things. Again, being a Hog is part and parcel of who her father is, so she won’t be able to escape it.
When I think back on all the feelings that come with being a Hog fan, feelings I’ve already mentioned, I’m hoping to impart the sense of hope that the 1994 Championship brought me. That thought that we’ve done this before and can do it again. The belief that if people are given a shot, they can and will deliver.
Ricky - When kids arrive on the scene, they will be hog fans for sure! I hope to keep the same energy as my Dad and just be around to talk all things hog! Can’t wait to share my memories and the fun (and heartbreak) I had watching them as a youngster.
To all those dads out there, you’re doing great. Keep it up! Make sure your kids know if they don’t shut the door they’ll be trying to cool the whole neighborhood, not to spend all of their money in one place, that you had to walk to school in 8’ of snow, uphill, both ways, and to never be ashamed to Call Those Hogs!