A Boy Named Sooie

First-year athletic director Jeff Long has been busily dragging the University of Arkansas Athletic Department into the 21st century. Measures taken over the last couple of weeks signal a sea change for Razorback athletics. Gone are the days of old, when the organizational values of what is both a multimillion-dollar business and a department at our largest state-funded university descended directly from a white male septuagenarian. We now understand — or at least recognize — the cultural changes necessary to running a successful athletic department.

Frank Broyles understood progress in material terms. His vision of the Razorback athletic program was strictly brick and mortar. Say what you will about the negative aspects of his tenure, nobody can overstate his positive impact on the Hogs, from the Razorback Foundation to Donald W. Reynolds Stadium. That vision just never really included a url.

Even the most churlish among us will note that top-flight facilities were not limited to our most profitable programs. All of our athletic facilities — from softball to tennis, track to football — stand in the first class relative to other universities. If we can all call him Pawpaw, Broyles did a pretty good job of not playing favorites. [read more]