i think this is the beginning of a beautiful rivalry

I for one, live for rivalries. I can smell one from a mile away. I love the calendar revolving around one date circled with a big, hideous red pen. Although poisoning trees is a tad insane, I have always longed for a rivalry of that magnitude and being an Arkansas fan has under-delivered.

I do know a rivalry when I see one and Saturday afternoon even from the nosebleed section of Bud Walton Arena, I could smell one a' brewin.

Columbia, Mo., is only five hours from Fayetteville. That is three hours closer to Fayetteville than the second-closest Southeastern Conference school. Arkansas employs a basketball coach who was stolen away from the Tigers. Missouri has a lot to prove in this conference in every sport, including basketball in which we expected a much more impressive debut season than we have seen from them. This has all the makings of a real rivalry.

Think about it, Missouri doesn’t have an SEC rival yet, and Arkansas never really did if you ask LSU fans. So this could work, right? Missouri is the new permanent Eastern division rival for the Hogs in football, replacing South Carolina, meaning Arkansas will play Missouri every year in football despite being in different divisions.

If this is in fact the beginning of a beautiful rivalry, it is off to a great start. The thrilling 78-76 Arkansas win Saturday was enough to get anyone’s blood pumping. But it also got me thinking: was it close because it was somehow already a rivalry in our minds? Or is it now a rivalry in our minds because it was close? That remains to be seen.

The atmosphere felt rivalry-like all day. There were a lot (a lot) of Missouri fans in town if you didn’t notice. They were loud and obnoxious and I hated them but I loved that they were there. Even though “good ole Bud Walton” is a myth in my mind, a story my parents tell that I hardly believe anymore, I think I saw a glimpse of it Saturday.

The Missouri fans were nice on Dickson though and they said they would definitely be back. I believe them, you know. They will be back, and Arkansas fans will be going up there too. It’s a five hour drive and the destination is a land where you are almost implored to obnoxiously love your university to the point of well, tree poisoning. Visiting fans is a huge part of rivalry and the fact that it will be accessible to Arkansas students and fans is huge.

I have my complaints about Missouri as an SEC school — for example, their students have some fashion issues that need to be addressed and I can only pray they get that taken care of by the time we play them in football. But on the whole, this is going to be great for these two universities. The two schools have an inter-mingled history of recruiting battles (most recently, Dorial Green-Beckham) and coaching switches (Frank Broyles, Mike Anderson) that is the perfect foundation on which to build a rivalry.

I for one am very excited to start hating Missouri with a unique kind of hatred. Please join me; it should be fun.

The Catholic Southerners’ Guide to Tonight

I felt lost as the pieces started slowly falling into place to make me realize the decision I would have to make on January 7. Of course it does not even kind of matter who I root for, but this has been a dilemma for me. Choosing between faith and football seemed a daunting task, until I realized there was plenty of each on both sides of the ball.

My mom grew up in the north, a Catholic Yankee through and through. Rooting for Notre Dame was a given—it was rooting for God, almost literally. And root for them I did, at times almost with as much passion as I rooted for my beloved Razorbacks. I remember crying the day of the Bush Push—only time I have ever cried over a non-Razorback football game. (No matter who wins, I’ll probably cry tonight—take southern pride and catholic pride and mix it all up and I’m gonna cry yall, no way around that.)

For as long as I can remember, Notre Dame was my dream school. Catholicism, football, high academic standards—utopia. I got wait-listed when I was a senior in high school, and if you think I’m over it, well then you don’t know me all that well.

One of my dear friends (who has become quite a good little college football fan herself) is a student at Notre Dame. I spent my freshman year of college at a Jesuit school in Chicago and went to visit her in South Bend one game weekend. I had been to Notre Dame twice before but never for a game—and although my love of southern football is deep, this was something else. It is the only weekend of my life that leads me to believe that Northerners are not terrible at being college football fans. Seeing that Dome and Touchdown Jesus and watching my faith and my football combine was moving to say the least. There is something special going on there—as there was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

I am writing this on campus at the University of Florida, where my sister is a student. The game is being played five and half hours away from me. I woke up today telling my sister we should just get in the car and go. Not because I am an Alabama fan or a Notre Dame fan or even an SEC fan, but because I am a fan of sport and more than that, a fan of passion.

This is as grandiose as it gets: the two programs that represent the two strains of college football in their most perfect form. The experience of both programs is enough to take your breath away. Being an Alabama fan or a Notre Dame fan is not something to be taken lightly. It is life; it is a religion all its own. A religion with gods like Lou Holtz and Bear Bryant, with prayers like “roll tide” and rituals like midnight drum circles. In the church of football these two programs are saints, doctors of the church really—they do it absolutely right: robed in tradition, immersed in greatness, and ever-entangled with success.

Every single young man who steps on the field at Sun Life Stadium tonight will have been to Mass today, based on tradition for Notre Dame and based on Saban’s own team rule for Alabama. The Church and college football are not as different as they may seem. A sense of mystery and even mysticism, pageantry that you either love or hate, deep tradition, great passion, high holy days, saints and sinners—it’s all there.

I’m rooting for Alabama tonight. But no matter what you think of Notre Dame, having them “back” at least temporarily is good for college football. The SEC is where my heart is—I truly want to devote my career to living and working in this conference, but college football is special to more than just our pocket of the country. It is nice to see that, I think. Plus, I hope Notre Dame fans in Miami are showing the Bama fans that southern college football fans are not the only people good at drinking; Catholics know a thing or two about that too.

So to my fellow Southern Catholics, it’s one of our religions versus the other tonight. But do rest assured, both head coaches are devout Catholics, and every young man on that field has been to Mass today. At least that’s how I’m justifying my decision. No matter who that beautiful crystal trophy goes home with tonight, passion and college football will win. And that is a victory in which we can all rejoice.

God bless, and roll tide.

Bret Bielema. After a Whole Week of Reflection.

What I’m about to spend way too many words telling you is that this is a great hire. Not necessarily for Arkansas but for the SEC. The Big Ten has actually never been slapped in the face this hard; and they’ve been thrown around quite a bit these last few years.  

The crushing reality that those of us born and raised in the best state in the country do not realize is that, well, no one else thinks that. Now I’m not trying to go all Clay Travis on you, but we must understand how other people perceive us in order to understand why this is such an incredible hire. People think that Arkansas is a miserable and desolate place very much in tune with the way Bush Sr. described it in a smear campaign against Clinton in 1992. (Really follow that link, in the mind of Bush’s campaign team Arkansas looked a lot like Northern Africa in a sandstorm; it’s funny).

There are people across this country whose jaws dropped at the fact that someone would leave a good, comfortable job at Wisconsin and bolt for (and you know the way they said it, like it is actually a hard word to pronounce while continuing normal breathing patterns or without swallowing in an entirely distracting manor)…..Arkansas. Not only did he bolt, he started brown-nosing his way into this job in September. He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave very badly.

Now we know that our facilities are seriously great. We know that we are surrounded by better talent in bordering states. We know we are in the best division of the best conference in the country. We know we can pay anyone just about anything they want, especially if allegations that we offered Les Miles what we did are accurate. All of this makes Arkansas a great place to be and we should be counting our lucky stars that Bielema saw that side of the story and not the other one, which is just as compelling.

That other side of the story is that this is a hard place to recruit blue chip out of state talent and a very difficult place to coach in general. The last five head coaches at Arkansas (including John L) have been fired (de facto, at least), some leaving behind levels of fan dissatisfaction that Ron Zook could only dream of. You have to go back to Ken Hatfield to find a non-interim Razorback coach who did not leave the university for eventually failing at his job in one way or another—usually another. Houston Nutt and Bobby Petrino both left Arkansas in as dramatic a fashion as you can get.

And that has become a reputation to a certain extent—that this is a really hard place to coach. I do not in any way disagree with that statement. I honestly think it might be the hardest job in the country when you take into account how high the expectations are, how hard it is to recruit, and how difficult the strength of schedule will always be.

And Bret Bielema left a job where he had success, money, and respect to come here. Forgive my girly-ness, but “Gretchen realized it was better to be in The Plastics hating life, than to not be in at all.” Sometimes Mean Girls is just relevant, whether we like it or not. Having an extremely difficult job in the SEC is better than not having a job in the SEC at all. And that is an incredible victory for our conference.

Please don’t think I am belittling how great of an opportunity coaching at Arkansas is. I think it is a step up for Bielema’s career without a doubt.  But not everyone feels that way. The phrase I kept hearing from the national (really, the yankee) media is that this is a “lateral move at best.” I call major BS on that for all the reasons I’ve already stated, but I do see where they are coming from.

I think this hire is great for Bret Bielema, great for the SEC, great for male Arkansas fans (you’ve seen the wife by now, I’m sure), and great for Barry Alvarez who is paying himself $118,000 to coach in the Rose Bowl. I remain unconvinced that this is a wonderful hire for the Razorback football program.

I hope I am proven wrong, and fast, but I just have a lot of doubts. I worry about the “beat Saban at his own game” mentality because I just have not seen that work nearly as well as I’ve seen the “beat Saban at the exact opposite of his game” mentality work (Cam Newton, Johnny Football, Tim Tebow). I worry about recruiting, but I always worry about recruiting so that’s nothing new. And I actually think that Bielema’s good ole boy personality might resonate pretty well down in these parts. It's going to be hugely important for him to get the right coordinators and his focus on that is reassuring.

I do have that healthy dose of Arkansas hope we’re all born with, but I tend to fall on the pessimistic side of the spectrum. Only time will tell, and the good news is that Bielema has a legitimate amount of institutional and fan support, as good as it gets at Arkansas anyway. I’m not sure I’m quite the Bielver that my fellow Liz (LizHoney, of course) is, but I do have hope. Woo pig, yall. Tomorrow is here.

PS—Sorry if I miss-spelled Bielema at any point. I checked like ten times, but ya know, we Arkansas fans couldn’t even spell Petersen on Twitter. It is what it is.

Thanks Expats!

Huge thanks to Brent Holloway at Arkansas Expats for publishing this and making me look cooler than I really am.

http://www.arkansasexpats.com/2012/11/15/3647800/conversation-with-our-contest-winner-liz-beadle

Far, Near, and Red All Over

          I don’t think I could ever point to an actual day in which I became a Razorback fan. I have an early memory of a Sunday in the early nineties when we were playing Kentucky in basketball. We got home from Mass and my mom gave my sister and me an assignment: find everything blue in the house and hide it.

       We did. And we were told to answer the phone "Go Hogs" which we still do on game days to this day. If we answer the phone "hello" my mom will hang up and keep calling until we answer it "go hogs." This even still applies to my sister, who is a student at Florida.

         I remember doing a parade around the circle I lived on in Little Rock after we beat Tennessee in football in 1999, giving special attention to the Volunteer fan who lived across the street. I remember despising the one Oklahoma fan in my grade at school. I remember actually waiting on the paper to get there on Monday mornings so I could see the new rankings, no matter how good or bad we were. I was a strange, strange eight year old girl.

          Since my childhood of excessive late-night overtimes and my parents leaving for mysterious weekends in mid-March, being a Razorback fan has become an even more prominent part of my life. I think I realized that this was about more than just my family one night when we were hosting what we had always called a "hog party." Arkansas went to six overtimes with Tennessee that night and I was the only one left inside, glued to the TV as even my dad had abandoned the cause. Then of course there was the time I missed an all-important cotillion to watch the horrendous Arkansas-Georgia SEC championship game in 2002.

           Since then I have lived in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Prague. I spent my freshman year of college at a Jesuit institution in Chicago. One of the first things I did was email the Arkansas Alumni Club in Chicago and got on their e-mail list. I told them I was not a graduate of the school but I was an Arkansan—and that was enough. The few times I was brave enough to use my first fake ID were used to get into bars where the club watched Razorback football that season.

           Going far away has always been what has let me know that coming back home is what matters. After everywhere I’ve been, I will get my bachelors from the U of A in May and I could not be more proud of my school and its athletic department. Arkansans feel differently about their team than almost anyone else. There are no interstate rivalries, to be Arkansan is to know how to call the Hogs—it is a culture all its own.

            I have often said I must have recognized Paul Eells’ voice as well as I recognized my mother’s when I came out of the womb. This was not a plight that I chose. And it is not one that many would have chosen if given the choice, because it’s hard and sometimes it is downright miserable. I was born into it, just like my kids will be. To be a fan of something else would feel foreign and strange. Even my sister the Gator cares more deeply and truly and the Hogs than she ever could about Florida.

             Season like this make me want to turn it off—to just stop caring, to make it all go away. Life is easier when you don’t care. But that’s not an option for Arkansas fans. I’m not sitting here caring about something that is separate from myself. It is within me. It always has been and always will be.

            This past semester, I studied abroad in Prague. In the dorm we lived in, there were about sixty Kansas State students also living there. Although far away in the cold of the Czech Republic, I’m sure no one is too surprised at how many times the words "how bout that Cotton Bowl" came out of my mouth in the course of the semester.

            You can take the girl out of Arkansas, but you can never, ever, ever take the Arkansas out of the girl.

Reflections from the Press Box

Saturday was my first time to be in the press box during a football game and it was a pretty weird day to be there. The weather delayed play for an hour and six minutes in the first quarter then the game was delayed again, this time permanently, in the third. Oh, and if the day wasn’t weird enough, Randy Jackson of American Idol led a hog call at halftime….

As lightning struck with 5:11 to go in the third quarter, what was left of the student section started a premature (but timely in hindsight) “hard to be humble”—the first time most of them have gotten to sing it since September 1st. John L. Smith was awarded the game ball by his players and although Kentucky is absolutely horrible, a win like this could not help but create the feeling that this season might turn around from here.

The lightening delay didn’t upset me at all. I think that was because I was right where I wanted to be, where I had always wanted to be.

Last season I had the opportunity to help out ESPN down on the field. I walked around with Janine Edwards, the sideline reporter, and helped her identify players and helped her with whatever else she needed. After that game I thought to myself—this felt right, being down there on that field felt so right.

But I was wrong. The press box is the place for me. Smart people, witty conversation, other games to watch on the TVs, a perfect view of the field, a catered Chartwells spread, and a constant eye on social media—it was heaven.

When all the other sportswriters groaned and grumbled over the delays, I was happy I got to spend more time with them. I have to say, it was weird to be in the same room with all of these men who I constantly follow on twitter and whose articles I read just about every day.

I kept smiling at them weirdly—like I somehow got it in my head that since I know who they are, they should know me. They didn’t, needless to say. Probably my least shining moment of the night was throwing a quick “hey what’s up” to Wally Hall as if I’d known him for twenty years. I did eventually work up the courage to introduce myself to some of my favorites, mainly because I just felt so creepy laughing at their tweets when they were sitting literally three chairs down from me.

One thing about the press box is that you’re not allowed to be a fan in there. And I knew this since I had been in the press box at other sports and it’s pretty well known sportswriter etiquette. But still, it’s a funny rule to me. Because regardless of anything, those forty or fifty men (I say men because I can count the women not working for media relations on one hand) in the press box are some of the biggest fans out there. This is their life, their livelihood and believe me, they love the Hogs, I can see it in their eyes.

I didn’t have as much trouble with this rule as one might assume. I mean after both Jonathan Williams touchdowns I definitely smiled real big and said “sweet” but they were sweet plays! And that was only the fact of the matter. I danced in my chair a bit to “hey baby” and maybe a few other things—but I was good, I swear!

I think what is really interesting, is that when you’re a journalist, this game stops being about fun in a certain sense. You’re not there to escape your hectic life for a Saturday—this is your hectic life. You’re not really supposed to tailgate I assume (I did) and everything is just taken much more seriously. I like it that way. For every person who says “it’s just a game” a sports journalist (especially the ones who follow one university or team so specifically like many of these Arkansas guys do) can truly say that that is not the case. It is so much more than a game.

They say that what you spend your time procrastinating with is what you should be doing with your life. I have a thesis to work on, a GRE to study for, and an LSAT to study for this fall break. I’m writing this. Never have I been surer of what I want to do with my life than I was in that press box last night.

It was such a strange night—with howling wind and pouring rain and even a cannon going off at the stadium well after play had ceased. It was a perfect example of just how weird things can get. You know, we might win a few more games this season and I might even make a career out of sports journalism because hey, even in the last 24 hours, stranger things have happened.

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen

“Well this is to y’all kickin our ass,” a man of about 60 dressed in orange and blue said as he bought me a shot in a bar in Auburn, Alabama Saturday afternoon. We didn’t kick their ass, I politely explained to the man who was the epitome of Southern hospitality, we just happen to play a little less bad than the other team on the field. (Plug: go to Auburn; great people.)

This game two years ago, also in Auburn, was a No. 7 vs. No. 12 matchup with serious BCS implications. This past weekend, it was a battle not only of two of the worst teams in the conference, but two of the worst teams in the country.

Two years, a mere 730 days, separated the two situations. The same schools, the same programs, and yet a very different ballgame. The oh-how-the-mighty-have-fallen mentality was a common one around Auburn just like it is around Fayetteville. I felt their pain not just empathetically, but actually.

But let me be the one to tell you in case you’ve forgotten, winning feels great. No matter what’s going on in a program, winning will cure it, at least temporarily. Arkansas football victories have given me endless joy many times in my life, but I have to say this was one of the most meaningful wins I have ever experienced. We just needed it, y’all. We needed it worse than we have in my 21 years of life.

Our seats were right above the band in the tiny corner of Jordan Hare Stadium reserved for those of us just passing through. And as time expired, we all moved down lower towards the sideline and the team gathered close to the couple hundred, maybe a thousand of us (I’m very bad at guessing numbers like that) who had made the trip. I stood there, surrounded by my family and friends, and never in my memory had “Hard to be Humble” had quite the meaning for me that it did that day.

Because the thing is, it’s easy to be humble. We know that. Auburn fans know that. But as bad as things get, a win can lift our hearts like nothing else can. And it did. I was moved by our fans and our team. I felt more like a truly crucial part of the program than I ever had. I had been to away games, away games we had won, but it had never felt like this: like the sun was finally peeking through and we could all see it.

It was a day that reminded me how close we are to greatness or to failure at any given point. It hasn’t been two years since Arkansas and Auburn were the two teams representing the SEC in the Bowl Championship Series. Less than two years ago—and now it’s this. Oh how the mighty have fallen. But it’s positive too, because it means we can be just that close to turning it back around.

Saturday was not only a wonderful day because of the Razorbacks. My sister is a student at Florida and although I am by no means a Florida fan, one thing I always am is an LSU hater. And, yes, of course I was Gator-chomping in the bars of Auburn while dressed in Arkansas clothes. It’s the SEC and that, my friends, is what it’s all about.

Saturday was a beautiful reminder of the possibilities that lie ahead of us, not just this season, but for our program in general. I have long adhered to the school of thought that says there are “elite programs” in college football—programs that are always good—and I have now realized that that is simply not true.

Now you wouldn’t know it if you asked an Alabama fan, but believe it or not there were Alabama coaches in between Bear Bryant and Nick Saban. And I remember Arkansas beating them consistently when I was young. Same goes for LSU and Georgia (both of whom proved how imperfect they are this weekend) and everyone else. You win some, you lose some—and although that applies to everyone, it’s an easy truth to forget.

The last game I watched Saturday was the Florida State-NC State game. As unranked NC State scored a game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left against the No. 3 team in the country, it was confirmed again: the possibilities are endless. Yet another mighty had fallen. The mighty fall, but the real mighty ones always come back. We’ll be back; Auburn will be back. And if history is any indication of the future, it’ll be sooner than later.