50-48 #4: Sic Semper Tyrannis
[Now that I know how to hyperlink, this email is going to make last week's look like a barren wasteland of black, nonunderlined characters. And click on them, damnnit! I've got some good shit for you this week. I have included so many hyperlinks, in fact, that I am including my brother in this mailout, even though he rooted against the Hogs in the now-legendary 50-48 game. He is a hyperlinker, and I am trying to impress him with my newfound ability.]
Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixieland!
Virginia hasn't offered the world much [save political philosophy, tobacco, substandard college basketball facilities, the Confederate capital and the end of the Civil War, 98 maroon-clad youngsters running through a concrete tunnel to the tune of Metallica's "Enter Sandman," and the most marketable (but not the best: see LSU's Glen Dorsey) defensive line prospect in the country] but they did come up with a helluva motto. Thus always to tyrants. Suck on it, Houston Dale Nutt. And suck on it also, "University" of Mississippi. The best thing about Hootie's move to Ole Miss ("university") is that the Hogs will be able to beat his ass once a year. It will cleanse our souls. It will make us reborn. If Shakespeare has taught us nothing else, he has at least taught us that calumny eliminates calumny. It is one of nature's great paradoxes, along with the existence of slime molds and the continuing heartbeat and bloodflow of J. Frank Broyles (unless, as many suspect, J. Frank is in fact a vampire, semi-deity, or meta-human—a sur-human perhaps, who has transcended the bounds of the traditional three-dimensional space of animal-vegetable-mineral into an ethereal realm beyond what Zizek might call The Real, or Badieu might call The Event. Or, since we're on the topic of literary theory, one of their predecessors, qua Derrida or Barthes, might argue that we, as Arkansas fans, are keeping that breathing apparatus and bloodflow going simply by taking him in as text. Our eyes are the conduits to his survival, allowing him to exist in the theoretical realm, even as his human form—his pre-meta-sur-human form—has in fact merged with the dust, as we mortals all will eventually do. Or maybe it's just the young wife.). A little too English Department for you? Salve the wound with this theoretical apparatus, an interesting correlation of NBA talent and birthplace. I think the natural conclusion that everyone will come to is that maybe that whole "salvation in the form of death on the cross" thing might never have happened had Jesus been born in Toledo. But then again, didn't John Barth say that long ago? For Lou Holtz's commentary on the vagaries of Toledo, amongst other things, see here.
So now seems as good a time as any for a note on J. Frank Broyles, being that I've just speculated on his possible vampirism: I have been reluctant to say bad things about J. Frank, as he is our Sugg Jordan, our Vince Dooley, our Bear Bryant. But there has been some recent controversy over the gift of his free pass to Hootie, allowing him to take our coaches and have them recruit players for Ole Miss ("university") while they remain on our payroll. This is unconscionable in this day and age, but I would like to take a moment to try and defend J. Frank. This is what he would have done in the 1960s. The stories about his friendship with The Devil (Darryl Royal, for the uninitiated) are legion. The game has simply passed him by. I'm not making a Drake Group argument or anything, I'm just saying that his oversight is the result of 50 years of common assumptions about human decency, not from a vast conspiracy to take down the university.
That said, Chancellor John White IS trying to take down the university, and should be immediately fired and/or run off with torches and pitchforks. Not only has he endorsed J. Frank's senile actions, but he paid Hootie 3.5 million dollars to go to Ole Miss ("university"), when his contract actually stipulated that he owed US money. White thinks that leading hogcalls at gymnastics meets and volleyball games makes him a friend of the people. A friend of athletics. He is wrong. Not only has he alienated all of the Arkansas Razorback sports fans in the state, he has alienated the faculty as well. For those of you on said faculty, please note that if your friend sent an email to your student insulting him and demanding he drop your class, and if your wife and/or husband endorsed that email, Chancellor John White and his minions would rightfully fire you. He would not give you 3.5 million dollars. (He might give you a hogcall, but that is just because he is a fool and a bonafide a-hole.) And so he has demonstrated that not all students are equal (this IS sort of a Drake Group argument, but bear with me). Not only do athletic recruits realize that they are considered secondary by their own Chancellor—to an employee in the athletic department, no less—but every other student must realize it too. When White chose loyalty to Nutt over the sanctity of the student-university relationship, he abandoned his mission as Chancellor. He is therefore in breech of contract. And also he is a werewolf. For this last claim I have less evidence. But go take a look at some werewolves, then take a look at White. Can you see him morphing in the bright light of a full moon? Hmm…
Then, from the blue mist of Everybody-Else-In-College
Now onto bigger and better things: OUR NEW COACH! (Oh, wait, we don't have one of those yet--as of the Sunday night composition of this email. More next week on what will inevitably be a big week in the New Coach To Arkansas Sweepstakes.)
Before I let you drift back to the quiet candy world of final exams, ice cream socials, and whatever the hell else it is you people with lives actually do, I must supply you with a brief basketball update. Hogball is back! On Saturday, Coach Pel sent a message to the rest of the SEC: Bring it, fuckers! (Meanwhile, Billy Clyde Gillespie, the Nick Saban of the college basketball world, got his ass handed to him again by North Carolina. I would report here on Dana Altman, but his breathtaking irrelevance leaves me speechless.) Arkansas managed to beat Missouri and Oral Roberts this week. Not only that, but the Oral Roberts victory occurred without Sonny Weems, who Pel sat for grades violations. In a statement to the press, Sonny Weems had this to say: "Grades?" Stats for the games can be downloaded here. (And these aren't your mother's boxscores. Ridiculously complete.) And, now that the ORU game is complete, we can safely say: Secular Hypocrisy: 1, Religious Hypocrisy: 0. And we didn't even have to build a giant golden Tower of Babel (qua Tulsa) to prove it!
The recovery was a refreshing change after a dismal trip for the basketball team to Puerto Rico, where the Hogs averaged 4,763 turnovers per game, not only establishing a new world record, but a new record for the entire Milky Way [surpassing, if I'm remembering my intergalactic statbook correctly, the Neptune Fighting Tridents, who managed to turn the ball over 4,760 times against Duke in 1991. The Tridents (rightly, I believe) accused the officials of giving Duke homer calls, practically blowing Krzyzewski right on the bench. Dick Vitale, calling the game, kept petting the hair of a small Krzyzewski doll he keeps beside him at all times. After the game, the Neptune coach said, "This is the last time we agree to a game with an ACC officiating crew." Thus they became the darlings of the college basketball world, much like Texas Western but without the compelling racial overtones.].
And speaking of Krzyzewski, do you think he did this good his first year on the job? Hell no. The Hogs have the #6 early-signing class in the nation. Greatness will return to Bud Walton Arena. Greatness will return to Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. Greatness will return to all of us if we keep investing ourselves, keep giving our money and time to an athletic program that finally seems ready to begin returning the favor. Were Siddhartha Gautama here, still walking amongst the people, scantily clad and ignoring his own hunger, he would tell us that karma is not immediate. But it exists. And the recipients of rewards for patience will only have the experience enhanced for them by the trials of the wait. The journey IS NOT its own reward. The journey is the magnifying glass through which we will all see a brighter day ahead.
50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS
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