FAYETTEVILLE — Harold Horton, Tim Horton, their wives and Dean Weber represented the University of Arkansas at last Friday’s funeral for Susan Kines Langston in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The daughter of Joe Kines, Arkansas’ defensive coordinator from 1991-1994 and interim head coach in 1992, and Rubye Kines, Susan Kines Langston, 43, was killed in an automobile accident. Her vehicle was struck head-on by another vehicle near a Tuscaloosa-area high school.
An elementary school teacher with a University of Arkansas masters degree after graduating from the University of Alabama, Susan Kines Langston was a wife and the mother of two sons, one of whom remains hospitalized with injuries from the accident.
Harold Horton, president of the Razorback Foundation, was the Razorbacks’ recruiting coordinator and director of football operations during Kines’ Arkansas tenure.
Weber, now overseeing UA equipment purchases, was the Razorbacks’ trainer.
They were joined in Tuscaloosa by Sheridan High Coach Louis Campbell and Mississippi State director of personnel Rockey Felker, both assistants with Kines at Arkansas. Longtime friends Campbell and Kines previously worked together at Alabama and in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Bucs.
Joe and Rubye live in Tuscaloosa, with Joe retired following the 2009 season at Texas A&M.
By all accounts, Susan Kines Langston represented herself like her parents.
To anyone who ever met Joe and Rubye Kines, that means down-toearth first-class in all respects.
At Arkansas and other stops, including Clemson, Alabama (twice), Georgia, Florida, Florida State and Texas A&M, Joe always coached with raspy voiced intensity and humanity.
And homilies.
Game-planning vs. some supertalented offense presented “More than I can say grace over.”
Or there was the Joe Kines rejoinder to the 1991 repeated references as “interim coach.”
“Aren’t we all interim?” he would ask in reply.
Tim Horton, the third-year Arkansas running backs coach and a former Razorbacks wide receiver, was a recent UA grad and young assistant at Appalachian State when Kines coached at Arkansas. But he knew enough about Joe to relay an anecdote perfectly describing the Kines family priorities.
While coordinating Arkansas’ defense, Joe taught a Sunday school class at University Baptist Church in Fayetteville. Coach Jack Crowe was fired one game into the 1991 season, the 10-3 loss to The Citadel in Fayetteville.
One year and one game on the job, Joe Kines was elevated to interim head coach.
As Tim Horton told it, church officials said of course Joe could be excused from teaching Sunday school.
Joe’s reply, according to Tim: “If I don’t have time for Sunday school, then I shouldn’t be the head coach at the University of Arkansas.”
It’s a special man to be so humbly grounded from above.
OLD CAPE COD
Just by where they play summer baseball this year, Razorbacks Coach Dave Van Horn expects better things next year from catcher James McCann, pitcher D.J. Baxendale and outfielder Matt Vinson.
The three are playing in the prestigious Cape Cod League.
“They are playing against some of the best in the country,” Van Horn said, “and we also have a few [outfielders Collin Kuhn and Jacob Morris and infielder Matt Reynolds] up in the Northwoods League in Wisconsin, which is also a very good league.”
Sports, Pages 16 on 07/05/2010