FAYETTEVILLE — Frank Broyles never lost his smooth as butter Georgia accent, but Arkansas was the state he became synonymous with in more than 50 years at the University of Arkansas as the Razorbacks’ head football coach, athletic director and fundraiser.
The man chosen by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as the state’s most influential sports figure of the 20th century came to Fayetteville in December of 1957 to coach the Razorbacks and never left.
Broyles, 92, died at his home Monday morning of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
“No one will ever cast the shadow that Frank Broyles has cast over Arkansas, the entire state,” said Barry Switzer, commenting in 2007 about the man he played for and coached under at Arkansas. “No one.”
Switzer, originally from Crossett, went on to win three national titles at Oklahoma and a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys.
“Frank Broyles has accomplished more in his life as a coach and as an athletic director than any man who’s ever been in both positions,” Switzer said. “What he contributed to that university and that state is unparalleled.”
Broyles led the Razorbacks to a 144-58-5 record in 19 seasons as their coach from 1958-1976 — including a share of the 1964 national championship — and as athletic director from 1973-2007 built an all-sports program and first-class facilities while steering Arkansas from the dying Southwest Conference to the prosperous SEC in 1991.
“He did some things at Arkansas when he took over the program that more people than not probably believed couldn’t be done,” Terry Don Phillips, the former Clemson athletic director who played for Broyles and worked with him as an assistant athletic director, said in 2007. “He made you feel that Arkansas could be as good as anybody in America in whatever we did, and then he made it happen.
"He brought a tremendous amount of pride and dignity to the state where he developed the football program as coach and then, when he took over as athletic director, developed the other programs."
Broyles worked as a fundraiser with the Razorback Foundation through the spring of 2014 and continued to represent Arkansas at numerous events after retiring as athletic director.
“Coach Broyles is ‘Frank of the Ozarks’ you might say,” Arkansas’ 1966 Outland Trophy winner Lloyd Phillips said in 2014. “He’s a tremendous man, and he’s done so much for the state of Arkansas. As a player, I never heard him say one curse word. That’s pretty great for a coach.”
Broyles reflected on his Arkansas tenure in December 2004, shortly before his 80th birthday.
“If you ask any person that’s been in this profession if they can match the charmed life I’ve had here at Arkansas, they would say it’s the rarest, rarest, rarest thing there is, to be on the job at one school for this long,” Broyles said. “I’ve always been so pleased and happy. It’s a privilege to have this job and I’ve never tried to take another job.”
Broyles said he worked hard to build relationships throughout the state with fans from every walk of life as well as business leaders and boosters needed to help fund the program.
“I’ve done everything I can to build the image that Arkansas can compete with anybody, and I think our fans appreciate that.” Broyles said in 1994.
Broyles said in 2004 that he never considered himself an absolute ruler of the Razorbacks, even if many others may have viewed him that way.
“I still have to please and I still have to do the job and people have to want me,” he said. “I never felt I was in total control, nor did I want that.
“This is a university program, not mine.”
BROYLES THE BUILDER
Arkansas spent more than $230 million on facilities while Broyles’ was athletic director, including the construction of Walton Arena, Baum Stadium, McDonnell Field and the Randal Tyson Indoor Track Center along with two major renovations and expansions of Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
Former Tennessee Athletic Director Doug Dickey had nothing but applause for Broyles in 2007:
“Frank has been as dynamic a person for Arkansas as has existed in the history of college athletics at any institution by anyone,” said Dickey, a former Broyles assistant. “He brought a level of dynamics that was national in scope to a place that had not been national in scope, and it has transcended into numerous sports.
“His vision of how to do it at Arkansas was right on target. Raise the money, build the facilities and you can get the people to come.”
The athletic department’s annual budget grew from $900,000 to $44.8 million during Broyles’ time as as athletic director.
“There’s nobody that has any better facilities than the Razorbacks,” Eddie Sutton said in 2007. “That’s really Frank’s greatest legacy as far as I’m concerned.
Sutton coached NCAA Tournament basketball teams at Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma State, and had a career record of 806-326 in 37 seasons.
“The people of Arkansas should thank him with a lot of enthusiasm, because he has really been the architect that put it all together,” Sutton said of Broyles.
Dickey, a football coach at Florida and Tennessee, said Broyles knew Arkansas — with its small in-state recruiting base — needed first-rate facilities to recruit regionally and nationally.
“When you recruit to Arkansas, you have to draw from a wide range of places, so you’ve got to have something attractive for people to want to be a part of,” Dickey said. “It took great facilities to get the coaches you needed to then get the players.”
Longtime Razorback Foundation executive Harold Horton, who played and coached for Broyles, credited him with being a visionary for Arkansas’ potential and projecting the future.
“He remembers the past, but he doesn’t dwell on it,” Horton said in 2004. “He’s thinking ahead. He’s always had a big imagination.”
FRANK AND KEITH
Broyles earned acclaim after his retirement from coaching as ABC’s top college football analyst from 1977-1983 when he was teamed with play-by-play man Keith Jackson.
“He kept everyone glued to the TV because they wanted to hear what he said next,” former Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt said in 2007, the final season of his 10-year run. “He had the passion for the game and the great voice with his Southern accent.”
Broyles didn’t do his first ABC telecast with Jackson, but worked the Texas-Texas A&M game with Chris Schenkel in 1974 after the Razorbacks’ season had ended.
ABC producer Don Ohlmeyer liked Broyles’ work and asked him back for the Auburn-Texas Gator Bowl, when he again was teamed with Schenkel.
Broyles began doing ABC games with Jackson, another with Georgia roots, on a regular basis after retiring from coaching in 1976.
Jackson also was a Georgia native and the two had a natural chemistry.
“We found out that we had played an American Legion baseball game against each other in Georgia when we were both growing up,” Broyles said in 2006. “We became good friends from the very beginning when we started working together.”
Broyles was eager to take advice from Jackson about how to work on the telecast.
“I think the best thing Keith ever told me was, ‘Frank, whatever you say, be sure that a housewife in Eugene, Oregon, can understand what you’re saying,’ ” Broyles said.
“So, I never used football jargon to describe what was going on. I wouldn’t say, ‘Draw play,’ because I knew some people didn’t know what that is.
“I’d say, ‘Here’s a fake pass and run.’ I stayed very basic and used regular words everybody could understand.”
The ABC broadcast with Jackson and Broyles dominated the airwaves at a time when few college games were televised.
“When Frank Broyles and Keith Jackson showed up, that was like College GameDay now,” former Broyles assistant and Oklahoma State Coach Pat Jones said in 2014.
“That was big, big stuff.”
ROAD TO ARKANSAS
Broyles first took notice of Arkansas as a Georgia Tech assistant when he saw the devotion of Razorbacks fans before the Yellow Jackets beat Arkansas 14-6 in the 1955 Cotton Bowl.
The possibility of leading a program in a state where the fans were united behind one team intrigued Broyles, but Arkansas had a policy of only hiring experienced head coaches. Broyles got that experience when he was hired at Missouri in 1957 and led the Tigers to a 5-4-1 record.
“We had to fight Georgia in everything,” Broyles said in 2004. “What attracted me to Arkansas was everybody in the state pulling for you.
“They may get mad at you from time to time, but they’re still always pulling for you.”
Broyles was a Georgia Tech assistant when he interviewed for the Missouri job, which came open after Don Faurot stepped down as the Tigers’ coach, but stayed on as athletic director.
Among the other hopefuls Broyles beat out for the Missouri job was Michigan State assistant Bob Devaney, who later became the head coach at Nebraska and led the Cornhuskers to national championships in 1970 and 1971.
Broyles said he forever was grateful to Faurot for giving him a chance to be Missouri’s coach.
“I had been an assistant coach for 10 years and thought maybe I’d never get a chance to be a head coach,” Broyles said in 2003 before the Razorbacks beat the Tigers in the Independence Bowl. “I went after the Missouri job as hard as I could.”
Broyles left Missouri after one season when Razorbacks Athletic Director John Barnhill called after Jack Mitchell left Arkansas for Kansas.
“Barney, what took you so long?” Broyles is reported to have said.
HIRES AND FIRES
Among the notable head coaches Broyles hired at Arkansas were Lou Holtz, Ken Hatfield, Danny Ford and Nutt in football; Sutton and Nolan Richardson in basketball; Norm DeBriyn and Dave Van Horn in baseball; and John McDonnell in cross country and track and field.
Holtz — Broyles’ hand-picked successor — led the Razorbacks to a 60-21-2 record in seven seasons, but was fired after the 1983 season when the Razorbacks finished 6-5.
The Razorbacks were 30-5-1 in Holtz’s first three seasons and 30-16-1 in his last four.
Sutton led Arkansas to the 1978 Final Four, but left after the 1984-1985 season because he was feuding with Broyles. At the time, it wasn’t known Sutton was battling alcoholism.
Broyles and Sutton later reconciled. They sat together for the Razorbacks’ final game in Barnhill Arena in 1993.
When Sutton left Arkansas for Kentucky, Broyles hired Nolan Richardson from Tulsa and made him the first black coach of a football or basketball program at a major university in the South.
“I give him a lot of credit for having the guts to say, ‘Hey, it’s time,’ ” Richardson said in 1994.
Richardson led Arkansas to the 1994 national championship along with Final Four appearances in 1990 and 1995 and 13 NCAA Tournament trips in 17 seasons.
Richardson won a school-record 369 games, but was fired late in the 2001-2002 season and later sued the UA and several administrators — including Broyles — in U.S. District Court in Little Rock for racial discrimination.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2004.
Among Broyles’ most famous firings was dismissing Jack Crowe as Arkansas’ football coach after 1992 season opener when The Citadel beat the Razorbacks’ 10-3.
“That was just business the way Frank saw it,” Crowe said a few years later. “It wasn’t personal.”
When Holtz was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Honor at the start of the 2016 season, he heaped praise on Broyles.
“When Coach Broyles brought me to Arkansas, it changed my life completely,” Holtz told the banquet crowd. “Not only was he a great coach, but he was a great athletic director, a great ambassador and a great leader for Arkansas.
“I hope you all appreciate everything he’s done.”
Holtz credited Broyles with helping him be hired as Notre Dame’s coach in 1986 by giving a strong recommendation to Athletic Director Gene Corrigan.
“I ended up at Notre Dame because of Frank Broyles,” Holtz said. “The point I’m making is, sometimes things are going to happen you don’t think might be fair or right, but move on with your life.”
Broyles and Holtz spoke for several minutes after the banquet, exchanged some laughs and posed for pictures with fans.
“What he’s done for the state of Arkansas you can’t deny,” Holtz said of Broyles. “Not just in football, but what he’s done with the other sports, the facilities, the whole state.”
Sutton led Arkansas to the 1978 Final Four, but left after the 1984-1985 season because he was feuding with Broyles. At the time, it wasn’t known Sutton was battling alcoholism.
Broyles and Sutton later reconciled. They sat together for the Razorbacks’ final game in Barnhill Arena in 1993.
Sutton came to Arkansas for the 1974-1975 season from Creighton.
“I think Frank knew at that point football and basketball could complement each other at Arkansas,” said Sutton, who led the Razorbacks to nine NCAA Tournament appearances in 11 seasons. “A lot of people in the coaching profession told me I was crazy to come to Arkansas, but Frank convinced me we could build a great program, and we did.”
Richardson and Broyles reached a reconciliation of sorts, too.
Broyles attended a ceremony in Kansas City in 2006 when Richardson was inducted into the National Association of Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame, where the two shook hands.
Broyles praised Richardson at the time for “changing the game of basketball” with his uptempo, pressing style and winning a national championship for Arkansas.
“I’ve continued to be proud of Nolan’s accomplishments,” Broyles said.
“You may not always agree with what Frank Broyles does, but you can’t question he’s doing what he thinks is in the best interests of Arkansas,” Richardson said in 1994. “He wants Arkansas to be the best it can be.”
OLD HOGS NEVER FORGET
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, a senior offensive lineman on Arkansas’ 1964 team, has been among Broyles’ staunchest supporters.
Jones became emotional in the spring of 2014 when he spoke at a golf outing held in Broyles’ honor.
“I never dreamed when he was talking to us about the fourth quarter the night before a ballgame in Eureka Springs when he had the team up there and telling us the way it was going to be, that we would be standing here right now in 2014 and he’s coaching us on how to be in life in the fourth quarter,” Jones said. “How to handle the stuff that comes along in life in the fourth quarter. And, boy, did he coach us up.”
The golf tournament and a banquet raised funds for the Frank and Barbara Broyles Foundation CareGivers United, which provides support for families dealing with Alzheimer’s disease.
Broyles became an advocate for Alzheimers caregivers after his first wife, Barbara, died of the disease in 2004. Broyles married Gen Whitehead in 2005.
“You showed us how to care-give,” Jones said to Broyles and his family and friends. “You showed us what sticking and staying and loving is all about.”
Jones said he never would have bought the Cowboys if not for Broyles’ influence.
“I think that’s fair,” Jones said. “Somebody might say, ‘Well, that’s a reach.’ No.”
Jones said in 2014 Broyles inspired him to want to be involved in sports at a high level such as being the owner of an NFL team.
“He also very candidly gave me a feeling that I could do it,” Jones said. “That I could get it done.”
Jones said Broyles became his role model for how to run the Cowboys.
“I look at the things he’s done, the salesman he is, the organizer, the way he put things together up here, the building programs, all of that,” Jones said. “There are a lot of parallel decisions I make every day.”
Jones said he’s always tried to emulate Broyles’ vision the future and admired the way he built a total athletic program at Arkansas to help pull fans together behind the Razorbacks.
“His influence with what we’re doing here at the university is unmatched in the rest of the country,” Jones said. “Because it was a combination of what he did in the traditional view as a coach, but also his vision.
“He was ahead of his time. He was a forward-thinker in his vision for Arkansas as an athletic program just as he did as coach putting together a game plan.”
Pat Jones grew up in Little Rock in the shadow of War Memorial Stadium, as he put it, and spent a lot of time there as a child attending Arkansas football games in the 1950s.
“You could go sit wherever you wanted to,” Jones said. “We used to play ball on the grass bank before they put the north end zone in.”
Jones said freedom of movement in War Memorial Stadium started to change after Broyles became Arkansas’ coach.
“When Coach Broyles got it going, now all of a sudden that running around came to a screeching halt,” Jones said. “The stadium started getting expanded and they started playing for titles.
Jones, a former Broyles assistant who grew up in the shadows of War Memorial Stadium, said the days of empty seats ended as soon as Broyles go the Razorbacks rolling.
“He changed the way the state was viewed,” Jones said. “He changed the way the University of Arkansas was viewed. He changed a lot of things.
“I mean, epic stuff.”
‘CHARMED LIFE’
Broyles started 0-6 ast the Razorbacks’ football coach in 1958 — leading to jokes later that as athletic director he might have fired himself — before Arkansas won its final four games, all in November.
“They remember what you do in November,” Broyles liked to say.
Arkansas went 9-2 in 1959, won a share of the SWC title and beat Georgia Tech 14-7 in the Gator Bowl.
The 1964 Razorbacks finished 11-0 — highlighted by a 14-13 victory at No. 1 Texas and 10-7 victory over Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl — and won a share of the national title along with Alabama.
Broyles suffered one of his most disappointing losses the next season in the Cotton Bowl when LSU upset No. 2 Arkansas 14-7 to end the Razorbacks’ 22-game winning streak and cost them a shot to win a second consecutive national title.
Arkansas was in the running for another national championship in 1969 before No. 1 Texas beat the No. 2 Razorbacks 15-14 in Fayetteville in a game moved to the end of the season at ABC’s request and dubbed “The Big Shootout” by Longhorns Coach Darrell Royal.
Broyles and Royal became close friends and often spent time together in the offseason playing golf. Broyles said they never talked about football.
The 1976 Arkansas-Texas game in Austin became the final game for both Broyles and Royal as coaches with the Longhorns winning 29-12.
Broyles, 52, stepped away from coaching to focus on his duties as athletic director.
In 1994 when the Democrat-Gazette did an article on Broyles still being athletic director as he was turning 70, there was an accompanying story speculating on his successor.
Sutton said at the time he expected Broyles to remain athletic director into his 80s, and was on target.
Broyles was 83 when he turned the job over to Jeff Long on Jan. 1, 2008.
“I’ll assert that no collegiate athletic figure has controlled a campus and a state the way Frank Broyles has controlled Arkansas,” Pat Forde wrote for ESPN.com in February 2007 when Broyles announced his plans to retire. “And no college athletic figure ever will again.”
Forde referred to Broyles as “the last emperor” in college athletics.
Broyles survived the “Great Stadium Debate” — when his announcement in 2000 that some home football games were being moved from Little Rock to newly-expanded Razorback Stadium angered many fans and boosters in central Arkansas — and a bout with prostate cancer to remain athletic director.
At the Arkansas-South Carolina game in 2007, the field at Razorback Stadium was named in Broyles’ honor.
In 2012 a statue depicting him coaching on the sideline was unveiled outside of the Broyles Center, Arkansas’ athletic administration building which is being rebuilt.
Broyles stayed physically active with daily exercise to continue being athletic director after turning 80. He sometimes would conduct an interview with a reporter while walking and carrying weights.
After Broyles retired from Arkansas with the title of athletic director emeritus, he had an office at the Razorback Foundation until 2014.
Broyles was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1967 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983, and was a member of the inaugural UA Sports Hall of Honor class in 1994. He also is in Halls of Fame for Georgia Tech, the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Gator Bowl and Southwest Conference.
A native of Decatur, Ga., Broyles played football, basketball and baseball in high school and at Georgia Tech, where he was a star quarterback.
Broyles was the SEC player of the year in 1944 — Georgia Tech was a conference member from 1933-1963 — when he set a then Orange Bowl record with 309 passing yards in the Yellow Jackets’ 26-12 loss to Tulsa.
Broyles’ record stood until the 2000 Orange Bowl, when Michigan’s Tom Brady passed for 369 yards in the Wolverines’ 35-34 overtime victory against Alabama.
After his college playing career, Broyles turned down opportunities to play professionally with the New York Yankees, Chicago Bears and St. Louis Hawks organizations to go into coaching and got an assistant’s job at Baylor in 1947. Eleven years later after additional stops at Florida, Georgia Tech and Missouri, Broyles came to Arkansas to stay.
“It’s been a charmed life,” Broyles said in 2007. “Nothing but charmed.”