FAYETTEVILLE — The Petrino and Long private corporate takeover of your very public state university’s athletic department continues even with Petrino no longer part of the firm.
This week’s announcement that all of the Razorbacks’ spring football practices except for the April 20 Red-White intrasquad game are closed to the public makes it increasingly clear the University of Arkansas holds its athletic department apart from Arkansas other than pressuring Arkansans to support it financially.
The era of Athletic Director Jeff Long that began with the December 2007 hiring of former football coach Bobby Petrino constantly approaches Razorbacks boosters to give more to build more facilities while allowing them increasingly less access.
This announcement that Arkansas’ football team will practice this March and April totally out of Arkansans’ view until the Red-White game concludes spring drills is the latest example.
Even Petrino, the surly draconian allowed unfettered from his banner seasons to be unnecessarily and profanely rude to his players, coaches and support staff until fired upon the fallout from his April motorcycle accident revealed violations of UA hiring policy too egregious to be absolved, didn’t publicly close 14 of the 15 spring practices like Bret Bielema is doing.
Bielema, the coach that Long hired in December after a disastrous 4-8 season under interim coach John L. Smith, no doubt has his reasons for wanting to coach in privacy. Also no doubt his closing practices will have some fan support for now.
Arriving as publicly personable as Petrino was impersonal, Bielema wears well on his new coach honeymoon. He will enjoy love at first sight, embraced by virtually all of Arkansas, until the inevitable first loss inevitably wears off some of the new.
Opening or closing spring practices won’t much affect that either way nor the team he coaches.
Having covered Arkansas coaches and teams since Frank Broyles’ final four coaching years beginning in 1973, the observation here is it really hasn’t mattered to Razorbacks teams whether or not fans and media observed their practices.
Inevitably the good teams won and the not so good teams, usually outfits not deep enough to overcome injuries, didn’t win enough.
But keeping fans in touch with their Razorbacks always won something for the University of Arkansas. Countless kids toted by parents to watch football practice eventually became UA students and then parents with kids of their own following the same UA path.
Broyles, now athletic director emeritus, always asserts that for his 50 years as athletic director and/or head football coach that he inherited and cultivated a program “built on relationships” with Arkansas fans and the Arkansas press.
This current administration routinely slams the door on both.
Fort Knox may have easier access than the formerly always open door Broyles Center. Even that isn’t apt to rival as a forbidding fortress the football operations center still under construction.
The current administrative brass loves lavishly to build buildings but apparently doesn’t know, nor cares to learn, how to build rapport, the absolute foundation on which the University of Arkansas and its Razorbacks are built.
Sports, Pages 22 on 03/09/2013