Hunter Yurachek doesn’t need the elevator.
Yurachek, 52, the fourth-year athletic director at the University of Arkansas, is fit and fired up for the 2021-22 school term, and he’s got no time for the lift. He’s breezing around the Broyles Athletic Center on Friday, eight days out from the season opener against Rice, wearing his mask and taking the stairs at a healthy clip.
His nose looks almost completely healed, by the way, after taking a glancing cleat from sprawling tailback Josh Oglesby on an out-of-bounds incident Aug. 14. The cleats, signed and delivered by Oglesby, are now on a display shelf in Yurachek’s office. His light-hearted reaction to the scrape, which produced a bloody nose both inside and out, is another chapter that helps round out a picture of his style.
As Yurachek walks with senior associate athletic director Kevin Trainor into the lobby entry outside his open-doored office, he points to an item on a counter.
“Look what just came in the mail,” Yurachek says.
It’s a trophy for the 2020-21 Learfield Cup from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, the first such top 10 award in Arkansas athletics history for all-sports performance. The Razorbacks finished eighth in those standings, behind only No. 5 Florida and No. 7 Alabama in the SEC following first-time winner Texas.
Yurachek says he’s going to take a picture of the trophy and get it on social media, and sure enough, soon after a 15-minute sit-down interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, he had posted it to Twitter.
Yurachek and the Razorback athletic department had a banner year battling through the covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 to claim nine regular-season SEC championships, plus the SEC Baseball Tournament title, a sweep for Dave Van Horn’s team.
That’s a tough act to follow.
Yurachek is optimistic about the coming season, athletically and financially, and what lies ahead for the Hogs and the SEC. He discussed season-ticket sales, the upcoming entry of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC, the need to stay alert through the coronavirus twists and turns and many other topics in his discussion with the Democrat-Gazette.
ADG: What’s the encore for Arkansas athletics after winning, was it nine SEC championships in 2020-21?
YURACHEK: Ten. I don’t know that we can ever repeat having 10. But just to continue for each of our sports to compete for SEC championships. I mean that’s what we’re here for. I tell our coaches every day, if we’re competing for SEC championships, we’re competing for national championships. Because I truly believe this is the best athletic conference in the country, and it prepares you for those national tournaments, the competition we get on a daily basis. Our goal, first and foremost, each year is to be in a position that 19 sports are competing for the Southeastern Conference championship, and if we’re doing that then we have the opportunity to compete for national championships.
ADG: What’s the state of football? What direction is the program headed?
YURACHEK: It’s headed up. There’s no doubt about that. I’m so excited to see this team take the field next Saturday against competition other than themselves. The fact that Sam Pittman has had a full spring practice with his staff and student-athletes and a full summer and truly a fall camp, he’s filled some gaps at the defensive line, and we’ve created more depth at places like linebacker and receiver and in our secondary.
I think we’ve got an opportunity to have more success than we’ve had in several years on the football field. Regardless of the wins and losses, what our fans saw last year, how hard we play for 60 minutes, that’s going to continue. What’s really cool about this team is just to see the camaraderie that exists with these guys. You talk about the fall camp. Not many of the guys went back to their apartments or residence hall rooms to take naps. They stayed in the team room. They had pool tournaments. They had card tournaments. It just seems there’s a camaraderie building amongst this group that has the makings for a special season.
ADG: The UA is headed toward 100% capacity at Razorback Stadium next Saturday. Any dialogue that it could be anything different than that?
YURACHEK: There’s not at this time. But I tell our staff, I tell our student-athletes and coaches, and I’ll tell our fans: We need to remain flexible, because this virus as we’ve monitored it for the last 18 months roughly, continues to change. And as it changes we will adjust and adapt as we need to. But as we sit here today on Aug. 27, we’re anticipating full capacity in our venue next weekend.
Then we will ask our fans to wear masks in indoor facilities here at the stadium. In our club areas, in our suite areas, when you’re on shuttle buses — those are federally funded, so it’s required you wear masks on shuttle buses — and in restrooms. Every fan should bring a mask with them to the stadium and if you enter any of our indoor spaces you will be asked to wear that mask.
ADG: What did you think of LSU’s announcement? Is it something that could happen here? (Editor’s note: LSU officials announced a policy Tuesday where fans ages 12 or older must show proof of vaccination or provide documentation of a negative covid-19 test 72 hours prior to entry at Tiger Stadium this fall.)
YURACHEK: I don’t know that will happen here. I think they’re in a different spot. I talked to Scott Woodward, their athletic director. Their state and DMV and health department have combined to create an app that they have their driver’s license and their vaccination status on an app, and so you pull up your cell phone and it’s got a picture of you, your driver’s license and it’s got a red check mark or a red ‘X’ right beside that. So it’s very easy for them to monitor, and that’s what they’ve decided is best in the state of Louisiana. Georgia came out shortly thereafter and said, “We’re full capacity, no masks” just to kind of get their status out there. We’re probably somewhere in between, because we’re going to be at full capacity and ask our patrons to mask indoors.
ADG: How do you assess the name, image and likeness (NIL) start-up at the UA early in the process?
YURACHEK: For us here at the University of Arkansas and our student-athletes, I think it’s gotten off to a great start. I feel like we were ahead of the curve by hiring Terry Prentice as a senior associate AD for athlete brand development. He did a great job upon his arrival on campus partnering with the Walton College and several entities, including the Brewer Entrepreneurship Hub there at the Walton College, NOCAP Sports, Captiv8 so we could build our Flagship program and have some education for our student-athletes early in the summer.
This hit in July. I felt our student-athletes that were here for the summer were very well prepared. We had an event here last night in the SEC Club where we invited business owners across the state to come here. That’s one of the places we had fallen a little short. We had done a great job educating our student-athletes. We had not done a great job of educating the businesses. That was an opportunity last night to educate several business owners about what name, image and likeness is, how you can engage with student-athletes and how you should not engage with student-athletes.
ADG: You took the Josh Oglesby cleat to the face in a light-hearted manner. It could have been a more serious issue. That’s who you are, right?
YURACHEK: I was very fortunate. I got everything out of the way except for my nose. I got my body out of the way, got my left arm down, protected my cup of coffee in the right hand, and his cleat, I’m fortunate that it hit me on the side of the cheek and my nose and really just grazed me as opposed to a direct hit. As you can see, I’m a fast healer. Nothing that Neosporin and Aquaphor can’t handle. But yeah, very fortunate. The trainers and doctors did a great job cleaning me up, and I finished watching the end of the scrimmage.
I’ve got the cleats up here in my office. Josh autographed them and brought them by and sat them in my office.
KEVIN TRAINOR: It’s also the healing waters of the Wild Band of Razorbacks statue and fountain. He dips it three times a day.
ADG: You managed to drop in a humorous note about not being on a motorcycle.
YURACHEK: Yes. When I posted the picture initially there was some pictures that were posted, me alongside a former football coach [Bobby Petrino] here at the university. I just felt like having a little fun with that. I was not poking fun at that former coach, was just having fun with Razorback fans. They compared my face to the face from that event. So I think most received it in the way that it was offered, as a little bit of humor.
ADG: The Texas and Oklahoma entry into the SEC is official. How do you envision all of this playing out? Do you have a preference on how the divisions or pods will be set up?
YURACHEK: The preference I have and I think most of our athletic directors have is we bring those two schools on, and particularly to football, is we set up our schedule from ’25 on where we have an opportunity for each school to visit every campus in a four- to five-, six-year period. Right now that’s a 12-year period where every school will visit another campus. And we want to consolidate that so we have an opportunity for every school to visit every campus in a four- to five-year period.
We saw multiple models at our AD meetings last week that will provide that opportunity, and I think that’s the direction we’ll head. I think that’s great for our student-athletes. I think that’s great for all of our fan bases.
ADG: Does that necessitate a nine-game conference schedule?
YURACHEK: To get that model, probably yes. There’s a way you can do it with an eight-game schedule. The nine-game schedule you can definitely get that done.
ADG: Do you go 8 and 8 [in two divisions] or do away with divisions?
YURACHEK: I think you look at all things. There’s a straight 16-team division. I think you can look at 8 and 8. You can look at pods of 4. You can accomplish the goals within each of those entities.
ADG: You can argue that Texas A&M entering the league has impacted Arkansas in a negative way. How do you envision the entries of Oklahoma and Texas will impact Arkansas athletics?
YURACHEK: First of all, let’s take the proximity of Oklahoma. They’re now the closest SEC school to our campus at 250 miles. I think that provides great opportunities for fan interaction between the two campuses going back and forth to games. It helps travel for our teams.
From a competitive standpoint, it makes the league more competitive for sure. There’s no doubt about it. You look at Texas and their women’s tennis program won a national championship last year. The softball program at Oklahoma won a national championship. Oklahoma’s gymnastics program is always in the top five. So it’s not just about football and basketball. All the sports are going to become more competitive.
I think what we did last year, winning 10 SEC championships in the most competitive conference, it’s just going to get stronger. When you look at our alumni base: No. 1, obviously Arkansas. Second-largest alumni base where we attract students from is Texas. Third is Missouri and fourth is Oklahoma. So from a geography standpoint, it makes a lot of sense for the University of Arkansas. And we’re not scared of competition.
ADG: The athletic department budget, is this a season of recovery? How do you envision what finances are going to look like in this fiscal year?
YURACHEK: Coming out of the pandemic last year, we’re in really good position because of the sacrifices we made across our department last year with the early retirement of several of our employees, with every one of our employees taking a significant salary reduction throughout the course of the year, the budgetary reductions we made in our operating budgets allowed us —when we got the $23 million advance on revenues, or loan, however you want to refer to that, from the SEC — we were able to plug that in and really balance our budget in a good way that put us in a great position.
And then you look at what our season-ticket sales are for football right now. What they are for basketball. What we believe they will be for baseball. We’re going to be in really good financial position, we believe, coming out of this year as we sit here today. Again, the pandemic and how that shifts and changes could adjust all of that. But right now as we look at our forecasting, we’re in a really good position.
ADG: What’s the update on football season tickets?
YURACHEK: I mean we’re close to, from a general public and a student standpoint, almost 50,000 season tickets. To put that in perspective, in 2019 we were closer to the 30,000 mark. So it’s a significant increase. You talk about Texas coming into our league, there’s a great deal of excitement about Sam Pittman and what he’s done with our program that’s driving that as well. Another thing that’s driving that is the fact that Texas is here the second week of the season and that’s exciting. That’s what we have to look forward to as a fan base.
ADG: Anything happening with Bud Walton Arena in the near term?
YURACHEK: Not in the near term. We just have completed, or our fans have completed, a survey. We sent a survey out to roughly 10,000 Razorback Foundation and season-ticket members getting feedback on the amenities that they would like to see in that facility. We’ll do some focus groups in the month of September, and then I feel like we will go forward to our board maybe in the early part of 2022 and ask for permission to hire and engage an architect to look at what a remodel to that facility could become. So probably a good two years from beginning any type of renovation to that. But we’re definitively in the beginning planning stages of a major renovation to Walton Arena.