WHOO PIG SOOOOIE!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Anyone that knows me very well knows that I love football. Of course, the Razorbacks are my team and, even though it’s silly, when they lose it wrecks my whole day, sometimes even my whole week! (Yes, I had a lot of bad days last year.)

I try not to let this happen, because it is, after all, only a game. Yeah, right. Tell that to the over 70,000 screaming fans on game day, with their faces, chests and other various body parts painted Razorback red, or wearing “hog hats” complete with snouts and tusks, yelling “whooo-pig, sooie!” at the top of their lungs!

If an alien space ship ever hovers over Razorback stadium on a crisp, clear Saturday in the fall, our planet will be safe because that undulating, goose-bump-raising cry drifting over the roofs and tree tops of Fayetteville will scare them half to death and convince them that some strange, horrible, wailing, crimson monster has beaten them to the punch and already landed in the parking lot. At which point, they will turn their craft around and head back to the depths of the universe, convincedthat planet earth is not really a place they would like to spend any of their time. Planet saved, Go Hogs!

My love affair with the game began when I was a child of 9 or 10. My dad and sister were avid fans and would always watch or listen to the games via our old black and white TV, or the small AM radio that sat by daddy’s chair. Sometimes both. Yes, daddy would be listening to the game on the radio and watching it on TV - just that fanatical, and it drove my mother crazy!

The first game I remember paying any attention to was an Arkansas/Texas match that had my dad and sister jumping all over the living room and yelling at the TV like it could hear them! (Don’t scoff, you know you’ve done it too.)

Mom had confi ned herself to the kitchen for the duration. She was a very no-nonsense person and to her, this was the ultimate in nonsense. Anyway, I decided to watch and see what all the fuss was about and, in less than a quarter, I was hooked. There was just something regal and magnifi cent about a ball flying through the airand being snagged by a receiver in a perfect over the shoulder catch, said receiver never even breaking stride as he streaked for the end zone.

If my failing memory serves me correct, some of the players that day were Billy and Bobby Burnett, Chuck Dicus, Bobby Crocket and Ken Hatfi eld. Their names even sounded romantic. And that day, we won and I became a fan for life. I really wanted to play and would imagine scenarios where I was that receiver looking back for a split second, catching the ball and winning the game, thus receiving the adoration of the entire state. The fact that I was a girl and destined to top out at 5-foot, 1-inch, never entered my mind.

Now, back then, there was no GYO or other youth organization in Gentry, and you couldn’t play sports until junior high. So, at the end of my seventh grade year, when cheerleading tryouts were posted, I signed up. I figured that was the next best thing to playing football. (Girls weren’t allowed, and besides, I had fi nally decided I was just too little and would rather stand on the sidelines and wear a cute uniform.) I was fortunate and made the squad, and the Pioneers became my other team.

We had seven or eight games per season, and the stadium was where the T-ball fields are today. One thing junior high football taught me was never to give up.One rainy, muddy, miserable night, we were down by 14 points with only a couple of minutes left in the fourth quarter. For all intents and purposes the game was lost. But, fate intervened, (or maybe it was the rain and the mud), and we scored 16 points in those last two or three minutes to take the win. What a great memory!

I also cheered for basketball but, for me, it just did not possess the romance of football. The pep rallies, especially the ones on Main Street for Homecoming, the parades, the decorating, the atmosphere of the games, it was all just magic to me.

Back then the goal posts were just painted silver, or in our case, rusty silver, so for home games, the cheerleaders would wrap the crossbar in maroon and white crepe paper. One of the players would pull their pickup underneath, and we would climb up on the cab to do this. The teachers knew we did this and none of them ever said anything about it being a safety hazard; but then, in those days, lawsuits were not as common. If one of us had fallen and gotten hurt, our parents probably would have just chalked it up as our own fault for climbing on the cab of a pickup and picked up the tab themselves. Those were the “good ole days”! I cheered for five years and, as the fall of my senior year was winding down, I knew that soon I would be cheering at myfinal football game. My heart was broken. I remember sitting under the goal posts after that last game and crying.

But my love for the Hogs never broke stride through those school years, and there are a few games that will live on in my memory forever. The 1978 Orange Bowl comes to mind, and a few others.

Well, it wasn’t too many years later, and I had a son who wanted to play football, and now there was a youth organization and football started in fifth or sixth grade. So, I felt I was back where I belonged, only this time in the bleachers instead of on the fi eld.

I had three sons and one stepson who played football, and two daughters who cheered. I have spent many freezing nights sitting in cold, wind-swept bleachers, wrapped in blankets, cheering on whichever son or daughter was involved. A couple of games are particularly memorable. One was a playoff game at home, and the fog had come down so thick, you couldn’t see across the fi eld. When the quarterbacks would pass the ball, the fans in the stands wouldn’t know if it was caught or not until we saw the reactions from the players on the sidelines. It was a close game and, at one point, we had the ball and our runner took off and just disappeared into the mist. We didn’t know that he had scored until the ref emergedfrom the fog with his hands in the air!

The other game was also a playoff at home, but the temperature had plummeted into the single digits and someone had brought some propane heaters to the field so the players on the sidelines could stay warm. If I remember correctly, someone’s uniform caught on fi re, nothing major, just a little charring!

Now, I have even had some grandsons who played and a granddaughter who is a cheerleader, so I still fi nd myself spending a lot of time in the bleachers at Pioneer Stadium.

And, even though it has moved and no longer inhabits the field of my youth, there is still that magic in the air on chilly Friday nights, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

The last few years I have had all the kids and grands over to watch the fi rst Razorback game of the season, so now there are a lot of us jumping around all over the living room, yelling at the TV. And, although I haven’t been to a Razorback game in a while, I am always glued to the television when they play (OK, and sometimes I have the radio on too, but don’t tell anyone!) And win or lose, I will be a Pioneer and a Razorback until I die! Go Gentry! WPS!

Tamela Weeks is a freelance writer in the Gentry area. She may be reached by email at tamela.weeks@ gmail.com.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 09/04/2013