The first
Arkansas Texas Football game 1893
Back to the
Basement of the University of Arkansas library, and back 11 years from the St
Louis World fair. Though you would not
find it recorded, the University of Arkansas and the University of Texas played
a game before the first recorded game in 1894.
You will probably not know this unless you can get into the University
of Arkansas archives. I have taken this
from personal letters and official sources stored in the library. In the late 1800’s the University of Arkansas
was a rather small agriculture school.
Twenty years earlier the Arkansas legislation sent out bids to the
various counties to find a place to build a state university. Everyone thought that Little Rock in the
middle of the state and the most prosperous of the cities in Arkansas would win
the bid easily. However, the thriving
city of Fayetteville made the best offer. In this offer was a large amount of
land. It was the amount of land offered
that swung the bid. Sight unseen the
land offered by Fayetteville was accepted.
When a delegation from little Rock visited the site, they were not
impressed. The land was 360 acres of hog
infested land. It was too late to change
their minds so construction started on the Arkansas State University. This was happeing in 1876. By 1892, a selection committee was looking
for a new president. Unfortunately, for the
selection committee the best-qualified applicant was an agriculture instructor
at the University of Missouri. You must understand the times, at this time the people
of Arkansas considered Missouri to be a Yankee state. The fact that he was actually from Anderson Missouri,
which is just north of the Arkansas state line, made him more acceptable. This man had been educated in an eastern
college. Yell college to be exact. There he had played a game referred to as
football. He decided, against the advice
of the board, to start a team to give the students some recreation.
Over in
Austin Texas the University of Texas had been playing football for several
years. Most of the teams they played
were the eastern Ivy League Universities.
These universities were the only schools where football was played at
that time. The big Texans would travel
to these schools and would easily win.
It was common for a Texas game to be in the hundreds. When the president of the University of Texas
found out that Arkansas had a football team, He immediately contacted the
Arkansas president and asked to have a game.
The Arkansas president and coach agreed, and the game was set.
Now at this
time the Texas Team had a mascot that was the largest longhorn bull in the
world. This bull was an intimidating
symbol and had a wonderful baritone bellow that could be heard over any
crowd. Arkansas at that time did not
have a mascot. A search was made of the
local wild life to find the perfect animal to represent Arkansas. The University did have a large Razorback hog
that they had been training to castrate bulls.
Since this was the largest razor back in captivity, it was decided that
Bruce would represent Arkansas. The men
on the football team built an elaborate cage and wagon for Bruce. Though Bruce was considered to be tame and
easily handled, the wagon and cage was made very much like a dangerous animal
cage. Remember I said that the longhorn
of Texas could drown out the crowd when it bellowed. Well Bruce could drown out any longhorn when
he gave his hog call.
The big day came, Bruce was parked in his cage
across the field from the Texas Longhorn
bull. During the introduction of the
teams three mischievous Texas fans did a terrible thing. They were bad boys but they were Texans. They had a Faraday's disk they had taken from the
physics department. . Now a Faraday's disk will generate a lot
voltage and can give a powerful shock. They placed the Faraday’s disk behind Bruce’s
trailer and connected heavy cables to his bars and the connections of the disk. When they started the disk turning, it sent a severe shot
through Bruce’s trailer. This must have
drove Bruce mad. Everyone could hear
Bruce and this stopped the introductions.
Bruce griped the iron bars in his teeth and tore them out of their
sockets. The Texas boys seeing this,
they panic and they took off running
across the field in front of everyone.
Bruce takes off after them. The
boys see their only hope of salvation from the anger of Bruce is to get behind
the Longhorn bull. The longhorn sees
this pig running toward him. He lowers
his head so he can toss this pig clean out
of the stadium. The longhorn
recalculated the speed this pig is running and reconsiders his approach. He raises his head to bellow and Bruce runs
right under the bull. Bruce remembering
his training, saw the large testicles of the bull. He raised his head and bit the
bulls testicles off clean. There was
very little blood and no pain. Bruce,
however now had a snack that took his attention off the Texans. The longhorn tried to give his customary
bellow and was embarrassed because he was now a soprano. The sound that came out was a Soooooe. The Arkansas fans caught on to what had
happened and started using the bull’s sound as their victory cheer. The incident so demoralized the Texas team
and the fans that they could not play at their normal level. Every time the Texas team got the ball, the
Arkansas fans would shout Sooooooe and they would end up losing the ball. This was the first defeat the Texas team
encountered. The Texas president
informed the Arkansas president if he ever brought that hog in to Texas he
would have the Texas rangers shoot it on the spot.
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