“John Pelphrey went down to Georgia, he was looking for a guard to steal. He was in a bind, his recruitin’ was behind, and he was willing to make a deal.”

Ha, ha. That Weird Al Yankovic-like rewriting of Charlie Daniels’ “Devil Went Down to Georgia” popped into my mind when I read that John Pelphrey has inked 6-6 shooting guard Levan Patsatsia of Georgia — the impoverished country, not the impoverished state — for this year’s basketball team. Wow – talk about recruiting “’till the last dog dies,” as Bill Clinton might say. I’ve never heard of a player being inked at such a late date. Hopefully, this is an indication of how hard-working and relentless the Pelphrey-coached Razorbacks will be.

Pelphrey says the signing will provide much-needed guard depth. That’s quite a departure from the latter days of the Nolan era, when seemingly the entire roster consisted of guards, plus maybe one or two slow-footed big men generously described as “projects.”

Some of you in-staters may already know this, but Nolan Richardson is coaching Mexico’s national team and currently has his players in El Paso, Texas, preparing them for the upcoming 2008 Olympic qualifying tournament in Las Vegas. (In a recent tourament in El Salvador, his squad beat Honduras by a mere 102 points.)

A recent article in the El Paso Times says that ESPN’s Andy Katz was in the city last week to tape “a program on Richardson’s basketball journey.” It’s unclear to me if that means a five-minute segment on Sportscenter or some sort of documentary. Even more interesting is the article’s mention that Richardson is penning his autobiography with the help of “former [University of Texas-El Paso] assistant coach and current New Mexico State English teacher Rus Bradburd.” I hear that Frank Broyles has already placed his order on Amazon.com.

I’m not a huge fan of autobiographies, and Nolan’s career has been filled with enough achievement and drama that I would love to see a serious writer do a biography of him. When we were in college in the early 1990s, back when the basketball program was at its peak, John and I used to wish that noted Arkansas author and sports nut Gene Lyons would follow the Hogs around for a season and produce a “The Breaks of the Game“-type book about the team. I would love to see him write a book on Nolan.

I was also struck by the following quote from Nolan in the El Paso Times: “I miss teaching. I miss meeting with the staff. I miss the workouts. But the thing I really miss most is the NCAA tournament.”

Nolan’s departure was a complex issue, and I’ve never really sorted out how I feel about it. But there are many things that I miss about the man, and the NCAA tournament is probably when I miss him the most.

When my Hog fandom was being forged way back in the Stone Ages (i.e., the early 80s), there was no Internet, sports on cable TV was still way out of the mainstream, and opportunities for the Hogs to get national press coverage were few and far between.

I remember excitedly waiting for the mail to come every Friday so I could see if the newest issue of Sports Illustrated might contain any tidbit of info on the Razorbacks. Being the typical Arkansas fan with a large chip on my shoulder about lack of respect for the state in general, much less the sports teams (in the pre-Nolan days, nonetheless!), I was usually outraged by the absence of coverage.

And now, here we are in the 21st century with Darren McFadden splashed all over the ESPN homepage:

This is probably a feeling something only people from a small, historically maligned state can truly understand, but to this day I get a sense of giddy validation when the Hogs receive major national coverage like this (I should probably clarify that as positive national coverage…the Houston Nutt saga has not been much of a pleasure). In other words, I doubt USC or Notre Dame fans really get as excited when they’re the lead story on Sportscenter for the 489th time.

And about the article itself, it’s a nice look at D-Mac’s background (mainly told from the point of view of his mom)…he ought to run for President, much less the Heisman, with that sort of rags-to-riches story. We’ll probably be hearing it to the point of annoyance as his Heisman candidacy intensifies, but it’s still fresh now.

Darren McFadden’s mom says he’s going pro after this season. No surprise there. Personally, I always find it a little hilarious when a reporter tracks down a player’s parents to get a quote…it’s funny to compare what they have to say versus the official party line from some PR guy.

Enjoy him while he’s here, folks.

It caught my eye the other day when the Miami Heat signed former Memphis State and Orlando Magic star Anfernee Hardaway to a one-year contract. Hardaway, who was one of the NBA’s brightest and most marketable stars before knee problems derailed his career, has not played in the league since the 2005-2006 season, when he appeared in only four games for the New York Knicks.

Hardaway may not have played for the Razorbacks, but he looms large in my memories of Arkansas basketball. First of all, he was the object of a white-hot recruiting war between Memphis State and Arkansas. In the preceding years, Nolan Richardson had won similar battles for Memphis high-school standouts such as Ron Huery, Arlyn Bowers and, of course, Todd Day; with Hardaway more highly touted than any of those players, the pressure on then-Tigers coach Larry Finch to keep Anfernee in the Bluff City was immense.

It’s both fun and painful to daydream about how good the Razorbacks would have been if Hardaway had signed with Arkansas and joined Day, Lee Mayberry and Oliver Miller on those already formidable early 1990s teams. Maybe there would have been too many egos for it to work - or maybe Nolan would have more than one national championship on his resume.

In the end, Hardaway and his fellow Tigers ended the Day-Mayberry-Miller era by upsetting the Hogs in the second round of the 1992 NCAA Tournament (this after they also defeated Arkansas 92-88 in the regular season). For lots of reasons - including those two heartbreaking defeats - that season is one of my least favorite Razorback memories.

The following season, however, would provide one of my favorite Razorback moments when an unranked and thoroughly unheralded Arkansas - lead by such newcomers as Corliss Williamson, Scotty Thurman and Corey Beck - began the year by defeating Hardaway and top 10-ranked Memphis State in a rousing and thrilling 81-76 victory in much-missed Barnhill Arena. With Memphis State’s other star David Vaughn out due to a knee injury suffered earlier in the game, it was up to Hardaway to carry the Tigers to victory, and he very nearly did so.

Hardaway may be responsible for some painful Razorback memories, but it’s always been hard to dislike him personally. Unfortunately, he often struck me as a classier player than some of the Arkansas stars he played against (Todd Day and Oliver Miller: I’m referring to you).

Here’s hoping Anfernee’s comeback is a success.

Thank God. I can breathe easy now. No more night sweats and sleepless nights.

Didn’t you hear?  The Wildcat offense has been officially rechristened the “WildHog” offense. 

The folks over at AthlonSports.com are in the process of analyzing the 2007 Heisman Trophy candidates. Spoiler alert: Despite labeling Darren McFadden “the finest college football player in the nation,” they predict that he will not take home the sport’s ultimate individual hardware. Click here to find out why.

Also, click here to read the site’s overall assessment of this year’s pigskin Porkers, complete with individual game predictions. You won’t believe it, but they predict that the Razorbacks will defeat UT-Chattanooga on Oct. 6 in Little Rock.

The preseason Darren McFadden media onslaught began before we were able to launch this blog (editor’s note: how rude), so we’re playing catch-up. No new news here, but for the sake of completeness, here are a few of our favorite recent D-Mac stories on the web:

• His legitimately awesome “Arkansas Bred” tattoo that stretches, Tupac-style, across his belly. Slightly less noticeable in this picture, but equally cool, is the large “501 Boy” written across his biceps.
• His only slightly less awesome pimped-out ride (complete with large Razorback sticker).
• His definitely less awesome, but still funny, clown costume from last Halloween.

This is going to be a fun season.

Growing up in Little Rock in the 1980s, few things gave us more pleasure than Razorbacks sports. Whether we were watching Alvin Robertson on the hardwood or Quinn Grovey on the gridiron, we were captivated in the way that kids everywhere are captivated when watching their athletic heroes. When the Hogs won, we were joyous; when they lost, crestfallen.

In the early 90s, we both moved out of the state (barely) to attend the same college in Memphis, Tenn. You might think that the obsession would have waned; on the contrary, it exploded. Encountering lots of people who didn’t like the Hogs - even some who, horrors, hated the Razorbacks - our fandom kicked into overdrive. It also didn’t hurt that our small liberal arts college’s teams competed in the NCAA’s Division III and thus engendered no real loyalty and that the Arkansas basketball team was enjoying the greatest half decade in its history.

But after graduation, our obsession began to wane. One of us ended up on the West Coast, the other on the East Coast. In the midst of establishing careers and building new lives in new places, following the Hogs fell off the radar a bit.

Within the last year, however, we’ve felt ourselves drawn back to our boyhood obsession. While trading e-mails about Darren McFadden’s Heisman candidacy, Houston Nutt’s various trials and tribulations, and the university’s often tragic and comic search for a new basketball coach, we rediscovered the way Arkansas athletics can so thoroughly captivate, irritate and, especially, amuse us.

Thus, RazorbackExpats.com was born.

We look at the site as a way for two Arkansas expatriates to keep on top of and share our views on Razorback athletics. We plan to do so in a spirit of good humor, balance and perspective. The Earth does not hang in the balance with each Hogs’ game.

Furthermore, we will be filing no Freedom of Information requests for coaches’ cell phone records.

We hope you will join us.