The more things change, the more they stay the same…

A damn good football team that was winning games on the field, but was beset by constant drama off it. A fan base, frustrated with the vanilla, run-dominated offense, calling for more passing and/or the coach’s head. And Frank Broyles in the middle of it all.

Naturally that description conjures up certain images of certain recent events, but it’s actually referring to the 1988 team. And although that team didn’t even receive a fraction of the national attention that the 2006-07 Razorback soap opera did, it was the subject of a profile by Douglas S. Looney in the November 21, 1988 issue of Sports Illustrated (which in the pre-ESPN dominance, pre-Internet era was a pretty big deal).

Looney paints a dismal picture of the ‘88 Hogs, focusing on their performance in the Arkansas-Texas A&M game that, in his words, was “was about as pretty to look at as the snarling wild pig emblem that decorates gas stations and convenience stores all across Arkansas.” (editor’s note #1: I’m starting to remember why I was so convinced back then that SI had an anti-Arkansas bias.)

He also notes that, despite being 10-0 at that point in the season, the Hogs weren’t receiving much love from the national press or pollsters. “The widespread reluctance to take Arkansas seriously has something to do with the generally dismal state of affairs in the Southwest Conference,” he writes. “But it’s also attributable to the fact that since Ken Hatfield took over as coach five years ago, the Razorbacks have played boring, grind-it-out football.” Ouch.

The article then runs through the standard litany of anti-Hatfield complaints that will be very familiar to any resident of the Natural State in the late 80s: the 51-7 loss to Miami in 1987, the 16-14 loss to Texas in 1987 (editor’s note #2: I was at that game. It sucked.), “Jesus wept”, and an offense that “was putting people to sleep”. Although Looney doesn’t mention it, it’s worth noting that ol’ Ken had a record of 45-13-1 at that point.

I’ve always felt that the 1988 and 1989 football teams were some of the best ever at Arkansas and haven’t gotten nearly enough credit over the years. In addition to back-to-back Cotton Bowls and 10-win seasons, let’s not forget that they were stacked with legit talent like Steve Atwater, Quinn Grovey, Wayne Martin, Barry Foster and many others.

The ‘88 team, of course, received some measure of redemption when, the week following this article, it came within an Atwater drop of an easy interception of beating the vaunted Miami Hurricanes (of course, it frittered away that redemption with the standard-issue dismal bowl loss).

Looney closes his article on a fairly prescient note: “But should the Hogs lose to Miami and then in the Cotton Bowl—it will be their first trip to Dallas since 1976—the spectacle could unfold of a 10-2 mark not being good enough. And that could get real ugly.”

Good times!

Bird-Magic. Chamberlain-Russell. Kleine-Koncak.

OK, so maybe the last pair doesn’t belong on the list of all-time great player rivalries. But in the mid-1980s, few of college basketball’s individual rivalries were more prominent or more heated than the one between Joe Kleine of Arkansas and Jon Koncak of SMU.

For those of you who weren’t around then or who know the two only as the quintessential NBA journeymen, we know that statement sounds kind of crazy. But, it’s true. That was the Era of the Shaggy-Haired Hulking White Center, and Kleine and Koncak were considered the crème de la crème of the breed. (Other notable examples include Bill Wennington of St. John’s and Uwe Blab of Indiana, both of whom, incredibly, were drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the 1985 NBA draft.)

We were reminded of the Kleine-Koncack battles recently while digging through the SI Vault, Sports Illustrated’s online archive of all of its issues. (To see the articles we found on Alvin Robertson, click here.) “A Double Helping of Very Special K”appeared in the Jan. 14, 1985, edition of Sports Illustrated and was written just after SMU’s 63-60 overtime victory over the Hogs nine days earlier. The article notes that the win was Koncak’s first in five tries against Kleine. “Arkansas is like that mosquito in my bedroom,” Koncak told the writer, Jack McCallum, before the game. “The one I could never swat dead.”

(Arkansas would defeat SMU in the regular season rematch and then again in the conference tournament, meaning that Smokin’ Joe from Slater, Mo., finished his Razorback career with a 6-1 record against Koncak and the Ponies. Take that, Jon.)

Some items of interest from the article:

*  At the 1984 Olympic trials, Michigan State Jud Heathcote, apparently confused by the various similarities between the two, introduced Koncak to a group of fellow hopefuls by saying, “Fellas, I’d like you to meet Joe Kleine of Arkansas.”

* McCallum writes, Kleine and Koncack “are likely to be high first-round picks who may not ‘make’ an NBA franchise but who will get one back on its feet.” Well, at least he got the part about the high first-round pick right.

* Like all good rivals, they didn’t much like each other. Koncak on Kleine’s demonstrative on-court persona: “Why does he have to do that stuff?” Kleine on Koncak: “Early in his career he said some really ignorant things.” Trash talk like that is truly not for the faint of heart.

* Eddie Sutton recruited both Koncak and Kleine out of high school, meaning that, had things turned out differently, the 1981-82 Hogs could have featured Koncak, Kleine and Scott Hastings. Wow. That team would have been the Traveling Wilburys of slow white centers.

Alas, that didn’t happen … and the rest is mid-1980s college basketball history.

In what is truly one of the most glorious developments in the history of time wasting, Sports Illustrated recently opened up the vault and put its entire magazine archives - as in all of it - on its website. For free.

It’s an amazing thing, but can be extremely dangerous to anyone with even the slightest tendency towards procrastination. So, as part of our ongoing effort to provide a public service to our loyal readers, we have unleashed our team of hardworking and underpaid Razorback Expats interns on the site to bring you the very best bits of this massive treasure trove. While they slowly go insane due to the enormity of it all, you can just sit back and enjoy the fun.

Today’s focus is on one of the greatest Hog basketballers: Alvin Robertson. It’s sometimes forgotten just how damn good Alvin was, both at Arkansas and in the pros (towards the end of his career, Michael Jordan singled him out as one of the toughest defenders he’d ever faced), so these articles are a nice nostalgic refresher.

November 28, 1983: Season Preview - #13 Arkansas

This article, from a classic SI issue featuring Jordan and Sam Perkins from #1 North Carolina on the cover (incidentally, that team would remain undefeated until a certain fateful day in Pine Bluff) describes Alvin as the best guard in the SWC, but my favorite bits are the descriptions of the rest of the team. You have the “husky” Joe Kleine, references to Ricky Norton and Willie Cutts as being potential replacements for Darrell Walker, and a quote from Eddie Sutton saying that Keenan DuBose “has a chance to be as good as Moncrief”. Whoops.

July 23, 1984: “Hooray for the Red, White, Black and Blue!”

In this article about the 1984 Olympic basketball team - almost certainly the best amateur team ever assembled - Alvin gets a nice shout-out as the team’s most consistent player. During the pre-Olympic warm-up games he led the team in rebounds and steals, was second in assists and minutes played, and was fourth in scoring. Not too shabby.

April 21, 1986: “Spur of the Moment - Alvin Robertson is pro basketball’s new Man of Steal”

Alvin gets the full feature treatment in this highly complimentary article (I don’t remember ever reading it before now, which is odd given that it came out during the peak years of me scouring the pages of SI for signs that the Razorbacks were being disrespected). Written during the high point of his NBA career - he had just been voted to the All-Star starting lineup in just his second year as a pro - it focuses on him stepping up to be “the Man” in San Antonio in place of the recently traded George Gervin. It also spends some time talking about what a model citizen and good community member he was, which is both sad and ironic given his numerous later legal troubles. Bonus: the description of Alvin bonding with Patrick Ewing over their shared love of reggae while on the 1984 Olympic team.