Here now is the second and final part of our Q&A with Eugene Nash, the late ’70s and early ’80s walk-on who captured the hearts of Razorback fans like few players before or since. (For Part 1 and a more complete introduction, just click here.) In this installment, Eugene discusses the most painful loss and the most exhilarating win of his Hog career, who would win a game of one-on-one between him and Jimmy Dykes, and why — to paraphrase country singer Mac Davis — happiness means having Lubbock, Texas, in your rear view mirror.

Who were the three best players that you played with at Arkansas?

Oh gosh! It’s easy - Sidney Moncrief, no doubt about it. He had the tenacity to be a great player. Maybe not the best shooter, but when the time came, you wanted the ball in his hands and him defending the best player. No doubt him – the distance between him and the rest was pretty far. I think Scott Hastings and U.S. Reed would be the next guys, but Sidney was a good distance ahead of the next group.

A lot of it had to do with Sidney’s heart - he had a big heart. He was married at the time and lived off-campus so it was harder to get to know him, but he made an effort to spend time with all of us, invited us over to dinner, things like that. Steve Schall was like that too.

Give us some insight into the personalities on those teams - who was the funniest guy?

I’d say Scott Hastings. He taught you a lot about life in general. He was funny and did stuff you didn’t even know was possible.

What was the most enjoyable road trip that the team took? And, conversely, what town did you guys dread visiting?

The place that you really hated to go to was out to Lubbock, to play Texas Tech. That was the only place they sent us out to dinner without curfew - there was nothing to do! We saw one dog walk across the street, that was it.

By 10:00, everything was closed - we’d be back in our rooms early on our own. That was the only place they gave us the keys and just said, “Go get a bite to eat.”

Playing in those SWC tournaments in Dallas was always exciting. You always looked forward to that.

(Read on …)

A few weeks ago, we asked for your help in tracking down former walk-on Eugene Nash, one of our all-time favorite Razorbacks. We’re happy to report that, thanks to the subsequent tips, we were able to do so. Today, Nash lives in Fayetteville and is a national account manager for Tyson Foods, for which he has worked for 25 years.

A native of Tyronza, he played for the Hogs from 1978 to 1982 and despite (or, at least in part, because of) his infrequent playing time, he captured the hearts of Razorback fans like few players before or after. The waning moments of blowout wins were inevitably accompanied by booming crowd chants of “Eu-GENE! Eu-GENE!” When Coach Eddie Sutton would put Nash in the game, the crowd would go nuts.

We spoke last week with Nash, and he spun many a good yarn about his time on the Hill. Below is the first installment of a two-part Q&A, in which Eugene discusses how he became a Razorback, how Sidney Moncrief inspired him to stay on the team, why Coach Sutton resembled the Godfather, and, of course, his famous dunk and the resulting t-shirts.

Coming out of high school, did you have any scholarship offers from other schools?

I had a scholarship offer to go and play at Arkansas State, which is around my hometown. From there, I had some smaller offers like Arkansas Tech and Arkansas-Monticello, but my mindset was that I wasn’t thinking NBA or anything like that. I wanted to go to the University of Arkansas and have employers in job interviews see that on my resume, but I still wanted to pursue my dream of playing college basketball.

Before leaving for Fayetteville, I sent a letter to the coaching staff saying I wanted to come out for the basketball team. They sent a letter back saying they’d never taken any walk-ons, but said I could stop by the basketball office and have a tryout.

Tell us about the tryouts.

The first day, there were about 100 guys who showed up. They put us through different drills, ran us really, really hard, and split us up into different teams and let us play. On the second day, about half of those guys didn’t come back. A few of them probably figured, “What the heck, this isn’t what I want to do.”

It’s tough when you try to walk-on. The tryouts were like an all-star game. Everybody was trying to show off their skills; people shot the ball as soon as they crossed half-court. At the time, I was a pretty good jumper for a 6’1” kid so I could block shots and rebound. I figured I’d defend and rebound and let them see how well I could perform without shooting the basketball.

(Read on …)

Last week we announced that we were unleashing the awe-inspiring full power of this blog and its readers on the project of tracking down legendary basketball walk-on Eugene Nash. Without spoiling any surprises, I’m happy to report that we’ve made significant progress towards our goal…thanks to everyone who helped with your comments and emails.

We’ll have another update next week, but for now here’s a quick look at some of the things we learned (and hopefully this doesn’t come across as stalkerish…that is SO not our intention):

* Commenter FreeThrow tipped us to this feature on Eugene and his daughter in High School Sports the Magazine.

* Commenter and occasional contributor Whit E. Knight tracked down a Eugene Nash reference in a recent article in the Morning News.

* Lastly, this article in the Benton County Daily Record has a nice anecdote at the end about Eugene hanging out with former teammates Marvin Delph, Ron Brewer and Jim Counce.

As Stephen so eloquently explained in a recent post, the Razorback Expats organization has always had a particular fascination with basketball walk-ons…those unsung heroes who would dominate mere mortals in a pickup game, yet ride the pine while the big names do battle on the court.

In the pantheon of Razorback walk-ons, no star shines brighter than that of Eugene Nash, that legendary crowd favorite from the mid-Eddie Sutton era. However, his tale has largely been lost to history…a sad state of affairs that we are now seeking to correct.

So, if you know Eugene Nash, have information about his whereabouts or, best of all, actually are Eugene Nash, please contact us at razorbackexpats at yahoo dot com. We would very much like to track him down and conduct an informal interview to share his story with the world (and give us the chance to chat with one of our favorite ex-Hogs).

You may not have noticed him yet - after all, no points in only three games played is hardly an eye-catching performance - but the addition of sophomore guard Stephen Cox to this year’s basketball team has our staff of walk-on historians abuzzing. Decked out in horn-rimmed glasses and tweed jackets with suede elbow patches, these men like nothing more than to down several glasses of brandy and discuss the careers of Guy Whitney, Reggie Merritt and the like until the wee hours, all the while thoughtfully stroking their goatees.

Only time will tell what place Mr. Cox will ultimately have in their conversations, but with it being sort of a slow news week as we await the start of conference play, we thought we would take a moment to give some Razorback basketball walk-ons their day in the sun (if that’s what you can call being discussed on an obscure blog). Without further ado:

Greatest Walk-On: Eugene Nash, a guard who played for Eddie Sutton from 1978 to 1982. Eugene wasn’t the best player who walked on (more on that in a sec), but he gets this nod because he fulfilled the walk-on’s typical role - that of human victory cigar - like no other. In my years of following Hog hoops, I’ve never seen the fans cotton to a walk-on the way they did to Nash. The waning minutes of blowout wins were inevitably accompanied by the booming crowd chants of “Eu-GENE! Eu-GENE! Eu-GENE!” (At an early 1980s game in Little Rock’s Barton Coliseum, the fans were chanting that when the PA man announced - in a somewhat huffy tone - “Please stop chanting, ‘Eugene, Eugene.’ Mr. Nash is sick tonight and is at the team hotel.”)

Eugene’s greatest moment came when he stole the ball, sprinted the length of the court and electrified the crowd with a slam dunk. I remember hearing that t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Eugene, Eugene, the dunking machine!” were spotted on the UA campus in the days afterwards.

(Read on …)