Friday night started with me at the very first ever Arkansas Razorback ice hockey home game versus Vanderbilt, and at the very moment I walked through the door I asked my party, “Do we call the Hogs here?” Legitimate question, right? While calling the Hogs is associated with the university as a whole, in this area we’re not accustomed to sports that are more prominent in East/West Coast schools like hockey, rowing, wrestling, etc. What do we know here besides football and basketball? To be fair, fans here don’t know much about baseball (let me paint a picture: Razorback and Naturals baseball fans don’t know that when it’s the bottom of the ninth and we’re trailing by a run, it’d be a good thing to get on your feet and rally your team on; since they don’t, you can chalk up a loss in the L column). Furthermore, this team started as a club – meaning there wouldn’t be any cheerleaders or band members. The fans DEFINITELY wouldn’t know when to start to cheer, let alone know when to call the Hogs.
But regardless of everything, the game didn’t happen as Vanderbilt decided not to show on time and I was heading back to Fayetteville to go to our first ever start-of-the-2008-season basketball game against Southeastern Louisiana. I arrived with 9 minutes left in the first half to meet up with two of the guys, Austin and Kinney, with our team down by 10 points. Here I could find my relief to the question I had asked earlier. We definitely know how to call the Hogs here. We can do the H-O-G-S! chant here. Hell, with the band we can start up “William Tell” (one of my favorites). As the game progressed and our team still losing, actually never having the lead since I showed up, the fans started the customary trickling out of Bud Walton Arena (which I have a problem with too, but not addressing at this time).
As I was probably the only person in the stands - I failed to mention that I was in the nosebleed section of the arena, looking down at the lively band/student section below - that knew how to “William Tell” it (and did, twice) I wondered, “if I weren’t a student, would I still be doing this?” At what point do former students stop the crazed and whacked out chants for their team and merely sit on their butts during a time-out. At what point of my life will I look back at the student section and think their jumping up and down is crazy? Right now, I love the passion that student-fans have for their team probably because that’s all students really care about. When I’m an alumni with a job and family, hopefully the latter being not so soon, will I care less? Probably yes, eventually. Calling the Hogs seems to be the only acceptable form of displaying fan-hood at any age.
But if that’s the case, we need to open up more seats for the student-section so that at least 1/3 of the arena can William Tell their hearts out, while the other 2/3 sit there and reminisce.
