If you are looking for information on schedules and results, jerseys or other apparel, or just general information, the University of Arkansas’ www.Hogwired.com is an excellent source for fans of the Razorbacks. There are links for all the different Athletic teams, football, basketball, baseball, track, golf, and tennis with information of the Coaching staffs to find out just about anything a person would want to know about the Hogs. On a link for the Athletic Department, you can find out about the programs traditions such as how the teams came to be known as the Razorbacks in 1909.
The original name was the Cardinals, and at the conclusion of the 1909 football season, then Coach Hugo Bezdek said after a victory wrapping up the school’s first undefeated football season that the team” played like a bunch of wild Razorbacks”, a wild boar actually found in the Southern regions of the state. The name stuck and the rest is history.
There is information of the resurgent basketball team, currently 7-1 on the season, led by Coach Stan Heath. The baseball team is also on the way up. You can read about the dominate track program which has won so many National Championships under the tutelage of Coach John McDonnell. With a newly renovated outdoor track which hosted the NCAA championships recently adding to the already first class facilities, you can take a virtual tour of any of the venues. From basketballs’ Bud Walton Arena, built in 1993, to Baum Stadium for baseball, voted by Baseball America the #1 college baseball stadium, to the indoor track, to the beautiful Donald W. Reynolds Razorback football Stadium which had a $110 million facelift in 2002, the facilities at the Uof A are second to none anywhere in the world of college athletics.
You can read about the incredible season of sophomore running back Darren McFadden, who came back from a serious injury and surgery only a month before the season started to break all the school records for single season rushing. Dmac, as he is affectinately known in the “Natural State”, was healthy for just a little over half the season. On the Hogwired Home page, there is a picture of McFadden in an almost Heisman-like pose with the caption reading “Darren McFadden fits the Heisman mold. Even though, McFadden finished second in this year’s Heisman balloting to Ohio State’s Troy Smith, DMac is only a sophomore, so he will most likely enter next season as the Heisman favorite for 2007.
There are numerous pictures of the aforementioned facilities, all of which have been built or renovated since 1993, all of which are lined up on Razorback Road, with the exceptions of Baum Stadium for baseball and The Tyson Center for Indoor Track, located right beside the baseball stadium.
Their are links for NCAA compliance, ensuring that boosters and members of the Razorback Foundation, know what is and is not allowed by the NCAA in terms of athletes employment, etc. There is a link for Live Stats during the games, which can be hard to keep up with when Darren McFadden is on the field. There is a link for SEC Sports to keep up with the other eleven SEC schools, year in and year out, the top college athletic conference in the land.
There is the Razorzone, a insider service available to paid subscribers for those who want even more information than that available for free. The site has been redone recently, and the Athletic Department does a good job of keeping it up to date. In short, whether it’s schedule or ticket information, bios of the coaching staffs in any sport, or to check out the state of the art facilities, one can find virtually anything about University of Arkansas athletics at Hogwired, making it one fo the top fan sites anywhere.
