FAYETTEVILLE - If we’re lucky, young broadcast journalism students and professional athletes who are about to retire and are thinking about going into broadcasting will read this week’s national tributes to the late Pat Summerall and realize there is room to be remembered way beyond the endless array of smarmy, verbose ESPN wannabes polluting our airwaves from the networks down to the 50-watt coffee pots.

With an economy of words, an authoritative voice uttered from an ego in check with a storehouse of the pro athlete’s knowledge minus the typical pro athlete cliches, Pat Summerall delivered football play by-play like Walter Cronkite delivered the news.

Whatever message Cronkite and Summerall delivered had to be respected because of the national respect for the messenger.

Pat Summerall was never dull while delivering play-by-play, starting with the “just the facts ma’am” essentials.

He couldn’t have been dull forming two of the NFL’s most revered and colorful telecasting teams, first with Tom Brookshier and then for 22 years with former Oakland Raiders Coach John Madden.

To this day, the Summerall-Madden pairing is generally regarded as the NFL’s all-time best. Their mere presence made the big game bigger, although they never allowed themselves to act bigger than the game.

Nor was Summerall a one-sport pony. The Masters, U.S. Open tennis and the NBA Finals were among the non-football events at which Summerall manned the mike.

Regardless of the sport, Pat Summerall always did his homework and always meshed with the color analyst alongside.

The University of Arkansas swells with graduates leading fields far more important than sports broadcasting. None, though, ever topped their field any higher than the Razorbacks football letterman from 1949-1951.

CENTER OF ATTENTION

If you’re looking for the truest battle of best vs. best in Arkansas’ Red-White football game at 2 p.m. today, check the middle of the lines during the first half at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.

That’s when Arkansas’ No. 1 offense will go against its No. 1 defense.

New Coach Bret Bielema and defensive coordinator Chris Ash calls the defensive line, including senior 300-plus pounds tackles Byran Jones and Robert Thomas, the strength of its defense.

Bielema and some of his new offensive brain trusts, coordinator Jim Chaney and line coach Sam Pittman, also believe center Travis Swanson, a second-team All-SEC player last year behind Outland Trophy winner Barrett Jones of Alabama, could be the nation’s best center in 2013, like Rimington Award winner Jonathan Luigs was for Arkansas in 2007.

“Absolutely,” Pittman said. “If he can be the best center in this league, he can be one of the best if not the best in the country. He is capable of that.”

Richard LaFargue, the All-Southwest Conference center for Frank Broyles’ 1975 Cotton Bowl champion Razorbacks, can’t wait to see this afternoon’s collisions in the middle.

“I’m glad to hear we’re going to line up and hit somebody in the mouth this year and not play fast break on grass,” LaFargue said at Friday’s Razorbacks Reunion golf outing. “From an offensive lineman’s standpoint, that’s what we want.”

Sports, Pages 22 on 04/20/2013