LITTLE ROCK — Two far-apart generations of Razorbacks football fans, 1950 and 2012, started those seasons with high hopes and ended in despair. The 2012 record is sufficiently fresh in memory that no one should quibble about switching back 62 years.
Maybe he only said it once, and maybe not in these exact words, but the joyous news spread through Arkansas in 1950 that Otis Douglas had pledged to “beat all those Texas teams.”
John Barnhill had served as interim head coach at Tennessee during World War II, with a most impressive record (31-4-2), including wartime trips to the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. Barnhill was proven, he figured, and had no intention of slipping back into an assistant’s role when his previous boss, Gen. Bob Neyland, returned from the war to reclaim his coaching job. Barnhill wound up as head coach and athletic director at Arkansas in December 1945. He coached the Hogs (1946-1949) to a 22-17 record, and even managed to hold LSU to an icy 0-0 tie in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1947.
Barnhill had been pressured into the T-formation (from the Single Wing) in 1949, but no miracles appeared. Just another 5-5 year, and by then the T formation wasn’t enough. The important contributors, the Razorback Club rank-and file, and the impatient fans turned clamorous for a “pro” coach and a “pro” system.
Barnhill gave the fans Otis Douglas. He said he didn’t intend it as a joke.
“I knew if we got Douglas, we’d have one of two things.” Barnhill said years later. “We’d either have a good football team, or we wouldn’t have anything and everybody (fans) would get their belly full.” Douglas was a jack-of-all-trades on Coach Greasy Neale’s Philadelphia Eagles staff - trainer, assistant coach, and, into his middle30s, emergency substitute lineman. A big burly man and a William and Mary graduate, he was considered a sharp football student and a very nice guy.
Razorback players spent the 1950 spring and summer praising the new offense. “You can make more yards by accident than you can on purpose in this offense,” one of the running backs said in spring practice. “It’s fantastic.” Unfortunately for the Douglas Razorbacks, September brought on football.
Douglas’ teams spent three seasons in the Southwest Conference and beat five Texas teams: (North Texas, not exactly what Hog fans had in mind) and Baylor in 1950; Texas and Texas A&M in 1951; and Baylor again in 1952. Douglas beat nine teams in all against 21 losses.
He went 2-8, 5-5, 2-8. He did not win a single game on Texas soil.
Long-memoried fans still try to sort out the paradoxes of the three Douglas years. There he was, a “pro” coach, commanding athletes who would later thrive as pros, and he went 9-21.
Dave “Hawg” Hanner, Fred Williams, Pat Summerall, Lamar McHan, Lew Carpenter and Bob Griffin went on to long NFL careers, accounting for 60-odd seasons among them. Hanner, of Green Bay, and Williams of Chicago and Washington, were two great defensive linemen, and remained so for a decade or more. Late in his career Summerall was a heroic place kicker for the New York Giants.
Douglas, of course, was fired Nov. 22, 1952, after a 44-34 loss to Tulsa. But finally after nine years, he bounced back into the spotlight again, sort of.
The Cincinnati Reds won the 1961 National League pennant. Douglas was hired as sort of an athletic trainer, but that wasn’t exactly what he did. He jumped around the dugout, yelling. He rattled the bats.
“I can’t figure it out,” a Reds player told a reporter that summer. “He (Douglas) rattles those damn bats and jumps around hollering for nine innings, and we win another game.” The Reds reached the World Series that year, and Otis Douglas was finally part of a pennant. The best I recall, though, he was gone the next season.
Sports, Pages 14 on 01/01/2013