FAYETTEVILLE - Arkansas’ coaches made sure to get some time away from work this summer before moving into the new football operations center and gearing up for the start of spring practice Aug. 5.
They wound up on getaways all over the country.
Defensive coordinator Chris Ash went hiking in Yosemite National Park in California; defensive line coach Charlie Partridge took his family to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Florida;
offensive coordinator Jim Chaney went fishing in Wyoming; and cornerbacks coach Taver Johnson visiting family in Ohio.
“My wife [Lisa] is from Wyoming,” Chaney said.
“We go to a cabin up in the Wind River Mountains and I fly fish every day.
No electricity, no phone service, so I didn’t talk to a soul around there. My best buddies, I didn’t want to talk to them anymore. So it was fun.”
Offensive line coach Sam Pittman said his summer vacation included a visit to Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri and a Gary Allen concert.
“At the end of that concert, I said, ‘Man, it’s been a great summer,’ because I had a great time there,” Pittman said. “I’d done everything I wanted to do. It was time to get back to work.”
Ash, who worked with Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema at Wisconsin, said Bielema does a good job of making sure his assistants get a break.
“I enjoy working for Bret because he gives us some time to get away,” Ash said.
“Summer’s good because it gets you recharged, refreshed and ready to go.”
Linebackers coach Randy Shannon said a coach has to make time to get away from the demands of the job.
“You’ve got to enjoy yourself,” Shannon said.
“You can’t let yourself get beat down. The job is too much.
“It’s a great situation to coach football, but when you have a chance to take off, you’ve got to take off.”Fan feedback
Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said his department is still in the process of gathering and analyzing responses from a fan survey regarding the proposed north end zone seating expansion to Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
“There’s an enormous amount of data we’re bringing in, because this is a huge decision for the long term future of our program,” Long said.
Long said it will be late August or September “before we even start to get a sense for where we’re headed” based on the survey.
Long said while the north end zone expansion won’t happen quickly, Arkansas wants to be ready to respond to fans when the timing is right.
“The economic climate is right in terms of building, bond prices are right in terms of building, financing,” Long said. “So if the data tells us the fans are ready to support us … we need to get after it and grow our program to make it the best it can be.”Emotional reaction
Defensive line coach Charlie Partridge said he saw a strong reaction from the Razorbacks when they toured the new football operations center.
“When the kids got a chance to see their locker room for the first time, I was taken back a little bit by how emotional they were,” Partridge said. “You kind of forget what these kids have been through for the last 18 months.”
Arkansas went 4-8 last season under interim Coach John L. Smith after being picked as a top-10 team nationally in preseason polls. Smith replaced Bobby Petrino, who was fired for off-the-field reasons, so Bret Bielema is the Razorbacks’ third coach since 2011.
“When they walked in [the new locker room], it was almost like the final piece of, ‘OK, we’ve moved forward,’ ” Partridge said.
“There was some relief.
“There were some kids that got choked up. It was a pretty neat deal.”Quiet time
Bret Bielema visited ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., last week with a group of other SEC coaches to do interviews with the cable network’s various television and radio outlets.
After Bielema’s group was finished with interviews, several coaches found themselves delayed at a private airport waiting for weather to clear up.
Bielema said the group in the airport’s small waiting area included South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier, Florida’s Will Muschamp and Kentucky’s Mark Stoops.
“It was kind of just an odd thing,” Bielema said.
“Everybody was kind of looking around like, ‘Who’s going to say something?’ It was entertaining.”Ask Charlie
All of Arkansas’ coaches are active on Twitter, but defensive line coach Charlie Partridge recently began fielding fans’ questions.
Partridge said he got the idea from talking with a recruit earlier this summer.
“I said, ‘What’s kind of the new social media thing ?’He told me that Ask.
fm deal,’ ” Partridge said. “So I said, ‘Why not give it a shot?’ “
It didn’t take long for him to get a lot of fan reaction.
“Within an hour it was an explosion,” Partridge said.
“I don’t think I knew what I was getting into, but it’s fun.”
A check of the Ask.fm site showed that Partridge has answered more than 100 questions.
“I think during the season I may shut it down, just because I don’t have the time,” he said. “The fans have been great, and I understand right now we’re still undefeated as a coaching staff.”Sharp-dressed man
Arkansas’ coaches were dressed in golf shirts and shorts when they met with the media Thursday before a golf tournament at Paradise Valley, except for linebackers coach Randy Shannon.
Shannon, a former head coach at Miami, wore slacks and a long-sleeved button-down shirt.
Several assistants agreed Shannon is the best dressed coach on the staff.
“He’s got that Miami style,” cornerbacks coach Taver Johnson said. “He’ll wear shorts and t-shirts, too, but he always looks good whatever he’s wearing.”
Walk-on depth
Bret Bielema began his college playing career as a walk-on at Iowa, so he’ll be paying close attention to the walk-ons who join the Razorbacks’ scholarship players for practice. He said some recruited walk-ons will be part of the newcomers group.
“It’s something that I think if you do your due diligence, if you recruit the high schools the right way,” Bielema said, “you can find kids that are a little bit under the radar and will be a nice addition.”
Sports, Pages 30 on 07/28/2013