FAYETTEVILLE -- Phil Lineberger, an Arkansas Razorbacks football letterman from Texarkana for Frank Broyles and later serving on the Razorbacks' basketball training room staff, has died.
Pat Foster said he was told Sunday of Lineberger's death by staff of the Sugar Land Baptist Church. Lineberger was 68.
Since 1995 Lineberger was the church's pastor in Sugar Land, Texas.
Former Razorbacks basketball and baseball letterman and basketball assistant coach Foster, now retired in Fayetteville, first knew Lineberger from their Arkansas pasts but said he best knew him while attending Sugar Land Baptist while coaching the Houston Cougars.
The brother of Jerry Lineberger, a Razorbacks football letterman for Broyles from 1959-1961, and John Lineberger, a long respected judge, Phil Lineberger lettered for Broyles' 1966 Razorbacks but his greatest Razorbacks' acclaim was officiating Wilson Matthews's funeral.
Casting the beloved but bellicose coaching legend of Little Rock Central and the Razorbacks in a heavenly light seemed even more formidable than taking on Texas.
"He talked to me before it," Foster said, laughing as he recalled Lineberger smiling, "And he said, 'You know, this is going to be difficult."
From personal remembrance, Lineberger's loving, down-to-earth, smile-producing tribute made it easy visualizing Wilson Matthews' heavenly ascent.
"He was the best I ever saw at that," Foster said. "Because he loved everybody and could relate with everybody and was well liked by everybody. He lived his deal."
SURVIVING THE NEEDLESS
Surviving the track and field meet they despise with only one major qualifying loss -- Arkansas senior men's 2-time NCAA Indoor pole vault champion Andrew Irwin -- Coach Chris Bucknam calls his No. 5 Razorbacks men ready to contend while Coach Lance Harter, calls his nationally No. 1 ranked SEC triple crown champion Razorbacks ready to go at the NCAA Outdoor Championships June 10-13 in Eugene, Ore.
Bucknam and Harter despise having to approach as vital the NCAA West Preliminary meet conducted last Thursday through Saturday in Austin, Texas concurrently with the NCAA East Preliminary in Jacksonville, Fla.
They deem the Prelim meets an unnecessary obstacle to elite athletes proven over the season's long haul.
Finishing 12th equates to first in the Prelim meets designed solely to advance the top dozen in each event in Austin and Jacksonville for a 24-competitor per event field in Eugene.
"We got everybody through and more," Harter said of his 17 qualifiers that are Eugene bound. "It should be a team that scores over 50 points that wins it. USC, Oregon, ourselves and Florida, we could be in that ballpark."
Bucknam acknowledged his Hogs suffered a setback losing 18-6 vaulter Irwin, of Mount Ida, but that his Hogs fared better than most.
"We came through with great efforts from our guys," Bucknam said. "We are in a great position to be in the mix for top four."
Both coaches say they would feel better if their teams could have trained last week rather than spend six days traveling and competing to set a preliminary field once formerly and fairly set by a national season's best performance descending order list.
Sports on 06/01/2015