Hog Calls

Losing championship doesn't take away happiness

FAYETTEVILLE -- It's unimaginable that any college baseball coach anywhere will work harder than Dave Van Horn to get his team back to the College World Series positioned to win the national championship his Razorbacks almost won Wednesday in Omaha, Neb.

And it's hard to imagine anyone living better if, try though he will, he never completely succeeds.

Living a great life with a great wife and working what he deems the greatest job at the greatest place allows inner peace, Arkansas' baseball coach implied Thursday night in Omaha.

The Razorbacks had just lost 5-0 Thursday to the Oregon State Beavers the winner-take-all championship rubber game of the three-game series that Arkansas appeared to have in hand in Wednesday's Game Two.

Winning Game 1 4-1 Tuesday night, Arkansas led Wednesday night, 3-2 with two out and two strikes in the ninth when Cadyn Grenier's foul fly eluded the onrushing grasps of Razorbacks first baseman Jared Gates going out, right fielder Eric Cole coming in and second baseman Carson Shaddy cutting across. Reprieved, Grenier tied the game with an RBI single followed by Trevor Larnach's game-winning two-run home run.

So close. So devastatingly close for the coach it seems. It marked Van Horn's seventh CWS starting with two coaching Nebraska and five for Arkansas' 1982 second baseman coaching Arkansas succeeding his retired Arkansas coach, Norm DeBriyn whose five CWS Razorbacks trips also include a national runner-up.

"I'm OK," Van Horn said Thursday in Omaha. "I wanted those guys to have that championship. I wanted to win that championship for Coach DeBriyn, the former players and the state. But if I don't win another game life's going to go on. I'm good. My life's great to be honest with you. I'm a lucky individual."

Watching him Friday with wife Karen and his daughters and his appreciating some 250 Hog-calling fans as his Razorbacks got off the bus at Baum Stadium after their flight to Fayetteville's Drake Field, you knew those weren't empty words that Van Horn uttered in Omaha.

He's driven to do his utmost toward winning what he hasn't won but won't let that drive steer him from appreciating what he has.

After today this column takes a summer hiatus until reappearing during the Razorbacks' August football preseason.

In the meantime, with tickets available through calling 501-733-4011 or 501-327-0252 or any board member of the Arkansas Sportscasters/Sportswriters Hall of Fame, the ASCSW's Hall of Fame induction banquet with former Razorbacks All-American/NBA legend Sidney Moncrief as the keynote speaker, is set next Saturday for a 6 p.m. banquet program at the Centennial Country Club in Conway.

Dave Woodman, the retired longtime KARK-TV sports director and former Razorbacks football and basketball network play-by-play man is Saturday's sportscaster inductee into the Hall of Fame with Cliff Garrison, the former Hendrix College athletic director and basketball coach, receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Barring a recount, I am to be next Saturday's sportswriter inductee.

Sports on 06/30/2018

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