Where the Red Beard Grows: The History of the Razorback!

Look at this picture!
Razorback, Beard, and sword? Best picture ever!

Well readers, around these parts we like things red and hairy (hence the blog title). So, I thought I would write about the Razorback Mascot, what it is, & where it came from, because it was not always so...

This guy will mess you up!

Pigs are not American. I know we all would like to think they are, but they're not. They were brought here by an explorer named Hernando De Soto. Hernando was a famous conquistador in Spain because he killed tons of Natives in Peru (what a thing to be famous for, right?). After he went home, he showed the King and Queen all the gold and stuff he had stolen, and they were ecstatic! They wanted him to go back, so in 1539 he went back to the new world, only this time with more soldiers. He was going to beat Johnny Depp to the fountain of youth, or something... He ended up exploring much of the southern United States, except for Mississippi (and I don't blame him).

Fun fact: The upper route of his journey (Carolinas) looks like a Pig head!

He discovered Arkansas and spent lots of his time there. Even discovered Hot Springs!

For this mega long hiking trip, he packed tons of weapons, supplies, and... You guessed it! Pigs! For his 2 year journey, he packed 200 pigs onto one ship(He took 9 ships. I'd hate to be on the smelly pig ship).

Tried to market the water at Hot Springs as 'DeSoto Pop'.

Well just like family road trips where you let the kids out at the rest stop to stretch their legs, some of the Spaniards let the pigs out in Florida, but they wouldn't get back in the ship! This is known as pig dumping...

This is known as pig flying.

Just kidding. Its normal to let your pigs run around and get fat. Then you go looking in the woods for him when your hungry. In fact, in the early US, you would go to the local county seat and register your pigs ears. See, you would cut your pigs ears in a certain shape, and if you saw a pig in the woods with a different ear cut, you couldn't kill it. It wasn't your pig... anyways...

Wild feral pigs roaming the country side have been a major issue recently. They breed so fast, and eat so much the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture says they do about $800 Million dollars of property damage a year. Most states now have open season on wild hogs. You see em? You can kill em. Check this out:

Hogzilla. A true story.

Wild Razorbacks, being famous for their prickly back, tenacity, and willingness to kill everything has shown up many times in popular culture:

Bufford Hollis is the secret Identity for a Marvel Super hero named Razorback. He is from Texarkana Arkansas, is super strong, wears an electrified boars head, & has the super power to pilot, drive, and operate anything, yes anything. He built himself a super big rig that had rockets and guns and stuff. He and Spier-man teamed up to kill a demon or something...

In 1984, an Australian horror film was released called, well, Razorback.

Desoto is famous because not only did he discover the best state ever, but introduced this tasty beast into our hearts and stomachs! How, though, did the Razorback become the mascot for the University of Arkansas? It wasn't always the mascot for the U of A...

In 1895, the Arkansas student body had a vote to pick their official university color. It was between Cardinal and Heliotrope. Cardinal won (thank goodness! Can you imagine? "Here comes the Arkansas heiotropes!") and along with the color came the mascot. From about 1894 to 1910, we were the Arkansas Cardinals. Who knew right? I did, thats why I'm telling you...

So we were know as the Cardinals, till one fateful night...

Arkansas football coach Hugo Bezdek was coming back from an Amazing win. On October 30th, 1909, The Arkansas Cardinals just beat the snot out of Louisiana State 16-0 in a big game. The team was headed back with the coach on the train that night, and when they rolled into the Fayetteville station, there, waiting, was the usual, anxious crowd of students and faculty waiting to hear from the coach on how their team faired. When the steam engine rolled to a stop, the students swarmed in. When Coach Bezdek stepped out of the caboose the air filled with questions. Coach Bezdek raised his hands to silence the crowd, and it quited, except one question was shouted over all. "Hey Coach, How'd our boys do?!"

Coach Bezdek said in a quiet, sad tone, "Well, they didn't play like football players..." and he looked at his feet. The crowd was silent. Then, with a roar he yelled, "They played like a bunch of Wild Razorback Hogs!" And, as they say, they crowd went wild...

The Newspapers started reporting, not about the Razorback Cardinals, but about "Coach Hugo Bezdek and his Wild Razorback Hogs!" The new nickname became wildly (pun intended) popular. The next year the Arkansas student body took another vote, but this time it was about the mascot. In 1910, the Arkansas student body voted the 'Razorback Hog' as the Official Mascot of the University of Arkansas.