Frank Broyles was the Arkansas program, and so much more

It was the morning of the Big Shootout — and back in the days before every week in college football had its own, made-for-TV slogan, Arkansas vs. Texas in 1969 was huger than big — and a distinguished visitor was visiting Frank Broyles’ home. The Razorbacks’ coach wasn’t there; he was with his team, going over last-minute details of the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup. But when the evangelist Billy Graham was welcomed by Broyles’ wife and young daughters, it was another indication of just how important the game was.

Graham would deliver the invocation. President Richard Nixon also attended, as did a Texas congressman named George H. W. Bush. Texas’ 15-14 victory after a fourth-quarter comeback propelled the Longhorns to the national championship.

And years later, Broyles got a pained look on his face in retelling the story — any story, really, that had anything to do with that game (he claimed to have never watched film of the loss). But Graham’s pregame visit to the Broyles’ home went awry when Lady, the Broyles’ German shepherd, nipped young Ned Graham.

“Our dog bit his son!” Broyles told me. And then, after a long pause, he added:

“That’s why we lost!”

That moment was quintessential Broyles, who died Monday at 92. If the Big Shootout’s result gnawed ever after at him, it was because beneath a southern gentleman’s façade beat as competitive a heart as you’d ever find. It was why in 19 seasons under Broyles, Arkansas won almost 70% of its games, and in 1964 won its only football national championship.

It was why Broyles was stellar during a long run as the color analyst sidekick to Keith Jackson on ABC’s college football games. And it was likely why, in the years after he became Arkansas’ athletic director, the school’s athletic programs morphed from sleepy to something much more.

In any of his endeavors, Broyles rarely lost.

Years ago — when Broyles was only 80 and still more than two years away from retiring from a half-century’s work at Arkansas — Barry Switzer told me: “There’s never been a better combination of head football coach and athletic director. There’s never been a guy that accomplished so much in both areas. He is the Arkansas program.”

For so long, Broyles was. Even now, 10 years after his retirement, the glittering facilities along Razorback Road on the edge of the university’s hilly campus are a testament to his legacy. As Broyles enticed major supporters into giving, Arkansas was ahead of its time in the collegiate arms race.

In moving Arkansas from the Southwest Conference to the Southeastern Conference in the early 1990s, Broyles helped jumpstart the first wave of conference realignment. And even after he’d retired, he was still considered by some a key influencer.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette recounts former Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, in 2011, taking a call from U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin “wanted to know if I knew Frank Broyles very well,” Beebe said, according to the newspaper. When Beebe said he happened to be riding in the same golf cart with Broyles, Manchin asked him to let Broyles know the University of West Virginia wanted into the SEC.

“I mentioned it to coach,” Beebe said, according to the newspaper. “And coach said, ‘Uh, we’re going to take Missouri.’”

By then Broyles was probably past his time as a powerbroker. But it was another illustration of his stature, for so many years, and far beyond Arkansas. Inside the state, he ranked among the most notable figures in the state’s history. Bill Clinton. Sam Walton. Frank Broyles. Maybe not in that order.

Broyles exerted power unknown at most schools and in most states. He didn’t always win. But he rarely lost. And when he occasionally created controversy, he usually smoothed things over with a silky, Georgia drawl.

Oddly, when it came to the actual games, Broyles was by his own admission a bag of jangled nerves. During his latter years as a coach, his pregame routine included a bowl of frosted cornflakes topped with ice cream, because “they were cold and sweet, and I could get those down.” And as an athletic director, he routinely left games early, unable to watch.

There was a day back in 2003 in Austin, Texas. Old rivals Arkansas and Texas were playing again, a temporary resumption of the series that had ended when Arkansas left for the SEC. Broyles and former Texas coach Darrell Royal — his fierce rival and close friend — were honored before the game. But shortly after kickoff, Broyles left the stadium and started walking. Eventually, he caught a ride to the airport, where he encountered some Texas fans.

“I could tell by their faces we’d won,” he said.

As he retold that story, Broyles smiled.