FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A few days have passed since Arkansas knocked off Tennessee to advance to the College World Series, offering plenty of time to reflect.
A lot will be remembered, but one thing that needs to become a major legacy of this win is how it was celebrated. When Arkansas wins its next super regional at home, or on the road if there happens to be a decent amount of fans, the Razorbacks need to make it a tradition that they take the trophy and walk out through the fans in the stadium.
This is a good option for a few reasons. The first is such a tradition takes the temptation to do a dogpile out of the equation.
There may be no more poorly thought out celebration than baseball’s dogpile, especially after a super regional win. One of the team’s best pitchers and often the shortstop or catcher end up on bottom of this thing while roughly 40 guys dive full force on top of them, crushing them under thousands of pounds of bone and flesh.
It’s hard to imagine how this hasn’t resulted in severe injury or possible suffocation of a major player on a team at some point in time. It’s a dumb, dangerous thing to do after winning the College World Series with no games left to play in the season, much less with a trip to Omaha still ahead of a team.
The second biggest reason this needs to happen is it gives players who truly appreciate the program and the huge part Razorbacks fans play in it to show gratitude and offer thanks while soaking in a final special moment. It doesn’t matter how many times someone turns on the television, if Arkansas is playing at home, the announcers are going to talk about the fans because there are few, if any, places like Baum-Walker, especially at night during SEC play.
Shortstop Wehiwa Aloy, who is responsible for grabbing the super regional trophy and beginning the trek though the stands to the concourse while his teammates followed, has spent the past two years feeling the ultimate support fans have shown not only himself, but his fellow Hawaiians, Kuhio Aloy and Nolan Souza, as they coped with life so far from home.
Even when Aloy first arrived and he struggled through a bout of trying to be too aggressive at the plate, leading to a large number of strikeouts, the Arkansas fans stuck with him in their leis and Hawaiian shirts as he worked through it. When he finally found his footing, they waived Hawaiian flags alongside Arkansas flags in celebration.
So, after all that time feeling the love from the dugout and the field, it was time to take this final opportunity to reflect that love by making memories with fans who got to experience the players coming to them to celebrate, trophy in hand. For the young children who were in the concourse that day, especially the Little Leaguers who were up there, it must have been the memory of a lifetime.
Speaking of taking advantage of one final moment, relief pitcher Will McEntire of Bryant has made no bones about how much his time as a Razorback has meant to him during his appearances on 103.7 “The Buzz” in Little Rock. In one of his latest appearances, he opined for the opportunity to close his career by climbing on the mound at Baum-Walker one last time to help deliver head coach Dave Van Horn another chance at a national championship in what would be his final appearance in Fayetteville.
Alas, the starting pitching was too strong, and like much of the Hogs bulll pen, he didn’t get an opportunity to take the mound during either round of the postseason. His moment to make a memory in front of Hogs fans one last time and soak in their love was gone.
However, by taking the celebration through the stands, McEntire still got a chance to salvage a powerful memory while feeling the love of those who have stuck with him as he’s evolved into a dominant reliever. That’s a memory no one else is going to have other than his brothers on the team.
He still got his final moment at Baum-Walker, even if it wasn’t as he imagined it. He not only got to feel the passion of the fans, but the opportunity to personally thank them while he celebrated that he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
It was a great scene and a great moment. It was the perfect way for so many guys who just played their last game on the University of Arkansas campus to go out.
Hopefully, it becomes a new tradition that fans get to see play out over and over for years to come. There are certainly worse, more dangerous ways to celebrate such an important milestone in a season that 292 other teams don’t have the opportunity to experience.
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