The Arkansas Razorbacks are 2-5. Here is another L for their record:
Blake Anderson got jokes pic.twitter.com/Bzz405qE3I
— Jay Bir (@TheJayBir) October 23, 2017
That’s Arkansas State Red Wolves head coach Blake Anderson at a speaking engagement on Monday. Anderson tells a story about a community service trip he and some of his players recently made to an elementary school classroom.
Please now follow along with me as I retell this somewhat long joke.
The school was in Jonesboro, Ark., which is ASU’s city. But, as Anderson tells the story, there were a bunch of Arkansas signs hanging everywhere and not a single Arkansas State sign to be found. Anderson suggested that perhaps the classroom could get an ASU sign, but the teacher said that she and her students were all Arkansas fans.
What happens next, per Anderson:
“She said, ‘Everybody in the class who is a Razorback, please raise your hand.’ Well there’s about 30 kids in this class, second-grade class. Everybody but one raises their hand, and quick, like they’ve been trained to do so.”
But there’s one little girl who doesn’t raise her hand.
“It kind of made my heart big. I ask her name. Her name was Ginny. And I said, ‘Ginny, are you not a Razorback?’ And she said, ‘Oh, no, I’m a Red Wolf.’ And that made me feel even better.”
The teacher, an Arkansas fan, tried to intervene, asking why the girl liked Arkansas State. She replied that both of her parents were Red Wolves, so she was, too.
“You don’t have to be exactly what your parents are,” the teacher told the girl, according to Anderson. “You can do your own thing.”
The punchline of the joke comes now, if you’ve been skimming.
Then the teacher asked a cutting question.
“What if your parents were both losers?”
And the girl shot back.
“Well, then I would be a Razorback.”
It’s extra funny because Arkansas State is better than Arkansas.
The Red Wolves are 4-2 to the Hogs’ 2-5.
In S&P+, Arkansas State ranks 35th to Arkansas’ 90th.
Arkansas and Arkansas State have never actually met in football.
The powers that be in the state, most notably former Hogs coach Frank Broyles, thought it best to promote Arkansan unity by not pitting the two against each other. They’re the only major college programs in the state.
But the Red Wolves’ record against the Hogs is now 1-0.