Remember that time you went back to the power plant, wanting to see old friends and colleagues, shoot the breeze with them, talk about old times *right after* a thunderstorm took out power to half the city? You’d been gone from that job for 15 years and almost no one who worked there knew who you were, which, of course, didn’t matter because, by God, you were Employee of the Month half the time you called the place home.
Or how about when you traveled back to your old office after having moved on to bigger things, even if you never reached the heights you achieved there at the place you were visiting, and the folks who worked there now were just finishing up an audit or an inventory. Remember that?
Of course you don’t. Because in no industry are former employees, no matter how great they were, allowed to return without warning and have practically unfettered access to the things they considered once familiar.
Apparently, Jarius Wright and Joe Adams didn’t realize it worked that way. Or, at least, Jarius Wright and his wife didn’t.
Unnecessary Drama That Arkansas Doesn’t Need
Wright and Adams are, arguably, the two best wide receivers in school history. At worst, they’re two of the top five. They’re second and third on the school’s all-time receptions list, second and fifth in career yards receiving and second and sixth in career touchdown catches. The duo played with the Razorbacks together from 2008-2011 and were linchpins of the Arkansas offense under Bobby Petrino, then head coach, and current offensive coordinator, of Arkansas football. They were back in Fayetteville on Saturday for Arkansas’ game against UAB and sought access to the Razorbacks locker room minutes after the Hogs’ C- game against a school that shut down its football program less than a decade ago.
According to a Facebook post by Mary Katherine Bentley Wright, who is married to Jarius, someone other than Petrino and athletic director Hunter Yurachek is to blame for, in her words, “Jarius and Joe … not being allowed entry after all they did for that program.” The implication being it’s coach Sam Pittman’s fault. Plenty of context lacks from Mrs. Wright’s post. Nowhere does it mention what time the players wanted in the locker room, but as she stated security allowed them, practically, to the front doors. (It should be added that eyewitness David Bazzel’s account of the security guards permissiveness contradicts this.)
The post also implies former program greats – or at least those two former program greats – should have been allowed in to see their former coach, who, according to Mrs. Wright, wanted to see his former players, as though they’re entitled entry.
Coaches Run Programs How They See Fit
New Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari has a famously close relationship with his former players. Ex-Kentucky ballers have already swung by Fayetteville to shoot around and see friendly faces. It’s lovely to see. Such visits have also happened in the offseason, two months (right now; most of the visits happened during the summertime, even) before the Razorbacks’ first game. It’s also Calipari’s prerogative to handle access as he sees fit. The PR bump looks nice and all, but I question whether a one-day visit is really helping make the current team any better on the court and any more of a threat to break into a 2025 Final Four for which they are not one of the favorites, according to CBS betting.
Nowhere else in the country, in no other industry, do former employees – and make no mistake, Adams and Wright were for all intents and purposes employees; they just weren’t legally paid for their services – allowed to just drop in. And the pair of players almost certainly just dropped in. Had they been told ‘no’ in advance, they wouldn’t have bothered to walk down to the locker room in the first place or would have made different plans to see their former head coach.
Some may argue that former players are more akin to former students, as opposed to former employees. Former students return to their school for homecoming, visit their favorite bar. They might even stay the night in their old fraternity house on a summer night during a reunion. What they aren’t doing, though, is any of that during prime hours for the current students. Drop into Dickson Street on a Saturday night during the school year and see how many Gen Xers or Boomers you run into outside of the restaurant-pubs. It ain’t gonna be many.
For whatever reason, former players often feel entitled to revisit the past in the place they once called home. Usually, coaches and staffs are accommodating to such visits. The positive vibes picked up by taking pictures of the visitation and subsequent social-media shares alone strengthens the brand. Branding is massive in this day and age, almost as much as actual results, even. And former players should generally feel as though they’re welcomed back to the school, too. But only under certain circumstances and typically only with clearance. Especially only with clearance minutes before or after a game. Offseason? Sure. A practice a couple days before a game? Why not. Just get acceptance, first.
Former Arkansas Football Players Have Thoughts
Another player from the Wright/Adams era told Best of Arkansas Sports that “…we [the program] need to use our Hog legends more, especially the ones in the state still willing and able … the times of success in the program and guys who went pro and represented Arkansas should be showcased way more in our football program.”
An Arkansas player from the early 1990s posed a question and a proclamation that hit the nail on the head. Even if he didn’t mean to.
“Imagine Julio Jones and Derrick Henry showing up to an Alabama game and somebody says you can’t come in the locker to say hello to Nick Saban,” he wrote. “It’s also commonplace at places like Ohio State and Alabama for former players to be admitted into the locker after all the business is taken care of. I would also add that the level of access changes with each regime.”
Something to pull from all three sentences, frankly. The first is “imagine Julio Jones and Derrick Henry.” Julio Jones and Derrick Henry are not just former Alabama greats. They’re NFL greats. A good chunk of Alabama players know who they are from their NFL careers more than their time at Alabama.
That isn’t the case with Wright or Adams, who, while great players for Arkansas, aren’t exactly national names and outside of the below play weren’t during their time in Fayetteville, either.
Fans’ Viewpoint Is Often Skewed
Joe Public severely overestimates current players’ knowledge of past history, especially if they didn’t grow up cheering for the particular college team for which they now play. The “imagine” part means the scenario he described is conjured out of thin air. Alabama never beat an AAC team by 10 points and had a situation in which Jones and Henry asked to be let in. Apples, meet oranges.
As Carter Bryant, who hosts a YouTube channel for LSU and Arkansas, said, it behooves the most elite programs to let their former superstars back into the fold. They eventually turn into donors worth mega millions after prolonged NFL careers and the years worth of contracts that come with such a tenure. Arkansas has very few such players.
Whether Ohio State and Alabama admit former players into the locker room is moot as to what Arkansas should do. Your mama always said “If Joey jumps off a bridge, you gonna do it, too?” The player included a caveat in the same sentence: because Mrs. Wright didn’t state when the action took place, assuming that business was taken care of is wrong. The timing is unclear and makes the situation foggy at best.
Finally, the former Arkansas player said the level of access changes with each regime. So, people have different preferences, desires and ways of handling things. That’s life. Joey’s bedtime may be 10 p.m. That doesn’t mean yours is going to be.
Former Players Don’t Get Free Rein
Let other people run their lives the way they want. It isn’t hurting you, except maybe your feelings. Hell, most of us are off-put by friends and family dropping by our houses unannounced. Jokes have been made for generations about overbearing in-laws who wear out their welcome or don’t know their place.
Some of us have even had that happen mere moments before or after an argument with our spouse or children. Difficult moments need space and time. They don’t need interlopers in the heat of the passion, even if said interlopers are beloved. Yurachek is best served by keeping out of it and letting his coaches run their programs the way the best see fit. If Malik Monk wants to visit Arkansas because Calipari is there now and Calipari wants him around, that’s between Monk and Calipari and not the Razorbacks fans who once despised their Natural State brethren because he chose Kentucky.
These things should be understood, not having to be forcefully pointed out in a column. They should be standard. They should be of general decency. Instead, half the people will disagree, some of whom fervently. Those folks will argue something about the players deserving better treatment. As publisher of this site, Evin Demirel, wrote, though, at what point, then, should access be denied? Does a player have to be in the record books? Did they have to have played for two or more years? Do they need to be all-conference? Letting anyone who wants to drop in on a whim would provide program discontinuity and distraction. Doing it for one means you do it for all, lest you want to be seen as playing favorites. And don’t fans go by the mantra “Once a Hog, always a Hog?”
Only in sports, baby. Only in sports.
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On the Morning Mayhem radio show on Monday morning, Bazzel said that he and Steve Sullivan, the KATV Channel 7 sports anchor, ran into Joe Adams and Jarius Wright in the immediate aftermath of the 37-27 win at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
See more here:
More discussion of former players and the Hogs program here:
More on Arkansas football from Best of Arkansas Sports:
