Behind-The-Scenes Look at Yurachek’s Parting Message to UA Tennis Tells Troubling Story

“She only wanted to play for the Razorbacks,” Langford said. “She literally did not talk to another college coach or program. That was it. That was her dream.”

That dream — which, as her father put it, has been ripped out from under her — is not unique to Glennah.

Arkansas Emcee Feels “Blindsided” 

Born and raised in Little Rock, there was never a doubt about where Jack Lankford would go to college when he graduated from Catholic High 35 years ago — even if it meant being a walk-on.

“I chose to be a very, very small fish in a big pond as opposed to going to another school because man, I wanted to be a Razorback,” Lankford told BoAS.

He was actually a second-generation Arkansas tennis player, as his dad was on the team in 1957, and eventually made his own mark on the Hill. Playing from 1991-95, Lankford lettered two years and was named an SEC scholar athlete as a senior. He made such an impact that longtime coach Robert Cox created the “Jack Lankford Walk-On Award” in his honor.

Lankford has remained close to the program since graduating, even making the drive up from Little Rock to serve as the emcee for each home tennis match since Jay Udwadia, his teammate in the 1990s, returned to be the head coach four years ago.

That connection to the program gave him slightly more of a heads up on the news.

“We were completely blindsided,” Lankford said. “Jay called me after he talked to Coach Cox and his voice was shaking. We were all in shock. We couldn’t believe it.”

Other fellow tennis alumni, though, learned their former team was being dissolved through an email from Yurachek sent four minutes prior to the press release was sent to the media.

That letter, which Lankford provided to BoAS, had a subject line of “A Tennis Update” and its penultimate sentence read as follows: “Please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly if you have questions or would like to connect further.”

Therein lies the biggest issue for those impacted most by the decision, as Lankford said there was a “100% lack of transparency” through the process.

Godfather of Arkansas Tennis Speaks Up 

Robert Cox is the godfather of modern Arkansas tennis, playing for the UA from 1976-78 and then returning to his alma mater as the men’s head coach from 1987-2013. He led the Razorbacks to 321 wins, earning him a spot in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor, and then worked another seven years in facilities management before officially retiring.

Dedicating more than half of his life to the Razorbacks still hasn’t earned him a meeting with his boss from the last few years at the school.

Asked directly by Wess Moore, the co-host of Out of Bounds on 103.7 The Buzz, during an interview Tuesday, Cox revealed he had not spoken to Hunter Yurachek since the news broke.

“And it’s not from (a lack of) trying,” Cox said. 

Yurachek will, however, meet with Robert Cox on Thursday morning, according to Lankford. 

There, he’ll surely need to answer quite a few questions in private. Through Wednesday, the man who erased 71 years of men’s tennis and 46 years of women’s tennis with a press release hadn’t spoken about his decision publicly. 

A reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette asked Yurachek about it at last week’s track meet, but he declined to comment beyond his statement in the press release. There are also no plans for a formal press conference in which he’ll discuss the move.

No one within the tennis program was given advance notice that dropping the sport was even a possibility, either, which has rubbed many the wrong way. In his interview on The Buzz, Cox said the program was “thrown in the trash dump with no warning.”

“Give us a seat at the table,” Cox said. “Say, ‘Here’s the problem. We’re thinking about your program being cut.’ Let’s go out and raise some money. We could do it. We know we could do it.

“We weren’t even given the chance.”

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