New kid on the block feeling right at home
Kevin Scarbinsky of The Birmingham News is always a good read. Today he has a column about Arkansas’ new basketball coach, John Pelphrey. Here’s an excerpt:
It was March 13, 1992, at the BJCC Arena, the second day of the first SEC Basketball Tournament after expansion. Kentucky was finishing off Vanderbilt when a new era began.
The Arkansas players walked into the arena for the next game. Arkansas fans shook the rafters and the conference with a rousing chant of “Woo! Pig! Sooie!”
Pelphrey, a Kentucky senior at the time, called it “unsettling” and “kind of intimidating.”
“We were like, `What is this?’” he said Wednesday. “It was almost like a `How dare you?’ mentality from our side of it. It’s pretty cool now for me to be on the other side of it.”
Pelphrey has crossed over SEC basketball’s version of the old money/new money divide. It took Billy Gillispie saying no and Dana Altman saying yes and then changing his mind, but the old Kentucky player is the new Arkansas coach.
It’s a new world after Pelphrey’s five years as head coach at South Alabama. One clue: His new courtesy car is a Hummer.
2 Responses to “New kid on the block feeling right at home”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Give coach Pel some time to get the team chemistry down and his razorbacks are going to be very special. In fact, my guess is that John Pelphrey is going to be very special, too. Slackerball is over and down with. I see many good years ahead. GO HOGS!
I hope Pelphrey will show Houston what discipline is when players violate team and university rules. This program can be a model of sacrifice and unselfishness by the players. Take care of business and stay out of trouble. Be winners and role models for the next generation. Be a really special team that gives the hog nation respectability.