LITTLE ROCK — Dear Otus,
I know everyone is excited about the coming Razorbacks football season, but I would urge folks to stop buying those “cute” little Razorback piglets at the roadside stands that have popped up outside Fayetteville.
The pigs grow up and when released they turn into monsters.
- Les Sangliers, Huntington
Dear Les,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and a privilege to be able to pass along your warning.
The growing problem you mention is the very reason this is most likely the last season Arkansas will use Razorbacks as a mascot. The mascot’s very popularity is proving to be its undoing.
As any fan worth his season tickets knows, the Arkansas mascot was originally the Cardinal - a noble and beautiful passerine granivorous bird known for its distinctive crest, vibrant plumage and melodious call.
The mascot was chosen when the football team was formed in 1894. The university had gotten a good deal on used red and white uniforms from the defunct team of theJoplin (Mo.) School of Mines. The Cardinal matched the uniform colors and the rest was history. At least for 15 years.
In search of a fiercer mascot to better represent his team’s scrappy nature, head football coach Hugo Bezdek convinced the student body to switch to the Razorbacks in 1910.
The feral hog, Bezdek noted, was a common sight in the hills and hollows of the Ozarks and it seemed a logical choice.
Arkansas’ original feral hogs were descendants of the Duroc hogs brought to the future Natural State by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1541.
De Soto died in 1542 at what is now Lake Village on the spot now occupied by St. Mary’s School Parish Hall. Lake Chicot was part of the Mississippi River then andde Soto’s body is thought to be somewhere at the bottom of it.
Ill, and knowing his days were numbered, de Soto had freed his two pet pigs, Salchicha and Tocino, at the “Valley of the Vapors” (Hot Springs) so they could roam the beautiful Ouachita Mountains that he had so loved.
Fortunately, the indigenous natives of the area - the Tula tribe of the Caddo - believed the swine to be “the hogs of the forsaken” and let them be. Otherwise, there would have been no razorbacks.
Once released into the wild, all swine quickly revert to their feral nature. The Duroc hog, especially, grows 6-inch tusks in a month andcan reach enormous proportions of almost half a ton.
Feral hogs run in sounders of up to 50 and can easily lay to waste 40 acres of corn in a night.
Unfortunately, these creatures all start out as adorable little piglets and grow into adorable little shoats. People who have seen pot-bellied pigs believe any pig would make a good pet. Thousands of piglets are bought each fall from roadside stands on the highways leading to Fayetteville.
Soon the pigs are 200 pounds and too big for their backyards - enclosures they’ve turned into muddy, fly-covered wallows. Their owners release them and the hogs take to the hills.
Arkansas’ backwoods are now teeming with thousands of feral hogs. Some have reached “hogzilla” proportions and are encroaching on developed areas.
The university is seriously considering whether to return to its original Cardinals mascot in order to discourage the purchase of piglets that will only end up released into the wild.
As part of that consideration, the traditional “Wooo Pig Sooie!” Razorback cheerwill be replaced at pep squad halftime performances by the original Cardinals cheer adopted in 1898. Fans are asked to learn it and give it a fair shake.
The cheer mimics the call of the cardinal: “Purdee, purdee, purdee [two beats], whoit, whoit, whoit, whoit, whut-cheer, whut-cheer [two beats], wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat [one beat], cheeer, cheeer, cheeer, whut, whut, whut, whut!”
The cheer is repeated three times and ends with a mighty “Car-din-alls!”
Imagine 50,000 screaming fans in unison. It should chill the mighty Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles when it’s unveiled on Sept. 4.
Until next time, Kalaka says to find out details on the proposed mascot change, log onto arkansasrazorbacks.com and click the link for “Brand New Look.”
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Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail:
HomeStyle, Pages 32 on 08/14/2010