Barry Foster may have destined to be a Razorback from his youth.
Prior to Foster’s address of the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday afternoon, presenter Jim Rasco told the crowd a story from Foster’s childhood, when a large fire in his neighborhood caused a large group of pigs to get loose from a yard. Foster corralled them, and the next day, he had his picture in the local newspaper for “saving the hogs.”
“Barry Foster was destined to play for the Hogs at a very young age,” Rasco said.
Foster laughed at that and other stories shared at the club’s final meeting of the season at the Embassy Suites in west Little Rock.
Foster led the Razorbacks in rushing as a sophomore and junior, helping them to the 1988 Southwest Conference championship and leaving school after three seasons to enter the 1990 NFL Draft.
“Arkansas is probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing football…. Our teams were very successful,” Foster said, adding that he played with a ton of teammates that “should’ve made it to the NFL.”
A first-team All-Southwest Conference performer, Foster was named the 1992 UPI AFC Player of the Year after the Hurst, Texas native led the NFL with 1,690 rushing yards that season — a single-season record for the franchise. In his career, Foster rushed for 3,943 yards and 28 touchdowns before his career was cut short by injuries in 1994.
Foster, who played in one of the most memorable Arkansas games in War Memorial Stadium history, a 45-39 victory over Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Andre Ware and Houston in 1989, shared his thoughts on the possibility of the Razorbacks moving games out of the stadium.
“I’ve always enjoyed the Little Rock games,” Foster said, adding that the program shouldn’t abandon Little Rock just yet. “If you’re winning you get support; if you’re losing, people don’t come out [to the stadium].”
Foster was the first Arkansas player to leave the program early to enter the NFL Draft, a move that angered a number of Razorback fans, as Foster remembers it.
It all came to a head on draft day in 1990, when Foster said he was supposed to be taken in the second round by the Cleveland Browns. The Browns ended up drafting Michigan running back LeRoy Hoard.
“I’m like, oh my God, I made a mistake, I should’ve stayed in school,” Foster joked, adding that his reason for leaving was that he didn’t mesh with incoming coach Jack Crowe after former coach Ken Hatfield left to coach at Clemson.
He was eventually taken in the fifth round by the Steelers.
Foster now works as a middle school physical education teacher Lewisville, Texas and coaches football, basketball and track. He was later named to the Arkansas Razorbacks Team of the Century and Team of the Decade for the 1980s.
The Foster family still has an Arkansas connection, however. Foster’s son, Barry Jr., is a freshman forward on the Harding soccer team.
Read more about this story in tomorrow’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.