Why Hog fans are a special, specific kind of crazy

[oldbooniehog]

Before I start, I want to give the disclaimer that not ALL Hog fans are crazy like this, but enough of them are for folks to notice it, even outside Arkansas.

Hog fans are crazy. But a very special, specific kind of crazy.

Hog fans have a lot in common with the literary character Blanche DuBois from the play "A Streetcar Named Desire." The main thing that Hog fans share with Blanche is DESPERATION.

Hog fans are crazy because they are desperate, and that desperation makes them mainly self-destructive, just like Blanche.

Hog fans are desperate for so many things it's sad, really. Hog fans are desperate to win big. But the Hogs haven't really won much of anything since 1989 (last time Hogs won a football championship in any conference) and haven't won much on a national level since the 1960s.

For the last 23 years, Arkansas has finished a football season ranked exactly five times, with only one of those in the Top 10. Arkansas has been to exactly one BCS bowl in the history of the BCS, and has never won an SEC conference championship, and still hasn't beaten Florida in SEC league play.

Hog fans are so desperate to win it makes them fragile and mercurial (yeah, go look it up). Hog fans are downright bipolar compared to other fan bases.

The desperation of Hog fans makes them pump up the highs way higher than they should, and push the lows way lower than they should.

Example, back in 2003 when Arkansas beat #5 Texas in Austin, for the next few weeks, crazy Hog fans, including a then certain radio show host,  started saying the words "National Championship" and really really believed that Arkansas had a real shot of winning it all. It was a pipe dream built of desperation, and of course, the bottom dropped out of the season with the infamous 0-for-October. In all, Arkansas wound up 9-4 that year, but left lots of Hog fans mad and upset over "what could have been."

Yes, the desperation of Hog fans made a 9-4 season with a bowl win and win over Texas disappointing and sad and unsatisfying.

But Hog fans never let history or facts or reality keep them from pushing highs way higher than they should, and also pushing the lows way lower than they should.

Closely connected to the desperation to win is the desperation for "national respect."

You will grow tired reading the threads on this board about the Hogs' lack of national respect, or how ESPN hates Arkansas, or this sports talking head hates Arkansas, or that sports talking head hates Arkansas.

I remember the huge thread that was spawned when LeBron James issued one tweet about Arkansas, and Hog fans so desperate for respect of any kind, went ga-ga over that one tweet.

It was, in a word, pathetic.

Arkansas gets every bit of national respect that a program that has had five ranked finishes in 23 years, one Top 10 finish in 23 years, zero SEC conference championships and only one BCS bowl appearance deserves to get, and not one bit more.

Hog fans deep and abiding bi-polar desperation makes them act in very funny ways.

A typical Hog fan action is to totally and completely obsess over the one coach, one player, one recruit, one stadium addition, one whatever magic thing it is that will bring a National Championship and National Respect to Arkansas, and obsess and obsess over it until it begins to destroy them.

So, in addition to being desperate like Blanche DuBois, Hog fans have a lot in common with Gollum from Lord of the Rings, too.

We've got to get Coach X and nobody will do, or we're doomed, doomed!

We've got to keep Coach X, and nobody else can do what he does, or we're doomed, doomed!

We've got to get rid of Coach X, and get Coach Y, or we're doomed, doomed!

NO! No! We can't do any better than Coach X! We've got to keep him, or we're doomed! Doomed!

If we don't get highly-regarded Recruit A, we're doomed! Doomed, I tell you, doomed!

It gets really old after a while. But Hog fans engage in these crazy obsessions without ceasing.

Somebody on another thread referenced that at least Hog fans weren't poisoning trees or anything. True, but that poster misses the whole point of the infamous Bama tree poisoning. The tree poisoning was an act of hatred towards a true rival.

Instead of poisoning trees associated with a rival, Hog fans are much more likely to go after each other, go after their own coaches, their own players, their own athletic directors, because the truly desperate always become self-destructive in the end.

Example, driving home from Fayetteville in 2008 after Arkansas squeaked out 28-24 win over Western Illinois, I listened to the Fifth Quarter postgame show. And caller after caller dialed in to rant and rave over how over-rated Bobby Petrino was, and how he should be fired right then, and how Arkansas would never be worth anything with that idiot as coach because all he could muster was a come-from-behind, four-point win over Western Friggin' Illinois.

And now that Petrino put the whole athletic department in jeopardy of 150 lawsuits and lied to his boss, the same folks are yelling "No! No! Keep him! We can't DO any better than Bobby! We're doomed! Doomed!"

And going back to the poisoned trees thing....Arkansas is even desperate for a true rival. There have been and will be innumerable threads on this board about "Who is our True Rival?" because we don't have one in the SEC yet.

We don't have one in the SEC because to get a rival, you have to beat that other team several times with important things on the line...like national championships, BCS bowl games, conference titles.

But Hog fans have a special kind of crazy, and it's born of desperation....years and years and years of it. And it makes lots of Hog fans mean and crazy liable to turn on their own.

So no, Hog fans are not like Texas fans or Alabama fans or OU fans.
Hog fans are their very own special kind of desperate, bi-polar crazy.