Wally Hall

[Redheadedhog]

When Jack Crowe was fired, Wally was on his Sunday night TV program  in Little Rock and was quite upset about the state of the football program.  His 'informed' opinion that Watson Brown should be the next football coach.  I snorted and guffawed as it was to me, a second rate view, at best. 

[rlamb]

Doesn't everyone know Wally is a little, emaciated, thimble, minded goof ball who has no manners,
respect or feelings. I remember an editorial he wrote about the great Mickey Mantle not long after
his burial service in which he knew mean ole Mickey had elbowed and refused to talk with this poor
young innocent little cub reporter in the Yankee Stadium locker rooms back "in the day" and that
poor little reporter was him!

[HognitiveDissonance]

Doesn't everyone know Wally is a little, emaciated, thimble, minded goof ball who has no manners,
respect or feelings. I remember an editorial he wrote about the great Mickey Mantle not long after
his burial service in which he knew mean ole Mickey had elbowed and refused to talk with this poor
young innocent little cub reporter in the Yankee Stadium locker rooms back "in the day" and that
poor little reporter was him!

Or how about in 2011 when Kansas State's Collin Klein was in the running for the Heisman.
Coach Bill Snyder had a policy where his players were available to the media only at certain times.
Wally wrote about that, saying it might cost Klein some Heisman votes. I nearly had a heart attack.
The ONLY thing that should determine how many votes Collin Klein got for Heisman should be his play on the field. NOT for a policy his coach has. What control does a player have over that anyway. Wally's logic is that somehow if the media doesn't get to talk to Klein, they can't cover or report about him, and it might cost him votes. Uh, do you just watch the games?

Perfect example of how everything is self-serving to Wally and the media. It's all about making his life easier.

[Tusks]

Wally is a small idiot

[sowmonella]

Wally and Orville back in the day

[Athog]

I caught some of Wally Hall on the radio this morning.  There was a curious exchange.  They were talking about retiring jerseys, and Wally threw in an aside about Clyde Scott and Steve Little:   "You know they never asked Clyde Scott if they could un-retire his number for Steve Little, never once said anything to him about it, just went ahead and did it, Of course Steve was very dignified about it, but they never asked him at all." Now this could be my interpretation of Wally's tone, but it sounded to me like it wouldn't have been out of place if he had either prefaced it, or followed it with "Those Bastards".

A few minutes go by and a guy called in who said he had known Clyde Scott, who he called Scotty and Then Mr. Scott for the last 20 years and that Mr. Scott said that Frank came to him and said " Hey I've got this kicker and he want's your old number and would you care", and Clyde Scott said no, that it was fine, and that later Steve Little came to Clyde Scott and said I never demanded that they give me your number kind of apologetic and Mr. Scott Said it was no problem.     

Now these two stories are clearly different in both content and tone, So after being told by someone who apparently heard the story directly from Clyde Scott that the version he was telling was incorrect.  Wally doesn't say, oh well I guess I heard it wrong, or I guess I was told incorrectly, he just says " We heard two different stories, Imagine that", and carried on as if his story was still just as valid and correct as before.

Now this is a small thing, but I have noticed it a lot from Wally over the years. He really likes any little tidbit that makes the University and Frank in particular look bad, he likes to put in little asides about some kind of crappy behavior from the administration or whoever the AD at the U of A happens to be, and it's always in some unverifiable way like "everybody knew this is what happened but just didn't want to say", or "the unofficial story is...", " they way I heard it was...".   

I just wonder how many of these things over the years that were slanted just enough in a negative light that I have heard and believed without knowing the full story.   I'm curious just how much damage this negative slant has done as the Sports Editor for the one major statewide news paper left in the state. I don't need a homer to write articles, and I don't mind opinions either, but I find Wally difficult to take at face value any more, not just because of this one incident, but there have been a number of things like this that I have noticed over the years.   

Yawn!

[hawgjr]

Wally and Orville back in the day

Oh my!

[pghawg1]

 Looks just like Little ol Wally.     

[Jim Harris]

Pretty good source. Broyles is said to have visited Little's home six times while recruiting him.

The recruiting rules was something else back then. An assistant coach could basically live in a trailer just beyond the football field at Hooks, Texas, (the coach was Bill Shimek) and steer Billy Sims to OU. The head coach could visit a recruit as much as he want, as Broyles did with Steve Little. He personally recruited Little; Lon Farrell had started the recruiting of him, not even sure Lon was a full time assistant, just an office person then, but again, the rules were so different for recruiting. Even through 1981, you signed a conference letter of intent, then a month or so later you signed a national letter. When you signed a conference letter with Arkansas, that meant the other SWC schools could not recruit you anymore. The player still might sign with a team from another conference, though, on the national signing day.
And most of us, unless we were the high roller donors, wouldn't know who Arkansas was signing until it came out in the paper the next day. Occasionally we'd get some juicy stories, like Gale Sayers and OJ Simpson personally trying to recruit Jerry Eckwood for their alma maters.
Good times.

[Wild Bill Hog]

Wally is absolutely fearless when it comes to attacking fired coaches and dead people.

[jswineberiaskirk]

Umm you might have forgotten that Orville moved from the Gazette to the Democrat before the Gazette closed so to speak. Walter Hussman himself said Orville moving to the Democrat brought credibility to it. In other words Orville's move is thought by some to have helped hasten the Gazettes demise. Wally had no problem with it either. He recognized what effect the newspaper war could have on the Democrat. He also knew that getting someone of Orville's status to jump ship to the Democrat was a huge coup.

The future of the Gazette was already known by the time Orville moved. Still doesn't alter the fact that WH isn't fit to hold the great man's pencil.

[DeltaBoy]

I miss Robert Shields.

Yes and I used to tell folks he was better that By Golly Wally Hall.

[HawgWild]

"Wally, I'm not wearing any pants." Anyone remember the caller saying this to Wally on his short lived call in TV show? The look on Wally's face, priceless! 

I swore off Wally during the last days of HDN. He was piling on the pathetic coach pretty good on TSWNN one morning. He went on to mention that he'd not talked to HDN in 6 months. 6 months?! Your head sports writer doesn't ever talk with the HC of the flagship university's football program?! Never again I thought. And I haven't.

[LZH]

I've met Wally and Orville, both. Wasn't knocked out by either one.

[Pancetta]

I am now following Fake Wasly Hall

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/964311469218258944

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/963760024471396352

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/962520168625836033

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/962515357218099201

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/960727965653983232

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/960345132192190464

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/957717423049924613

https://twitter.com/FakeWallyHall/status/955802401969201153