The glorious day the Razorbacks beat Texas in 1971

Robert Medley, Fort Smith Southwest Times Record
·7 min read

The glory of football is returning. It starts in the heat of August, but the fall days bring back the pigskins, or are they made of cow?

Football. American football. For the professionals, the colleges, the high schools, the youth, the pads are on.

My first memories of college football come from the 1970 season, watching the red and white of the University of Oklahoma and the white and red and the University of Wisconsin as the Sooners had a home opener in my home state. I'm 58 now and I still love the crimson and cream and the cardinal and white. And I hate to say it to my beloved Fort Smith and Arkansas side, but it is in that order.

My father, Robert Medley Sr., took me to my first Sooners game when I was in kindergarten. I never knew a person could walk so far as we did from a parking spot to Owen Field. Thus, I was raised a Sooner. My mother was born and raised a Razorback. Her side has deep roots in Arkansas and Sebastian County.

Dad, who was from Oklahoma City, attended the University of Arkansas from 1957-1959 and helped start a Kappa Alpha fraternity chapter there. Then he returned to Oklahoma City, where he met my mom, Nancy Lynn Durden while she was living there.

The Durdens called Fort Smith home for decades. Harmon Asa Durden Jr. was my grandfather, who lived on May Avenue. He took a job in Oklahoma City, where my parents met, selling GMC vehicles and he lived there for a few years. Harmon was on the Fort Smith Grizzlies' 1929 offensive line in football. He met my grandmother Hilda at a Fort Smith vs. Van Buren football game at Mayo-Thompson Stadium. My dad, Bob, graduated from OU in 1960, so I've been a lifelong Sooner.

Granddad Durden of Fort Smith gave my brother and me matching white football helmets with red Razorbacks on them for Christmas in 1970. Somehow those Arkansas decals were roughly worn and torn off and replaced with OU emblems from a local sporting goods store.

So it's fair to say that Arkansas is second fiddle in my heart. I never went whole Hogs. But there was a day in 1971, that the Hogs stole half my heart and they are still there in second place today.

Mom's diary

I opened Nancy Lynn's 1971 diary and turned to the date of the glorious day I wanted to write about now. On that page in her diary, a green, hard-cover book with gold swirling designs and the words Daily 1971 on the cover, above the word, appointments. Turn to Saturday, Oct. 16, 1971. As I flipped through July and August to get to October I hoped to find the full story of how we watched Arkansas beat Texas at Uncle Tom's house on her birthday.

The first page Jan. 1, 1971, her cursive writing fills the page. After describing a Mexican chicken meal on New Year's Eve and the cornbread and black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, that log ends with, 6:30 p.m., Bob (Dad) and Rob, (me) watching Notre Dame beat Texas on T.V. at home."

Nice way to start a new year with your dad, when I was a 6-year-old in kindergarten.

When I got to Saturday, Oct. 16 I found on that page there were no words. It was blank. Well, mom was pregnant with her fourth child and may not have felt up to writing, and I think she stayed her home, where she was raised, while we were watching the game. Pretty sure she was taking a nap at the house in the May-Lecta-Sweet neighborhood where houses still smell exactly the same inside. That's where a cocker spaniel named Boo used to rest on on hot days, a cool place under the house where he could get behind a brick in the backyard that hid his entrance door. A dogwood tree still grows in the yard.

Harmon and Hilda Durden of Fort Smith, Arkansas, were the grandparents of Times Record senior staff writer Robert Medley. Here they are pictured in the 1950s. Harmon Durden played offensive line at Fort Smith High School on the Grizzlies in 1929. He met Hilda at a game.
Harmon and Hilda Durden of Fort Smith, Arkansas, were the grandparents of Times Record senior staff writer Robert Medley. Here they are pictured in the 1950s. Harmon Durden played offensive line at Fort Smith High School on the Grizzlies in 1929. He met Hilda at a game.

I am going to do it now from what I saw, although, I won't scribble her book, just here.

The Durden grandparents were happy to send me and my brother to Uncle Tom Young's house. My grandmother Hilda's sister was Aunt Virginia Young, or Aunt Jidge.

I can still see the house that fall Saturday. I remember this all in color, not in black and white, like many of my dreams seem to be in.

It was the week after Oklahoma had beaten Texas on ABC-TV. I watched that game at my grandfather Thurman Medley's house in Oklahoma City. The next weekend my brother, Daniel, dad and I were at Uncle Tom's house watching Arkansas play Texas at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

I can't hear any sound from Bud Wilkinson or Chris Schenkel on a grainy YouTube video of the game.

Here is what I saw from the living room chair. Uncle Tom wore a red vest with a white hog emblem on it. I think he had a pipe in one hand and a Scotch in a glass in the other and Uncle Tom and Aunt Jidge dressed like it was 1951, even though this was 1971. I was in first grade that fall. They did not have children, but they had us for the game.

I think Uncle Tom was pretty surprised at how interested I was in this game. Wow, Arkansas had red jerseys that looked like OU! Wow, Arkansas had white pants with red stripes! Oh wow! Arkansas had a quarterback, Joe Ferguson, who wore No. 11, just like Oklahoma had quarterback Jack Mildren that year also wearing No. 11.

Arkansas, like Oklahoma had not beaten Texas since 1966. Texas had back-to-back national championship seasons in 1969 and 1970 when they were voted No. 1, in the days when No. 1 was crowned before the bowl games.

In living color, I saw Arkansas beat Texas 31-7 that year, a week after Oklahoma beat Texas 41-27. I heard Uncle Tom's hog wild cheers. The smiles were 180 miles wide from Oklahoma City to Fort Smith.

It would be my mother's last birthday. Later that year, Oklahoma would lose their Game of the Century against Nebraska on ABC, much like Arkansas lost theirs in 1969 in a game that only hurts me to hear about or watch on YouTube. Nancy Lynn age 31, she died of an aneurysm March 24, 1972. We did not come over for Christmas that year since the Durdens visited Oklahoma City, and that day, that glorious Saturday, where I do not remember it raining in Fort Smith though we can look that up, but at least for the hours of the game that afternoon from 4500 block of Urbana Drive, I can remember it was sunny. The sunlight streamed through the windows and around the wooden box that was a TV in the living room, that showed a victory over Texas, just like I had seen happen in Oklahoma.

It's funny that since the 1920s, Oklahoma and Arkansas have only played in bowl games. That will change in the coming years when both teams will be in the SEC. And I have to say for this year, I am kind of glad Oklahoma and Arkansas are not playing again. I hope both teams are undefeated when they meet in the national championship game. I can leave it at that. Thank you Fort Smith, and Arkansas, and Uncle Tom for having us over and mom and dad and granddad and grandma for one of the greatest memories of my life. Apologies to all my Longhorn family and friends, they hope to show what Texas can do soon. It is good to have football coming back in many ways.

There will be many more great football memories this fall. Follow the Arkansas Razorbacks on swtimes.com and in the Times Record and our Razorbacks beat writer Jackson Fuller in Fayetteville, who will have all the gameday updates, news and coverage of the Hogs in what I predict here will be, a 10-2 season for 2023 and as always, I hope they will play OU in a bowl game, maybe that biggest one, too.

This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Hog heaven: What I saw in Fort Smith in 1971