calsfoundation@cals.org
October 30, 1909
Hugo Bezdek, football coach at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), was greeted by a crowd of excited students at the Fayetteville train station. His underdog team had scored a major victory on the road, defeating Louisiana State 16-0. Coach Bezdek shouted to the delighted crowd that their team had performed “like a wild band of Razorback hogs.” The crowd loved the comparison to Arkansas’s ferocious wild boar, with its ridged back and fierce fighting ability, and, in 1910, the students voted for the official university mascot to be changed from the Cardinals to the Razorbacks.