There were several friends in the stands and around the NSU basketball team Wednesday at Arkansas.
Former baseball head coach Dave Van Horn (1995-97) brought an Arkansas hat to give to our buddy "Coach Black," Harris Ray Wilson Jr., and was the halftime guest interview on the Demon Sports Network broadcast. Van Horn's baseball program at Arkansas led the nation in attendance last year.
He enjoyed reliving his days in Natchitoches, offering up tales of players like Rob Landstadt, Matt Donner and Terry Joseph and taking pride in the pitching rotation that he and assistant Rob Childress (now Texas A&M head coach) built. That included three players -- Brian Lawrence, Brandon Emmanuel and Alan Davis -- who were still pitching for pay in 2007. That's talent.
Dave's wife Karen is keeping busy with their two daughters. She also worked on campus during their days in Natchitoches ...
Former assistant baseball coach Travis Janssen (2002-04) spent time with the Demons Wednesday and attended the game. Trav is assistant coach at Jacksonville State. He and wife Christy, a Fayetteville native, met when he was an assistant coach at Arkansas in 2000, and they brought their two children home for the holidays....
NSU alumni Ricky Walmsley and former football player Daryl Andrews were in the stands for the game. Walmsley instructed his 7-year-old son Connor that he was not to call the 'Hogs, this one time, because they were playing Dad's beloved Demons. Andrews didn't have his 14-year-old daughter with him, much to his regret -- "if it was a football game, she might have come," he said, but her social options were too varied to join Dad at a basketball game!
... Interesting to see a couple of Arkansas icons at the game. Retiring athletics director Frank Broyles was fetching a cold drink and a piece of pizza in the press room before the game. He is in his early 80s but has remarkable presence and is far from "retiring," continuing after he steps down from the AD post to work with the Razorback Foundation in fundraising (they're building him an office at the foundation building, which is located down the left field line at Van Horn's baseball complex) and he is striving for the benefit of Alzheimers Disease victims as a driving force in fundraising and awareness ...
... Right behind the Razorback bench was PGA and British Open golf champion John Daly, who stayed for the entire game.
Doug Ireland, SID
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