FAYETTEVILLE — Lou Holtz was Arkansas’ football coach in the summer of 1979 when Sam Pittman attended a Razorbacks football camp as an athlete from Grove, Okla., a small town 75 miles northwest of campus.
“When I was running that 4.8 out there (coaches) were like, ‘Pittman, you go over to this line right here.’ That’s the line where they ain’t going to look at you no more,” he joked. “There I sat, me and this other dude over there, and I go, ‘We ain’t never getting looked at.’”
Despite never coming close to receiving a coveted offer from Holtz and Arkansas, it did not take long for Pittman, who on Monday was introduced by athletics director Hunter Yurachek as the 34th head coach in program history, to fall in love with Fayetteville and the Razorbacks.