Finding Magic in the Mundane at Razorback Football Games

Rare trips to Arkansas games were chance to experience exotic delicacies as an 80s kid

FRISCO, Texas – Food has always been a big part of college sports. 

People rank which areas have the best tailgates and the SEC Network is always running a full feature on food in its "Saturday Down South" series or talking about where the analysts are going to eat at some point during the week before a big game.

But with my childhood, I don't remember all the tailgating I see now when making my way through the winding series of parking lots around Razorback Stadium. 

All I remember are two unique buildings that came to define Razorback football to me as a kid.

As a lot of you know, I grew up in Warren in the 80s and early 90s. There's a lot of hard working people with good hearts and strong backs there, but one thing there's never been is a lot of money to go around. 

My parents did all they could to give me a better life than I deserved. One way they did that is by almost never eating out while keeping entertainment outside the home limited to local sporting events and renting movies to be watched with popcorn popped the old school way and cold Dr Pepper while shelling butter beans.

I didn't know I was missing out on anything then, and, quite frankly, I wish life were as simple now. 

We didn't have a lot of restaurants in the area. The local Sonic was reserved for special treats, the Pizza Hut next door was for New Year's Eve and team celebrations at the end of the Little League Baseball season. 

There was a burger joint called Grady's that made the list one Sunday every month or two where my dad piled his spud or taco bowl high with toppings from the potato bar. There was also a Kentucky Fried Chicken, which I learned to not want because it only came out when someone died and people wanted to help the family avoid cooking.

This limited exposure is why the handful of Razorback games I got to attend, usually as a birthday or Christmas gift from my aunt and uncle, were even more special. We'd pull into Little Rock, which was the big city only visited once a year for clothes shopping before school started, and head up University past not one, but two malls side by side, before turning down Markham. 

There, immediately after the turn, was a building that facinated me. It looked like it was ripped straight out of a Bavarian villiage, although at the time I wasn't sure if Bavaria was a real place or just a fictional place that felt real like Genovia today. 

Across the building were the words International House of Pancakes. 

It looked so authentic; nothing like the cookie cutter red white and blue buildings we see today with the name shortened to IHOP.

The smell of warm baked goods would fill the car along with a light sweetness and I would imagine what it must be like to be among the most elite of rich people who must fill this European pastry shop. 

We would soon park on what I later found out was a golf course. Once we got out, the magic happened. 

I was fortunate enough to attend the historic shootout between Arkansas and Houston as Quinn Grovey out-dueled the eventual Heisman trophy winner Andre Ware in the first Razorback game I ever saw in person.

However, as great as Grovey was that day, he was no match for my uncle's introduction of a placed called Back Yard Burgers. It was technically just a fast food place across from the stadium, but to me it was a fancy burger bistro. 

I had never heard of it, but I could see the burgers were as thick as the ones my dad would grill at my grandmother's house on special occasions. My uncle recommended the Miss Grazi fries, which were seasoned fries topped with a heaping of spicy, but not hot, chili and smothered in cheddar cheese. 

At that point I had never experienced seasoned fries nor chili that didn't come from a Hormel can or the concession stand at Lumberjack Stadium.

My young mind had apparently never experienced flavor before because it literally exploded. This exotic delicacy was more than I was capable of comprehending at such a young age. 

Until my dad and I got to attend a drubbing of South Carolina in my teenage years where it was just us in a relatively empty corner of War Memorial, getting Back Yard Burgers before each game was my favorite memory surrounding the Razorbacks. 

Now I try to help my own children have a favorite food memory when I have to go cover an Arkansas football game. We take them to "The Catfish House" a few miles from the stadium and sit them before a giant plate of chicken strips while surrounded by memorabilia and a sea of red.

However, should my son write about his experience one day, it will probably be about the free suckers he gets on the way out the door. 

As for his children, those unique game day food memories will probably be a lot different. 

I split my time between Northwest Arkansas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And while this isn't thing in the Fayetteville area yet, it probably will be soon.

You see, about 20 miles from where I crash when in Dallas, they are opening a fully robotic McDonald's. 

No people. No McDonald's Playland. Just a small building run off an app on your phone and a conveyer belt.

You order on your phone, let it know you're at the window and it grocery store belts your food out the window to your waiting car. 

Who knows. 

Maybe some kid in the future whose family is poor on paper but rich in life will drive to a Razorback game and experience a robot McDonald's as the craziest, most amazing thing ever, converting what everyone else will see as mundane into a memory of true magic.

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