Return to CWS caps memorable Arkansas athletic school year with lessons learned

The story of the 2025 Arkansas Razorback baseball team has ended. As fate would have it, it turned out NOT to be the happy ending Razorback Nation hoped for, but it was the latest greatest chapter in a never ending story. 

No need to recount the gruesome details of how it all ended. Watching it all unfold in real time was enough trauma to last a lifetime. Now that we’ve had over a week to process it all, it’s time to start the Sisyphean task of chasing that ever-elusive first baseball national title all over again and glean any lessons learned going into another hot summer. 

Arkansas baseball caps off memorable athletic season at CWS with hard lessons learned

Given Arkansas’ rich history of sports fan trauma — it’s appropriate to expand the usual five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) to the more comprehensive dozen steps, which include realization, guilt, adjustment and support. 

Well Razorbackers we are here for it all because right about now, we need all the help we can get. 

The Realization

Hindsight is 20/20 vision they say, but it’s only right to point out that previous insights as to what has been keeping the baseball program — and much of the other revenue generating sports as well for that matter — from realizing Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek’s vision of the University of Arkansas becoming “The Campus of Champions.” 

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear why the LSU Tigers came away with their eighth college baseball national championship while denying the Razorbacks their breakthrough. It wasn’t because LSU was better or lucky. It wasn’t a mysterious case of food poisoning. It wasn’t the usual old Louisiana haints, the University being built on an Indian burial ground, the assassination of Nolan Richardson’s horse (to say nothing of his character), some combination of the above or some unidentified fell object which sets its will against us. 

As many sports analysts observed, it was simply this. Arkansas “wasn’t ready for the moment.” That is the phrase being used in polite society circles. Others say, “The moment was too big.” The tactless say, “Arkansas choked…again,” but no matter how it’s said, the important take  away remains, “Why again?”

LSU coach Jay Johnson presciently alluded to this haunting question in a podcast on the eve of the CWS when he said. “I’ve always believed that not everybody goes (to Omaha) to win it. It’s not conscious or unconscious. It’s just the way that it is.”  

The Guilt

If anyone takes umbrage in hearing it from an opposing coach, take it from Richardson — the only coach in Razorback history to win a universally recognized national championship. 

Richardson often said, “If you’re going to be in it, you might as well win it. If you don’t believe you can win it, what’s the point of being in it?”

So one final time, let’s make this as clear as possible. The goal — more often than not — determines your outcome. Beginning with a specific end in mind often proves more powerful than any adversary. If the goal was simply to make it back to the College World Series, then Razorback fans everywhere should be happy, but we all know things gets more complicated in Razorback Nation.

Case and points from this school cycle: Sam Pittman restated to start the year that his football team’s goal each year is “to play in the best bowl game possible.” John Calipari’s basketball team stated the goal was to make a run in March Madness. After not making it out of a home regional the last few years and despite nine previous trips to the College World Series, Dave Van Horn said this baseball team’s goal was to make it back to Omaha. 

All three coaches reached their goal. By no stretch of the imagination, none of the journey’s were easy, but what of Yurachek’s goal of making Arkansas the campus of champions? There seems to be some slight disconnect.

The general consensus among Razorback Nation is that this state of affairs is the best Arkansas should reasonably hope for. Arkansas beating playoff bound Tennessee in football is as good as it gets. To suggest Calipari’s Hoops Hogs could’ve beaten national champion Florida in March Madness and taken their place is presumptuous, and to think DVH’s Diamond Hogs were better than LSU this year is wishful thinking. 

Heaven knows you can’t turn on any Arkansas media outlet over the past 35 years without hearing some well-intended lecture on how silly it is to think otherwise. Such heretical opinions — that the consensus thinking is problematic — are however exactly what haunts Razorback Nation. 

So for eyes out there still blurred with tears, here’s mud in your eye. It’s tempting to apply a supernatural explanation or be like Mike Irwin and insist it’s all coincidental. But for the sake of those still unafraid to go there, here’s a simple alternative explanation: What’s been holding Arkansas back all this time are low expectations. 

Anger and Denial

As Ian Fleming wrote, “One is happenstance, twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”  Well we have met the enemy and it is ourselves. 

Anyone who has played sports at any level knows athletes understandably get nervous in those situations. Throw in some turbulent winds and a wet playing field and anything can happen like it did to Charles Davalan. 

Had it been just that one play — like the foul ball in 2018 — that might fly, but there is a clear pattern here. Now, the whole country bears witness to it. Even the best players and coaches can succumb to it, but thank goodness for examples like Gage Wood and Justin Thomas Jr., who showed that refusing to lose is possible in those moments. 

Sports history is replete with dynasties built on burial mounds of traumatic losses along the way. North Dallas 40 details the experiences of Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys BEFORE they became America’s team. Houston was known as “Choke City” before Hakeem Olajuwon delivered two championships as a pro to make it Clutch City. Don Shula was the coach that couldn’t win the big one until his team completed the only perfect season in the history of professional sports and he retired as the NFL’s all-time winningest coach. 

The Boston Red Sox labored for decades watching their bitter rival New York Yankees win World Series after World Series before finally breaking through. The Los Angeles Lakers suffered through decades with an inability to beat the Boston Celtics before Magic Johnson’s arrival. And last but not least, LSU’s current baseball dynasty went through decades of heartbreak before breaking through to establish themselves in the early 1990s. 

Anyone in Razorback Nation wanting to jump ship or keep their heads in the sand are welcome to at any time. Who can blame them at this point? However true Razorbackers are in this for the long haul. We’re just here to make a few helpful reminders. 

The Adjustments

Identifying the source of the problem is the first step to finding a solution.  Going forward, we may want to consider these humble suggestions. 

1. Begin with the goal in mind. Stop setting low expectations. If you don’t believe your program is capable of winning an SEC title or a national championship, take a job on a level you do believe you can have success and let someone else try. 

2. No more premature celebrations. It was so much fun beating Tennessee to advance beyond the Super Regionals and the team was right to celebrate. In hindsight however, a victory parade through the concourse — followed by a dive into the Baum Walker Stadium pond — may have been a bit excessive (if not premature). 

3. Remember the old mantra: There’s no crying in baseball. Tears were shed after the basketball team reached the Sweet 16 and the baseball team made it back to the CWS. That may be understandable for coaches who have never been there and done that, but for John Calipari (by proxy) and DVH, it was a sign of the pressure building up in Arkansas for a winner. Please don’t take this as a shot at anyone, just a reminder that the job isn’t finished yet. 

Hopefully one day we'll look back on seasons like 2025 as the blood, sweat and tears a Razorback championship breakthrough was built on, but the collective weight of all the hopes from deliverance from the reputation as chokers came crashing down in the bottom of the ninth in this CWS. 

Gage Wood did what he did because being from Arkansas he understood the whole curse conversation and he took it upon himself to not just say no, but hell no. "Not on my watch." He didn’t take his foot off the gas until the mission was complete, and there is a lesson in his performance for us all. 

The Support

Gage and many others from this team will be off to their pro careers, but they will always be family. Hopefully, the players DVH can retain for another run will use this experience to prepare themselves and their future teammates for their journey as Razorbacks. That’s how dynasties are built — learning from a succession of triumphs and failures. 

We should thank these teams — the Lady Razorbacks softball team as well — for taking us on a wonderful ride. One day, we will look back and see so many of these guys and gals playing at the pro level and appreciate all the more what they brought to our lives. DVH and company have built an enduring legacy but it’s part of a larger body of work at Arkansas. 

Once the tide turns and some group finally comes along with the good fortune to breakthrough, true fans will want to be there for it. But we shouldn’t wait to be grateful until redemption finally comes. It will come quicker the more we are grateful for what we have. And what we have is a great baseball program inside an even greater athletics tradition.

Here’s to looking forward to another school year and adding new chapters to our story. WPS!