Backroads and Ballplayers #58 - The Legend of Hugo Bezdek and A Tribute to Hagen Smith
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from the days when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Always free and always short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
Each month, I write a feature story for the online magazine Only in Arkansas. This month’s contribution is about the arrival of the University of Arkansas’ first coach, Hugo Bezdek. I hope you enjoy the story about the Father of Razorback Sports. I am sure you will love Only in Arkansas.
Before I begin the story of Hugo Bezdek, I have to pause to congratulate Hagen Smith, one of the most honored players in Razorback baseball history.
Although it is difficult to handle our rivals playing in Omaha, there were some highlights in the 2024 Razorback baseball season. That banner proclaiming the 2024 team the last SEC West Baseball Champions represents a unique and significant accomplishment…AND the University of Arkansas had the best pitcher in college baseball!
Today, Hagen Smith was named to the first team of the American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings All-American team. Last week Perfect Game named him Pitcher of the Year and first-team All-American. Smith was also named a first-team All-American by the National College Baseball Writers Association. The SEC Conference recognitions alone will fill a trophy case, and he remains in contention for several more national honors.
Smith finished the 2024 campaign with a 9-2 record, 2.04 ERA, and 161 strikeouts. He was selected the Southeastern Conference Pitcher of the Year after going 7-0 with a 1.35 ERA and 110 strikeouts in 60.0 innings in his 10 conference starts.
Thanks for the memories, Hagen Smith.
The Legend of Hugo Bezdek
Bezdek’s Coaching Record at Arkansas
There is a lot we don’t know about Hugo Francis Bezdek. Sports writers in those days did not bother to tell us much about our guys away from the game. Maybe that was good. That trend continued for most of the 20th century. I did not know the back story of Mickey Mantle’s life when he was my boyhood hero. That was certainly a good thing. Shame on you, Jim Bouton.
Although Bezdek was probably not a cuddly little cherub with a European accent, his major fault may have been an unrelenting competitive nature that was also his primary asset.
Hugo Bezdek is a legend in Arkansas. He should be. He was the first real coach in University of Arkansas history. His football and baseball teams became nationally recognized almost overnight, and he was among the first inductees chosen for the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. Separated by more than 110 years there is also room in his legend for a few things that are not exactly correct.
Although often used as the simplified version of our mascot story, he was not the first person to publically call the UofA teams “Razorbacks.” The Cardinals had been described as wild hogs and razorbacks years before Bezdek’s arrival. Those descriptions were often the work of the rival press and not meant to be complimentary.
He was the first person of his eminence to suggest that there was no higher compliment to pay a group of young men from the Ozarks than to compare them to a relentless wild hog. That is our story, we like it and we are sticking with it. We have a historic monument down on Dickson Street to present our story to folks who pass that way, and when so moved, we stand, wave our hands in the air, and summon the spirit of those fighting Razorbacks.
Although his official football record at Arkansas seems accurate, his “official” baseball coaching record is incorrect and difficult to research. The Arkansas Media Guide awarded him 18 wins while he was a student at the University of Chicago. When the 1908 baseball season was played, Bezdek was 600+ miles from the University of Arkansas.
Our unprecedented success (1908 baseball) was due to a large extent to the work of our coach, Vandergrift. - University of Arkansas Yearbook, The Cardinal, p.139
Bezdek’s baseball teams also played professional teams each year and those games are included in newspaper accounts, therefore a correct accounting of his baseball coaching record is tedious and perhaps unnecessary. Yes, the official media guide should be the ultimate source for such things, but does it really matter? Compared to building a new roster for the 2025 season, it means very little!
Below is an attempt to list the won-loss record of Bezdek’s football teams and his baseball record versus college teams. I used Arkansas yearbooks and newspaper accounts. The research was tedious but interesting.
Feature story in only in Arkansas:
My feature story in Only in Arkansas this month is about the arrival in Arkansas of Hugo Francis Bezdek, the Father of the Razorbacks:
The Legend of Hugo Bezdek, Only in Arkansas
The widely accepted short version of our Arkansas Razorback story goes something like this; on November 13, 1909, the football coach of the University of Arkansas Cardinals stepped off the train after an unexpected victory over LSU and changed the image of Arkansas sports forever.
Although the Northern-educated Bohemian immigrant had little in common with his constituents, he was already a hero in the Ozarks. He had brought pride and an unrelenting fighting spirit to the university. Consumed by the thrill of victory, Coach Hugo Bezdek exclaimed that his team had played like, “a wild band of razorback hogs.” His experience with wild razorback hogs was obviously questionable.