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A New Generation (1994–1997) “What Arkansas had in John was special and it will never happen again.” —George Mason head coach John Cook One of the consequences of prodigious success is that it is frequently followed by turnover. Important cogs in the machine are lured elsewhere by the opportunity to lead programs looking for someone to replicate that success at their institution. Arkansas faced that exact issue during the summer of 1994. Only six years after returning to Fayetteville following his tenure as athletic director at Southwestern Louisiana, Terry Don Philips tremendous work and leadership with the Razorback Foundation made it only a matter of time before he became an athletic director again somewhere. “It was thought he would be the successor to Frank Broyles,” said McDonnell. “He was here six or seven years, and Frank had no intentions of retiring, so [Phillips] went to Oklahoma State. He was a great guy to work for, real laid-back, appreciated what you did, and always had time to talk to you.” On John’s own coaching staff, administrative assistant Doug Clark was hired away to coach the distance runners at UTEP in the spring of 1994. After he was replaced by Jim VanHootegem, Clark moved again to join Stanley Redwine during the fall of 1994 at the University of Tulsa, where the long-time Razorback assistant coach had been hired as the head coach. Still an elite 800-meter runner on the international circuit well into his thirties, Redwine slowly began to wind down his prolific running career. “Towards the end doing both was hard for him,” said McDonnell. “It wasn’t good for his career as a coach, and I told him about a year or two before he gave it up completely to move on.” Redwine’s replacement at Arkansas was Steve Silvey of Blinn College. While several junior-college coaches had ascended to Division I after success at the junior-college ranks, few had his credentials—fifteen JUCO national championships and coaching the Zambian Olympic team. Silvey was a tireless workaholic joining a coaching staff filled with them. 242 11 “Dick Booth was instrumental in hiring him, and Steve turned out to be a great success ,” remembered McDonnell. “He was just a recruiting fool, a hell of a coach, and one heck of a worker. He’d do anything for you and took no nonsense from anyone. He treated all of the athletes the same, and they all met the same standard. There are always people who think you can take a shortcut, but there was a reason the sprinters ran well when he was here. He worked them hard, and he had some great ones come in for nothing , and he turned them into something.” Though he had an entirely different personality than Redwine, who had achieved success through a more laid-back approach, Silvey took an already strong sprints group left by his predecessor and worked with minimal scholarship dollars to make them even better. “Stanley didn’t exactly leave the cupboard bare,” said Silvey. “I was working hard behind the scenes, looking for anything. When Nevada dropped its program, I took advantage and recruited Brandon Rock pretty hard. There weren’t many scholarships to work with [for the sprint events] but I’m kind of like a chameleon. You work within the limitations and do the best that you can.” McDonnell now had assistant coaches recruiting as aggressively as any in the country . In Silvey’s case, John practically had to contain him from jumping on the next plane to make a home visit with whomever the team was recruiting. “That sucker was absolutely tireless,” said McDonnell. “If athletes grew on trees, he would shake every tree. You would have to tell him to take a week off because he was on the road like he was possessed. He had a lot of plusses. Steve was a great recruiter and a great coach.” It was that same fall when Katie Hill moved from the ticket office to replace Terry Don Phillips as the assistant athletic director overseeing track and field and basketball, among other sports and responsibilities. As delicate as John could be handling certain situations, he was not averse to being tough, if and when the situation called for it. “One day [head football coach] Danny Ford closed the football field where we used to run in the morning,” said McDonnell. “So I went to the AD and said, ‘What’s this?’ He...

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