Arkansas Encyclopedia of Arkansas History - Encyclopedia Arkapedia

Barry Switzer

Barry Switzer (born October 5, 1937) is a former football coach, in the college and professional ranks, between 1962 and 1997. He has one of the highest winning percentages of any college football coach in history, and is one of only two head coaches to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl. The other being his teammate in college and rival head coach, Jimmy Johnson.

Born in Crossett, Arkansas, Switzer accepted an athletic scholarship to the University of Arkansas. After graduation, he did a brief stint in the U.S. Army and then returned to Arkansas as an assistant coach.

Switzer was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2004, he received the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award. Switzer still resides in Norman, Oklahoma. In August 2007, XMSN added Barry Switzer as a part of the channel's expanded college sports coverage. On 2007-09-09, Barry Switzer joined the FOX NFL Pregame show.

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Arkansas' gross domestic product for 2005 was $87 billion. Its per capita household median income (in current dollars) for 2004 was $35,295, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The state's agriculture outputs are poultry and eggs, soybeans, sorghum, cattle, cotton, rice, hogs, and milk. Its industrial outputs are food processing, electric equipment, fabricated metal products, machinery, paper products, bromine, and vanadium.

Several global companies are headquartered in the northwest corner of Arkansas, including Wal-Mart (the world's largest public corporation by revenue in 2007), J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods. This area of the state has experienced an economic boom since the 1970s as a result.

In recent years, automobile parts manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states. Additionally, the city of Conway is the site of a school bus factory.

Tourism is also very important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" was originally created (as "Arkansas Is A Natural") for state tourism advertising in the 1970s, and is still regularly used to this day.

The Arkansas Razorbacks, also known as the Hogs, are the names of college sports teams at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The term Arkansas Razorbacks properly applies to any of the all-male sports team at the university while women's teams at the University of Arkansas are generally referred to as "The Lady'Backs". The Razorbacks take their name from the feral pig of the same name. The University of Arkansas student body voted to change the name of the school mascot (originally the Cardinals) in 1910 to the Arkansas Razorbacks. Since the Razorback name was already in use by the Texarkana Arkansas High School Razorbacks, the University agreed to 'use' the Razorback logo as their mascot; In turn, giving Arkansas High School used athletic equipment from the university. The Arkansas Razorbacks are the only major sports team in the US with a porcine nickname.

The University of Arkansas currently fields 19 total varsity teams (8 men's and 11 women's) in 13 sports. The 7 men's varsity sports includes baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, tennis, track and field; the 11 women's varsity sports includes basketball, cross country, golf, gymnastics, soccer, indoor track, swimming and diving, outdoor track, tennis, softball and volleyball. The Arkansas Razorbacks compete in the NCAA's Division I (I-A in football) and is currently a member of the Southeastern Conference (Western Division).

The premier rivalry for the Arkansas Razorbacks is against the Longhorns of the University of Texas. Although today, the Longhorns have several other rivalries that they consider more important (notably Texas A&M and Oklahoma), during the 1960s, no rivalry, especially in football, was as big as the Razorbacks and Longhorns. Texas leads the series in football, while Arkansas holds the series lead in basketball. For Arkansas, the rivalry is an emotional experience and Arkansas fans and media go into a frenzy when the two teams play in any sport. The emotional intensity from the Arkansas side in these games overwhelms and bewilders Texas fans at times, including the 2000 Cotton Bowl, where Arkansas fans outnumbered Texas fans by almost 2 to 1 in Dallas. The Razorbacks won that game, 27-6.

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since statehood.