Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson recently shared a story from what many coaches do: visit schools and read to children as a community service.

Being in Jonesboro, Ark., Anderson figured he was in friendly territory, only to find out that one teacher and several students elected to cheer for the Arkansas Razorbacks instead of the Arkansas State Red Wolves. In a second-grade classroom, Anderson said the teacher admitted that not only was she a Razorback fan, a show of hands of students also revealed most of her students rooted for the Razorbacks.

“It’d be nice to have a couple of Red Wolves logos (in the classroom),” Anderson recalled saying.

The teacher replied, “Well, I’m a Razorback. Matter of fact, my whole class, they’re all Razorbacks.”

One student out of a class of about 30 students admitted that she was a fan of the Red Wolves. Much to the surprise of her teacher, the girl explained that it was because her parents both supported Arkansas State. The teacher replied, “What if your parents were both losers?”

“Well, I’d be a Razorback,” the girl said.

Unfortunately, the teams aren’t scheduled to meet on the field anytime soon because of a long-standing policy that Athletics Director Jeff Long told the Little Rock Touchdown Club, as reported by collegefootballnews.com.

“There are no plans and no discussions to play ASU,” he said. “We’ve had the longstanding policy of not playing in-state schools because we feel like it divides people in the state. Right now, from our point of view, somebody can be a UCA grad, they can be a UA-Monticello grad, they can be an Arkansas State grad and they can still be a Razorback. Again, coming from a small state, we need as many fans cheering for us and pulling for us and engaging with us, coming to games. And if we start playing these schools, people will have to start dividing their loyalties.”

 

H/T to @TheJayBir for the video.