April 4, 1994: Arkansas Wins With "40 Minutes of Hell"

Corliss Williamson (left) and Nolan Richardson

April 4, 1994: The University of Arkansas beats Duke University, 76-72, at the Charlotte Coliseum – essentially, a home game for Duke – and wins the National Championship. But Mike Krzyzewski's Blue Devils couldn't hold up against the Razorbacks and coach Nolan Richardson's "40 Minutes of Hell."

A native of El Paso, Texas, Richardson had played at the University of Texas at El Paso -- then known as Texas Western University -- under head coach Don Haskins, before they won the epochal 1966 NCAA Tournament. He coached in Texas at a high school and a junior college, before being hired at the University of Tulsa in 1980. In his 1st season, he led them to the NIT title. In 1984 and 1985, he led them to the Missouri Valley Conference title.

The University of Arkansas is in Fayetteville, only 110 miles east of Tulsa. They hired Richardson in 1985, and he brought his son, Nolan III, and his top Tulsa assistant, Mike Anderson, with him. It took him 2 years to get a 19-14 record, another to get to 21-9 and the NCAA Tournament. In 1989, he led them to the 1st of 7 straight 1st-place finishes in the Southeastern Conference or its Western Division. In 1990, he led them to the Final Four; in 1991, to the Elite Eight.

In 1994, Richardson led the Razorbacks to the Final Four again, with a sophomore forward named Corliss Williamson, nicknamed "Big Nasty." The starting lineup was filled out by forward Scotty Thurman, guards Clint McDaniel and Corey Beck, and center Dwight Stewart. Strong on offense and defense, Richardson called his team's effect "40 Minutes of Hell." Their old home, Barnhill Arena, became known as "Barnhell."

That came to an end on November 29, 1993, when their new home opened. Effectively the house that Richardson built, it was named the Bud Walton Arena. It was named for a major University donor, the brother of the late Sam Walton, founder of Walmart.

They got all the way to the NCAA Tournament Final, where they faced Duke University, coached by Mike Krzyzewski, and led by forwards Grant Hill and Cherokee Parks. And since the game was at the Charlotte Coliseum, Duke had what amounted to home-court advantage.

As late as 1:30 left in regulation, the game was tied at 70, when Hill made a 3-point shot. Thurman hit one, then Chris Collins missed one. First McDaniel, then Beck, made 1 out of 2 free throws to make it 75-70 Arkansas with 17 seconds left. Parks scored, but McDaniel was fouled again, and hit a free throw for the final score, 76-72. Arkansas were the National Champions.

Richardson got the Razorbacks back to the title game in 1995, but they lost to UCLA. He never got them past the second round again. In 2002, he got into a dispute with the man who was practically the king of the university, athletic director and legendary former football coach Frank Broyles, accusing him, and University administration, of racist treatment. He was fired, and sued the University. The suit was dismissed in 2004.

Anderson was promoted to head coach, and lasted until 2019, with not nearly the same kind of success as Richardson. Two days after he was fired, the University, having made peace with Richardson, named the playing surface as Bud Walton Arena the Nolan Richardson Court.

A Spanish speaker, Richardson coached the national teams of Panama and Mexico. He spent 2 seasons as head coach of the WNBA's Tulsa Shock.

Williamson would play 12 years in the NBA, mostly for the Sacramento Kings, for whom he is now an assistant coach.

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April 4, 1994, as NCAA Tournament Final nights usually are, was a Monday. As usually happened in this era, it was also Opening Day for Major League Baseball.

Football was out of season. No NBA games were played hat day. There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-4 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Winnipeg Jets played to a tie, 2-2 at the Winnipeg Arena.

January 1, 1955: Georgia Tech Complete the New Year's Day Circuit

Bobby Dodd

January 1, 1955: The Cotton Bowl Classic is held at the Cotton Bowl stadium in Dallas. The University of Arkansas, Champions of the Southwest Conference, take on the Georgia Institute of Technology, the 2nd-place team in the Southeastern Conference. (Georgia Tech left the SEC and became an independent in 1964, and joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1983. Arkansas joined the SEC in 1992.)

The Arkansas Razorbacks, coached by Bowden Wyatt, came into the game 8-2, and ranked Number 10 in the country. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, coached by Bobby Dodd, were 7-3 and unranked, but were coming off a big win over arch-rival Georgia.

The game was scoreless until right before halftime, when Arkansas quarterback George Walker completed an 80-yard drive by scoring himself, but he missed the extra point. Georgia Tech dominated the 2nd half, holding the Razorbacks to only 8 yards rushing, and scoring touchdowns with Paul Rotenberry in the 3rd quarter and Wade Mitchell in the 4th. The Yellow Jackets won, 14-6.

By winning this game, Georgia Tech became the 1st school to win all 4 of the major New Year's Day bowl games. They had previously won the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California in 1929; the Orange Bowl in Miami in 1940; and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in 1944.

There have since been 8 other schools to turn the trick: Alabama, completing the circuit with the 1962 Sugar Bowl; Georgia, with the 1967 Cotton Bowl; Notre Dame, with the 1975 Orange Bowl; Penn State, with the 1995 Rose Bowl; Ohio State, with the 1999 Sugar Bowl; Miami, with the 2002 Rose Bowl; Oklahoma, with the 2003 Rose Bowl; and Texas, with the 2005 Rose Bowl.

Prior to the start of major conference realignment in the 1990s, winning all 4 was really hard, because, from 1947 onward, the Rose Bowl had been between the Champions of the leagues now known as the Big Ten and the Pacific-Twelve.

Also, until 1975, the Big Ten and the league then known as the Pac-Eight had a rule that the Rose Bowl was the only bowl they would send a team to. And Notre Dame did not accept any bowl bids between their 1925 Rose Bowl win and their 1970 Cotton Bowl loss. Notre Dame have overcome this, but Ohio State are the only team that was in the Big Ten prior to Penn State's arrival in 1993 to overcome their league's issue.

Michigan, the Big Ten's other previous major power, have never played in the Cotton Bowl, although they've won the other 3. A few other schools have won 3 of the 4, including Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and Washington.

Once the Bowl Championship Series kicked in for the 1998 season, conference tie-ins were no longer written in stone, making cross-league bowls more common. You'll notice that Penn State, Miami, Oklahoma and Texas did it after the Big Ten Champion could have gone to a de facto National Championship Game in a year when it wasn't the Rose Bowl. Prior to the 1946 season's lock-in for the Big Ten, Penn State had played in the 1923 Rose Bowl, but lost to USC; while Miami, Oklahoma and Texas had never previously played in it.

The Fiesta Bowl, in the Phoenix suburbs, in Tempe from 1971 to 2006 and in Glendale ever since, became a New Year's Day bowl game in 1982. Notre Dame first won it on January 2, 1989, making them the 1st team to have won all 5. Penn State won it for the 1st time in 1982, so they completed all 5 in 1995. Ohio State won it in 1984, so they completed all 5 in 1999. Texas won it in 2009, and Oklahoma in 2011, completing all 5. So that's 5 schools that have won all 5 major New Year's Day bowl games.

Oklahoma (in 1976) and Penn State (in 1977 and 1980) had won the Fiesta Bowl before it was a New Year's Day game. Alabama, Georgia and Georgia Tech have never won it: Alabama have lost their only appearance, in 1991, while the 2 Georgia schools have never even been in it.

Since 1913, Georgia Tech have played their home games at Grant Field. In 1988, it was officially renamed Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field. Having been a star player at Tennessee, Dodd is one of the few men to have been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

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January 1, 1955 was a Saturday. In the other New Year's Day bowl games:

* Number 1 Ohio State beat Number 17 University of Southern California, 20-7 in the Rose Bowl, in the stadium of the same name in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California. Ohio State had won the Big Ten. USC had finished 2nd in the Pacific Coast Conference, the forerunner of the Pac-12, but, like the Big Ten, the PCC had a rule that no team could represent it in the Rose Bowl in back-to-back years, so their intra-city arch-rivals, the University of California at Los Angeles, ranked Number 2 in the country, were out, and USC took their place. As a result, the polls ended up split on the National Championship, between Ohio State and UCLA.

* Number 5 Navy beat Number 6 Mississippi, 21-0 in the Sugar Bowl, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. "Ole Miss" had won the SEC title, beating Georgia Tech.

* Number 14 Duke beat Nebraska, 34-7 in the Orange Bowl, at Burdine Stadium in Miami. (The stadium was renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959.) Duke were the Champions of the ACC. Oklahoma had won the title in the league then known as the Big Seven Conference (Oklahoma State would soon join, to make it the Big Eight), but the league had a rule that no team could represent it in the Orange Bowl in back-to-back years, so 2nd-place Nebraska did, with poor results.

* Texas Western University beat Florida State, 47-20 in the Sun Bowl, at Kidd Field in El Paso, Texas -- TWU's home field. They were renamed the University of Texas at El Paso in 1967. Kidd Field still stands, but was replaced as their home field, and as the home of the Sun Bowl game, by the adjacent Sun Bowl stadium in 1963. Burt Reynolds was on FSU's roster, but was injured and didn't play in the Sun Bowl. His football career over, he turned to acting. His roommate was Lee Corso, who would later become a college coach and ESPN's top college football analyst.

There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 100-91 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Boston Celtics, 108-102 at the Onondaga War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Rochester Royals beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 96-92 at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 4-0 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 2-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

And in English football, Arsenal F.C. drew with Birmingham-area team West Bromwich Albion, 2-2 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.