In a day and age with a lot of questions and almost no answers with college athletics, Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek is keeping busy at home … working in the wine room.
No, seriously. That’s what he told Halftime’s Phil Elson and Matt Jenkins on ESPN Arkansas on Thursday afternoon.
“I’ve kinda been relegated to the wine room,” Yurachek said. “I’ve been sharing a home office with my wife and two sons that are at home and doing their school work. I’m kinda hunkered down in the wine room and found some work peace down there.”
It left co-host Elson more or less wondering where the problem was with that.
“The wine cellar is not a terrible place to be holing up to do work during the day,” he said.
“It is not,” Yurachek said, laughing. “Especially later in the afternoon.”
Getting back to the serious part of this global pandemic, though, Yurachek is probably overcoming so separation anxiety. He’s at almost every sporting event the Razorbacks have.
“The biggest void for me is seeing our events, seeing our coaches, seeing our student-athletes and seeing our staff and seeing our fans on a daily basis in person is what’s really missing for me,” he said.
On the most pressing subject lately, Yurachek echoed the general theme voiced by college administrators across the country about football being played.
“If it’s not safe enough for our fans to be in the stands, somebody’s going to have to really sell me on what protocol is in place that it’s safe enough for those young men on both sides of that line of scrimmage, one foot apart, sweating on each other, spitting on each other, sharing a football, how it is safe for them,” he said.
It will come down to, obviously, a decision to be made by people much higher up than Yurachek.
“There’s so many unknowns,” he said. “Way too many questions and not answers.”
