Clay Henry: Bucknam doesn’t mind rowing the boat

The call came in late afternoon from the best fly-fishing guide on the White River.

“I had your friend, the track coach at Arkansas,” Kristopher Bouldin said. “I had Chris Bucknam and his brother for the day. It was a strange day; I fished.”

Bucknam called later, just to confirm the trip I set up went great. Nice brown trout were caught, but not by Bucknam.

“I rowed,” he said. “I really wanted to see Kristopher fish and learn how it’s done. My brother was catching fish but I couldn’t cast far enough to do any good. I wanted to see two guys catching those big browns and didn’t think I could pull it off.”

No one takes the oars from the guide. Bucknam laughed when reminded of that day several years ago in a Hogs+ interview to preview the big outdoor meets.

“Not too many pay to row,” he said. “So you are right about that, but I do know how to row a drift boat and that is fun to me, too. I like to see the guys who can really cast do their thing and they both caught trophy browns. It was a wonderful day.”

It’s the same way he treats his staff. Bucknam handles the cross-country program, but he is careful to make sure the other areas of the squad—sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers and throwers—get the bulk of the scholarships for the men’s track & field program.

It’s like he doesn’t mind rowing the boat for the others on his staff. When they want to spend scholarship money, he is just fine, even to the point it hurts his specialty, the distances and cross country.

“It’s really not a problem,” Bucknam said. “We all can coach everything. We have coached everything and do at times.”

Oh, the UA men’s track program—under Bucknam’s watch the last 15 years—does have great coaches.

The best compliment I can pay a coach is to compare them to Frank Broyles. That’s what I tossed Bucknam’s way early in the interview ahead of the SEC championships.

To read Clay Henry’s full column and watch his interview with Chris Bucknam, check out Hogs+.