Inception

In March of 2026, I began working in a volunteer position with the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. Although I’m a historicist (for better or worse), working as a historian proper was a fascinating learning curve. I learned to transcribe and edit transcripts. I managed a database of over 1600 oral history transcripts . I also occasionally got jump-scared by enormous interviews featuring Jerry Jones, who used to play for the Razorbacks before making his fortune in oil. Fascinated by this through line and also somewhat moved by attending my last ever game at Donald W Reynolds Stadium, I began to develop a pitch for Razorback Reflections , an oral history podcast designed to capture and share the memories of the Arkansas Razorbacks football team.

Development

As part of developing the initial idea, I undertook market research into other podcasts covering the Arkansas Razorbacks. I found three: Locked On Razorbacks, The Razorback Daily and Hawg Sports Live. All three are hosted on Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Spority, tracking both football and other competitive sports played at the University of Arkansas. All of them are engaging, informative, and really current, covering Razorback developments as they happen. None of them, however, deal with the history of the Razorback team. As we’re an oral history organisation, we’re very well equipped to cover that overlooked aspect, and could engage both players and fans in interviews to record and share the fascinating history of the team.

As part of developing this idea, I challenged myself to produce my first ever pitch deck. Within this deck, I came up with ideas for illustrations for the podcast covers, listing potential guests, and two ways of recording and disseminating this information. We could record a series of interviews on a role by role basis, or record interviews with people in various roles by decade.