For awhile there, it seemed like the Red Wolves weren’t good at anything. In fact, I outright said this in 2022 after an incredibly frustrating men’s basketball loss to UCA. Apart from bowling and track & field, Red Wolves fans had little to for which to take a measure of pride. The toxic lack of care was in the air.

While there were many within the fanbase who understandably felt moved to surrender, the Arkansas State Athletics Department was quietly doing its good work, removing pawns and advancing knights in strategic locations. For example, a couple months before I likened the program to a trash can, A-State Athletic Director Vice Chancellor of Intercollegiate Athletics Jeff Purinton hired Brian Gerwig away from Houston to coach the Red Wolves Volleyball squad, a team that hadn’t won a conference title since 2015. Later that year, Purinton would hire Bryan Hodgson from Alabama to run Arkansas State men’s basketball. Less than a year later, Purinton invited Sujay Lama to take control of the A-State Tennis program, which seemed to be in a state of perpetual flounder. Finally, earlier this summer, Purinton introduce Mike Silva as the Red Wolves new baseball coach, an announcement that brought with it some long overdue structural investment.

That’s four coaching moves in two years, a breakneck pace of personnel shuffling unseen in Jonesboro. While we have yet to see what Silva brings to the baseball diamond, it is safe to say that Hodgson, Gerwig and Lama have taken their respective programs to far more acceptable levels, highlighted by Gerwig delivering a season championship after having been predicted to finish next in the division.

Championships are nice. Regenerating fan energy is a far more ambitious ask. Take a moment to applaud Red Wolves head basketball coach Bryan Hodgson for jumpstarting renewed interest in what was once (many decades ago) a healthy athletics program. The team, featuring the highest rated recruits ever signed to Jonesboro, drew the largest home opening crowd since 2002. The team’s second home game of the year drew 5,187, the largest crowd in five years to witness A-State play hoops at home. Saturday’s victory over Stephen F Austin brought 4,178 to First National Bank Arena. Fans are beginning to believe.

This culture of winning is rubbing off on everyone. On Saturday, head football coach Butch Jones delivered his second bowl eligible season by winning on the road over Georgia State. Head women’s basketball coach Destinee Rogers, despite losing her two best scorers to the transfer portal over the off season, has put up back-to-back 100-point wins. Suddenly, after years of allowing sub-mediocrity to poison Arkansas State Athletics, the Red Wolves Arrogance Meter is once again throbbing with smugness.

It is a dry arrogance. Few fans in all of college sports are as cross-armed, let’s-wait-and-see more than the Red Wolves faithful. We’re more preoccupied by the blowout football losses to Texas State and Louisiana than we are with celebrating another bowl trip. We tend to allow the gloom of baseball’s ineptitude to overshadow the promise of new blood. Women’s basketball? Let’s see how we do against Arkansas. Tennis? Sounds great, but what we really want is a men’s basketball win over James Maison. Arrogance cannot be fed enough.

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