Broyles Award Supports Much Wider Cause Than Football

Pictured above: Former Razorback head coach and AD Frank Broyles, for whom the national Broyles Award is named. Photos provided.

A filled-to-capacity ballroom hums with the chatter and excitement of a major awards event. The finalists have finished their mingle and now sit in places of honor while the remainder of the crowd networks and discusses who will be crowned the winner. At the pinnacle moment, Phil Parker, defensive coordinator for the University of Iowa, answers to his name and claims his trophy.

The award is a major one, something recognized nationally as a plum resume enhancement, which the five individuals who made the final cut well know. The scene could easily be set in the Plaza Hotel in New York, the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles or one of a dozen posh venues in Las Vegas, but it is not. The 2023 Frank Broyles Award, which denotes the nation’s best assistant coach in college football, is playing out in the heart of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Statehouse Convention Center.

The Dec. 5 awards event is in its last year in the capital city before moving to even tonier digs at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort’s hotel in Hot Springs, a testament to the growth in the prestige and attention the award garners.

“It’s become such a recognizable deal,” said David Bazzel, longtime media personality, former Razorback football player and founder of the award. “It’s a very polarizing award because there are certain coaches who get very angry when their assistant doesn’t win. Fan bases can’t believe their guy didn’t win. They get mad. That just means the award means something.

“I think assistants take pride in being a nominee, even those who aren’t finalists, knowing they did a good enough job that their coach or somebody in the national media nominated them. I think that’s the biggest thing, knowing it is now credible enough that when you think of assistant coaches and top awards, you think of the Frank Broyles Award.”

Since its founding in 1996, the Frank Broyles Award was intended to single out the most capable, the most skilled and the most committed assistants in the college game. The same could be said for the organization where the award now resides, the Frank & Barbara Broyles Foundation, which brings these same attributes to bear on a much more serious matter than football. The organization provides resources to caregivers and families dealing with Alzheimer’s while boosting awareness of the disease itself.

Created in 2006 by Broyles in the wake of Barbara’s death from the disease, the foundation has supported thousands of families by devoting countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of resources and training at no cost. It is an apt legacy by a remarkable family who channeled its own learn-as-you-go experience with caregiving and grief over the loss of loved ones into a conduit for helping others.

“My grandparents were such wonderful people. They were just incredible, godly people,” said Molly Harrell, foundation executive director. “What is really special and meaningful to us is we get to wake up every day, and their morals and their convictions and the way that they lived their lives shapes what we do. They’re our North Star for all of the things that we do.”

THE NAME

One of Broyles’ first official photos as Arkansas head coach.

In the annals of Arkansas luminaries, few names are as widely recognized as Frank Broyles, the longtime head football coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks. The winningest skipper in program history, Broyles racked up 144 victories in 19 seasons as Head Hog — more than twice that of second placer Lou Holtz — in an era that featured such luminary coaches as Paul “Bear” Bryant of Alabama and Darrell Royal of Texas, whose program seeded a particularly bitter rivalry that endures to this day.

Broyles, back row, center, playing football at age 13 in his hometown of Decatur, Ga.

Broyles was born the day after Christmas of 1924 in Georgia to O.T. and Louise Solms Broyles. An outstanding athlete, he lettered in three sports at Georgia Tech, starring at quarterback for the Yellow Jackets. By the time he graduated in 1947 with a degree in industrial management, he’d led the squad to three bowl appearances and was named the Southeast Conference Player of the Year in 1944.

Newlyweds Barbara and Frank Broyles in 1945.

While still in college, he married his high school sweetheart, Barabra Day, in a union that would produce four sons and twin daughters. Betsy Broyles Arnold, founder of the foundation and one of the couple’s daughters, remembered a loving, traditional household growing up, despite the hours her dad’s high-profile job required of him.

The Broyles Bunch, circa 1958 — Frank and Barbara with sons, from left, Jack, Tommy, Dan and Hank, along with newborn twin girls Linda and Betsy.

“Family was the most important. [Dad] loved the Hogs, but family was important,” she said. “He always came home for dinner. Then he would go back to work. He wasn’t home a lot because the job was demanding, but my mother always made us feel like he was home — and Daddy loved us. He treated us always with respect. He was a loving, very caring father.

Quarterbacking Georgia Tech, Broyles set
an Orange Bowl record in 1944 with 304 yards.

“He was strict on the boys because whatever the rules were for the players were the rules for his sons. They couldn’t have a mustache. They wore a crew cut, which would irritate my brothers from time to time. My sister and I, when we came along, they had mellowed a little bit.”

As with all major programs, what fans saw of Broyles on Saturday’s sideline was just a fraction of the time and effort that went into the job during the week. Broyles Arnold said that while her father was notable for not bringing the stressful parts of work home with him, football was never far away.

“He never brought work home, which I always thought was pretty amazing,” she said. “He was present with us when he was there. That’s not to say that after he hung with us a little bit, he didn’t pull out his notepad and start doing X’s and O’s. His concentration factor was such that as kids we’d be like, ‘The house is on fire!’ and we’d run out. He never even looked up.

“When I was a junior in high school, he turned our dining room into a film room so he could watch film,” she said. “I would sit in there with him, so I probably know more about football than most people because I used to break down plays with him and I’d listen to him. I love football.”

Broyles is carried off the field in Little Rock after the Hogs’ 1975 Cotton Bowl-clinching win over Texas A&M.

The preparation and sacrifices played out on the field, yielding seven Southwest Conference titles, 10 bowl bids, 20 All- Americans and 88 all-Conference players. In 1964, he reached the pinnacle with an undefeated season and a narrow 10-7 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers to claim national championship honors awarded by the Football Writers Association of America.

Head Hog Broyles at the 1961 Cotton Bowl.

Broyles took on the additional role of athletic director in 1973, and it became his sole job three years later. Broyles’ tenure as AD was as successful as his coaching career, with 43 national titles, 57 SWC titles, 48 SEC titles and 22 football bowl games in just shy of 35 years in the role. Along the way, he built or renovated multiple facilities for the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, including Bud Walton Arena, Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, Baum-Walker Stadium at George Cole Field, John McDonnell Field and the Fred W. and Mary B. Smith Razorback Golf Center. His impact continued for six additional years with the Razorback Foundation following his retirement as athletic director.

THE AWARD

One distinguishing characteristic of Boyles as a head coach was the manner in which he mentored and developed his assistants — and develop them he did, with a sharp eye for talent and a fierce loyalty to his staff.

“Dad loved his assistant coaches,” Broyles Arnold said. “He would not take raises; he would give his raises to his coaches. He also made commitments to them; he told them if you come here for four years, he would help you get a head coaching job. He was very close with all of his assistant coaches.”

So it was that when Bazzel approached Broyles with the idea for an award to honor the nation’s top assistant, the former linebacker found a receptive ear in the legendary coach under whose tutelage rose the likes of Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Johnny Majors and Joe Gibbs.

“I don’t know how I stumbled on it, but I stumbled on a media guide listing the assistant coaches that Coach Broyles had,” Bazzel said. “When you’re playing up there, you don’t have time to pay attention to things. Being from Florida, I didn’t know about the history of Coach Broyles, and I didn’t realize how many great assistant coaches were under him.

“As I did my research, Bear Bryant was in the conversation, but nobody else could say their assistants had gone on to win four or five Super Bowls and national championships and all those things. I got to thinking, ‘Is there an award for an assistant coach?’ and there wasn’t.”

Bazzel remembered getting a grilling from Broyles to ensure he had thought the idea through, but once satisfied, the coach gave his blessing on one condition.

“Coach Broyles said, ‘Well David, I like the idea. I know the value of assistant coaches, but here’s the thing: If we do this, you can’t ask for any money from any of the people who give to the Razorback Foundation.’ I said, ‘OK, coach. Whatever.’

“I walked away from that meeting and thought, ‘I’m in big trouble,’ because everybody gave to the foundation. He gave me the blessing to go forward, and I think he knew it was an honor, but it was really, ‘Prove it to us that you can get this done.’”

Bazzel had jumped into the deep end with very little time to get the award off the ground. When he wasn’t recruiting national head coaches for nominations or to sit on the judging committee, he was reviewing designs for the iconic trophy and tending to a thousand other details. Knocking on doors for money was a daily exercise in humility given Broyles’ caveat.

“I had no money,” Bazzel said. “I went to company CEOs and said, ‘I’m putting together this award called the Broyles Award. Would you be interested in being a sponsor?’ They’d say, ‘David, I could either give $75,000 to you for the Broyles Award or I could give $75,000 to the foundation.’ I said, ‘I gotcha.’”

After finally locating a banker willing to loan him funds, Bazzel took on $50,000 of debt to get the award started. The first award presentation was a major success, which bought Bazzel another year and an additional $50,000 loan. Despite having $100,000 hanging over his head, Bazzel said he never doubted the award would succeed in becoming an honor with national credentials.

“I thought once it starts, once we get past year three, four, five, then you have these guys becoming head coaches who are former Broyles Award winners,” he said. “With that self-perpetuation, I felt deep down in my gut that it would catch on, and that’s what it took. After about four or five years, I could see the traction. I could see people starting to notice.”

The sign that the award was officially embedding itself in the pantheon of college football was when it started to be a benchmark for assistants’ compensation and advancement.

“What happened after about year 5 or 6 is winners and even finalists were starting to get bonuses or raises,” Bazzel said. “Now agents will put that in contracts; if you win the Broyles Award, you get $10,000, you get $25,000, whatever, which is nice.

“The bigger thing is the recognition that you get. If your name is on the finalist list, not only do you get a raise; you’re on the radar of coaches who are hiring assistant coaches. That was sort of a cool thing I always felt good about seeing happen.”

As the award grew, so did the venue where the presentation was held. Next year’s move to Oaklawn from the Statehouse Convention Center will be accompanied by different timing, as well, since moving the award to a different month will allow finalists and their head coaches alike to attend, further advancing the event’s cache.

“Here’s the deal,” Bazzel said. “Right now, you have a break between the end of the season and bowl games, and that’s when we have the award. Well, once they have the 12-team playoffs, they’re not going to have, most likely, a break. Even if they did a week, no coach whose team is in is going to come, so February becomes more attractive.

“I love Little Rock, but my thought was if we can get those coaches to Oaklawn, you’ve got the best horse racing in America, the lakes, the casino — all those things. Plus, Oaklawn really wanted to help. We’ve been doing this for 28 years, and to have someone like Smith, [general manager], at Oaklawn go, ‘Let us be your partner. Let us help you take this to the next level,’ is really huge.”

THE CAUSE

When Barbara Broyles was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1999, only two things were certain in the family ranks. One, when the time came, Broyles Arnold would return to Arkansas to serve as a full-time caregiver for her mother, and two, Frank Broyles would throw himself into the path of the disease like no one ever had.

Barbara Broyles was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1999.

“Once she was finally diagnosed, he took himself out of the center of the circle, and he was always in the center of the circle because my mother kept him there,” Broyles Arnold said. “Men in general, and especially my dad, they’re fixers. He wanted to fix it, and he wanted her to be healed, but with that disease, it’s very, very rare. There’s a few people that they save, but it is a terminal disease.

“We were living in Houston, and we moved back to Arkansas because we knew there were things wrong with Mother, and I’d said, ‘If anything ever happens, I’ll move back home, and I’ll take care of her,’ so we did. The first year, I bought a house and got my kids acclimated to Fayetteville. Then a year later, I moved into my parents’ house and lived there the last three years of her life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Upon Barbara’s death in 2004, the strategy shifted to creating an outlet by which the family could share what they had learned firsthand about caregiving with other families struggling under the weight of their loved one’s diagnoses.

“After my mom passed away, we started mentoring families locally around northwest Arkansas,” she said. “Then one day he said to my sister and I, ‘We should write a book. Go home and write down everything you can remember. I’m going to print 100,000 copies, and I’m going to give them to the people of Arkansas because Arkansas has been so good to me.’”

The resulting book, Coach Broyles’ Playbook for Alzheimer’s Caregivers, distributed that initial printing, all of which were given away free of charge through pharmacies statewide. It has since surpassed over 1 million copies sold or donated.

“We had no idea, honestly, the popularity of the book,” Broyles Arnold said. “It’s really a well-written book. It helps people understand all aspects of the disease in all three stages: the early, middle or moderate as they call it now, and the end stage.”

From there, the foundation has expanded into workshops and support services throughout the state and elsewhere, work for which Coach Boyles himself laid the groundwork with a passion for the cause equaling that which he’d held for the Razorback athletic department and foundation and which was similarly effective.

“My grandpa threw himself into it and did a lot of public speaking and traveling and talking to people and raising money for the playbook,” Harrell said. “In fact, before the foundation started, any Alzheimer’s caregiving group that needed help, he would help raise money for. He advocated in Washington, [D.C.], he did all types of things. I do think that a lot of people that knew him were very aware, after my grandma passed away, of his mission and passion to help caregivers and do it all at no cost. That was such an important thing.”

The story of the foundation was never more poignant than when it was learned the state’s leading advocate for Alzheimer’s caregivers was battling the very disease he fought so hard against. As in life, Frank Broyles’s 2017 death from complications of the disease only served as additional motivation for the team to drive the foundation to new places in service to patients and their families.

“One of the things that we do that is a critical part of the game plan is we encourage caregivers to take care of themselves,” Harrell said. “Often there’s such guilt involved in that, as your head is barely above water, and it’s hard to even comprehend what all is coming. You’re just in survival mode. We had a caregiver, a woman taking care of her husband, and when he passed away, she ended up in the emergency room with broken heart syndrome. It is all-consuming.

“We step back and say, ‘Here are the things that you need to be doing.’ We encourage caregivers to get help from other people. We get on conference calls with the family so they can fully understand what the person that is doing the full-time care is going through to help provide support. When you’re in the middle of caregiving, you don’t think about yourself.”

Today, the organization enjoys additional exposure and support thanks to the Broyles Award, which Bazzel gifted to the foundation a few years ago.

Broyles’ 35-year tenure as AD included 43 national titles, 57 SWC titles, 48 SEC titles and 22 bowl games.

“When Barbara Broyles died and Coach Broyles started the Broyles Foundation, I watched from afar, but at that time, they were just trying to make the foundation work,” Bazzel said. “I guess it was five, six years ago when I went to Betsy and Molly and said, ‘You guys are still hustling to make an impact with the foundation and folks who are Alzheimer’s caregivers. I’d like to give you the award and let it be used for something bigger and something Coach Broyles would be happy with.’

“It’s been really cool, because now when these coaches come in, it’s not just an award about them; it also has a purpose. Some of them are too young to remember Coach Broyles, but they learn about him, and so they know it’s a great cause because Alzheimer’s affects everybody. It’s really been a good relationship, and I’m thrilled that the foundation has taken over.”

“I’m so thankful to David that he gave it to the foundation because it’s just something else of Dad’s. These are Dad’s two legacies: He loved football, and his second legacy and the one in the fourth quarter was he was very passionate about helping families dealing with Alzheimer’s disease,” Broyles Arnold said. “The award is really special to me. I cry every year. It’s emotional, and it changes lives.”