The best thing about the Razorback basketball team playing Labor Day weekend exhibition games in Cancun is it enables coach John Pelphrey faster to teach old Hogs new tricks.

Pelphrey inherits six seniors from former coach Stan Heath.

While he’s banking on their experience to be a big help for his first team, there’s also more adjusting for them switching to what Pelphrey does from what Heath did.

Other, than West Memphis’ Sonny Weems, a junior college transfer last year, Pelphrey inherits four who have been in Heath’s system for three years and one, fifth-year senior Vincent Hunter, who was coached by Heath for four years.

So the 10 August practices the Razorbacks get to prepare for their trip will be a time both for learning and un-learning.

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“ They have played three years with another style for another coach, ” Pelphrey said. “ This gives them a chance to speed up the learning curve. I think this is going to put us in a better situation to practice in October. ”

It always sounds forceful for a new coach to say his team will hit the ground running, particularly when you are running uptempo like Pelphrey espouses.

However, the new coach candidly admits his Hogs will probably hit the court standing.

“ With a new system, ” Pelphrey said, “ there’s always more teaching and standing around. That’s why this extra time is so important. We will have a chance to introduce the press and what we want to run on offense. They are going to get some extra time. ”

Pelphrey likes that his freshman class, guard Nate Rakestraw of Springdale Har-Ber signed by Heath last November, and Forrest City guard Maurice Britt and Springdale Har-Ber forward Michael Sanchez, signed by Pelphrey in the spring, have lived all Arkansas all of the time.

“ I don’t want our guys, ” Pelphrey said, “ coming here thinking this is just any other uniform because it’s not. It’s a special piece of cloth. And I think Marcus Britt, Michael Sanchez and Nate Rakestraw feel the same way. I’m sure that’s why in the end they decided to come here. ”

No Texas Texas remains on the Razorback basketball schedule for a home and home, but it won’t start this season, Pelphrey said. “ Texas is getting pushed back a year. Missouri is going to be in here. Oklahoma on the road. I believe we’ve got Baylor in Dallas. And before I got here they had Oral Roberts and Northwestern State that was in the NCAA Tournament. Appalachian State in Little Rock. ”

Parking to coaching Unlike some former athletes who repeatedly regale everyone how hard they toiled when they came back to school years later to get their degree, Danny Phillips just quietly came back and earned his diploma. Well, quiet may not be the appropriate term for the Lou Holtz era (1977-80 ) defensive lineman from Hermitage.

Because with a smile as big as all outdoors and a sincerely easygoing gift of gab disarming even those outraged by mixups where they are supposed to park, Phillips made everyone’s day a little better if you parked in the lots he supervised at Razorbacks games.

Now instead of helping cars get parked, one of the jobs he performed to pay his way back through school, Danny gets to do what his diploma makes possible.

He starts coaching football as the defensive line coach for his old buddy and former Razorback teammate Richard Wilson of Hope, the head coach at Arkansas Baptist in Little Rock and a former Arkansas assistant to Ken Hatfield at Arkansas and Clemson.

If anyone knows the Dline it ought to be Danny Phillips. In four years playing for Holtz and former Arkansas Hall of Fame defensive line coach Harold Horton, Phillips eventually played both ends plus nose guard in a 5-2 defense and played both right and left tackle when the Hogs went to a 4-3 for awhile in 1980.

Phillips also played professionally with the New Jersey Generals in the old USFL before eventually wending his way back to Fayetteville.

A large gathering of well-wishers at the Broyles Center gave Danny a fond farewell at a reception last Friday. With athletics director Frank Broyles expressing regrets because of a speaking engagement in Little Rock, among the assembled were football coach Houston Nutt, Razorback Foundation vice-president Norm DeBriyn, sports information director Kevin Trainor and a myriad of staff and boosters who always found joy in the park if Danny Phillips guided them there.

Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the Northwest Arkansas Times.