DR. RICHARD BACK - INDUCTEE #116
hall of fame fast fact:
When Richard Back was a freshman at McLean, football coach Fred Hedgecoke, like most small-town mentors, required football players to run track in the spring. He allowed the golf team, all football players, to leave track workouts at 4 p.m. each day to practice and at 3 p.m. on Thursdays to play golf at Shamrock. The payoff was a state individual golf title for Back a year later and a team golf title in Austin the year after that. Meanwhile, the football Tigers were district co-champions two of the next three years and, as a senior, Back was an honorable mention all-district defensive back.
Dr. Richard Back
Dr. Richard Back learned to play golf on Mclean’s sand-green course in the 1960s. During high school, he would drive 20 miles to play on Shamrock’s course. As a sophomore, Back won the Class A individual golf title. As a junior, his team won the state championship. He practiced five or six hours a day in the summers.
Back was invited to the University of Arkansas for a tryout. He drove 400 miles to Fayetteville then played 18 holes. He shot a 74; the next day he was offered a scholarship to play in the best golf conference in the nation in the early 1970s.
At Arkansas, Back was part of the Razorback team that finished second in the SWC tournaments his sophomore year.
Back has lived in Arkansas since earning a master’s degree; he has a practice in Fayetteville as a psychologist.
