Loss of Paul Eells a Sudden Blow

I never met the man. I had spoken with him on and off the air during an interview on "Morning Rush" just four days before his passing, but I'd never met Paul Eells in person. Still, speaking with him Thursday morning, I got the feeling like he was as humble and ego-free a sports broadcasting superstar as there was in the business, and make no doubt, Paul Eels was definitely a superstar.

You don't serve for 28 seasons as the play-by-play football voice for a school and a team with as rabid a fanbase as that of the Arkansas Razorbacks and not become a legend and a star. The natural delivery and smoothness of his broadcasts on air, the famous "Touchdown, Arkansas . . . Oh, My!", the steady warmth and enthusiasm coming through---just listen to a few minutes from any of his gamecalls and you're surely to find heaps of it there. The man was great at what he did, without question. But that's only part of the tale.

Eells spoke with me off the air on Thursday morning. He told me he'd heard good things about my talk show already, this after just a few days in the area on ESPN 96.3. He spoke of his desire to be a part of the program, to "come on whenever" we wanted him. He wished me the best of luck and sounded utterly genuine when we said goodbye. "I really look forward to meeting you soon," he said. "Keep up the hard work, get to know the state's history, get to know the fans, and I have no doubt you'll love living and working in Arkansas . . . This is a really great place."

On the air that morning, he spoke of how "blessed" he was to have had the "honor and the privilege of being behind the microphone for the Razorbacks for nearly three decades." He described the story of how he came to be the voice of Arkansas football back in 1978, relating how close he came to not taking the job:

"I had been the play-by-play announcer for Vanderbilt football for eleven years, and I was happy with my position and I liked the life I had there. I really didn't think I'd be leaving it anytime soon. But then the Arkansas job became a real possibility, and I went to go see the school and meet everyone there and, you know, it really just worked out---I can honestly say something about it suddenly felt so right . . . I knew right then that it really was for me, and here I am at seventy years old getting ready for my 29th year with the team."

The light in his voice was a beautiful thing to hear. I mean this was a man who worked hard---Eells was also the Sports Director for Channel 7 television in Little Rock---yet there he was sounding deeply excited and energetic about doing something he'd been doing for a long time. No one could have known then that he would be killed in a car crash on Interstate 40 just four days later, this in a terrible two car accident that left another woman dead and a state full of Razorback fans in mourning. It wasn't supposed to be like this, it wasn't supposed to happen so sudden, so soon . . . This was Eells' team, too, after all! He was looking forward with great anticipation like all Razorback fans to see just how good the team could be this year, to see just how good the running backs would be, to see just how good golden child Mitch Mustain would be---to see it all, and decribe it all, as he'd done every autumn for the past thirty years. How could he now be gone, just like that?

Harry King, longtime Arkansas newspaper columnist for Stephens Media, was a close personal friend of Eels'. King made an appearance on "Morning Rush" Tuesday when word of the accident was coming out. The talk show quickly evolved into a rumination on the profound loss of the broadcast legend. King revealed, "Paul was probably in the last year or two of doing play-by-play for the Razorbacks as it already was . . . I don't think he was going to be doing it that much longer, but it doesn't change the fact that everyone who knew Paul, everyone he came into contact with and everyone who loved him---we are all feeling the deep loss of someone special today."

And from what I can tell, that's really what it boiled down to with Paul Eells. He was a special talent at what he did: he had the skill, the passion and the excitement for it, and he was a tremendously selfless people person on top of that. He made just about everyone he came into contact with on an everyday basis feel like they mattered, from co-workers to fans to the guy at the gas station . . . And I think that's clearly evident from the outpouring of grief and emotion from people all over the state and all over the country this week. People who'd met Eells many times, just once, or, like me, never at all---we felt like we already knew him. He was that nice and that sincere.

Arkansas football will go on, as it should. That's just what you do in life when you lose something forever. You keep on going. And surely that's how Paul Eells would want it. He'd want the next voice of the Razorbacks to be welcomed in with open arms, just as he was. But surely that's not going to be possible. No one can replace shoes that large. No one should even try. I just hope the person who gets to put on the next pair is half as gracious and half as kind as the last guy.


-JAB