Robert Cox didn’t think anything of it when Hunter Yurachek reached out late last week about meeting with him Friday morning. After all, he worked for the Arkansas AD at the tail end of his legendary career before retiring six years ago.
However, the former tennis coach already had plans. After a breakfast meeting, he was set to play in the annual A Club golf tournament, so he asked to meet early the following week because Yurachek didn’t indicate it was urgent.
“He did reach out and wanted to talk,” Cox told Best of Arkansas Sports. “If I would’ve known the topic was this, I would’ve canceled those events. Both of them were very easy to cancel.”
That topic happened to be Arkansas’ shocking decision to cut its men’s and women’s tennis programs, which was announced last Friday.
It makes sense that the AD at least reached out to Cox before that news went public. The 69-year-old has dedicated more than half of his life to the Razorbacks, first as a tennis player from 1976-78 and then as the head coach of the men’s team for 26 years before working in facilities management at the UA for another seven years.
Cox led the Razorbacks to 321 wins and nine NCAA Tournament appearances during his time as head coach, which earned him a spot in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor. Simply put, he’s the godfather of modern Arkansas tennis.
That’s why it was stunning to hear him say, in a Tuesday interview on 103.7 The Buzz, he hadn’t talked to Yurachek and that it wasn’t “from (a lack of) trying.” However, he clarified to BoAS that it was because of schedule conflicts.
The meeting between the two men finally happened Thursday morning and they talked for 40-45 minutes at a local coffee shop. During the chat, Cox said he not only felt the weight of his own 33 years of employment at Arkansas, but that of the entire 71-year history of men’s tennis at the school.
“I was emotional and I think he felt that,” Cox said. “We were in a public setting, which was probably good for both of us. I think he knows how we felt really kind of tossed to the side with no warning.”
It also gave Cox an opportunity to ask questions about the decision, something the AD had not yet faced in a public setting.
Multiple sources told BoAS that Yurachek did not take questions when informing the athletes their sport was being dropped and he has not held a press conference to discuss it. He previously declined comment when approached by an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter at a track meet last Friday.
In the absence of answers directly from the source, Best of Arkansas Sports got the next best thing — relayed information via Cox from his chat with Yurachek.
Yurachek Answers Questions
Perhaps the No. 1 complaint from those in the Arkansas tennis community was the lack of transparency from the athletic department in its decision to drop a sport for the first time since 1993. Everyone BoAS has talked to said the news came out of nowhere.
So one of Cox’s top questions was why Yurachek didn’t open the door and give the program a seat at the table because he — and everyone else involved with Arkansas tennis — had no idea there was a problem.
“His answer is there’s really no good time to drop a program, not only for the coaches, but for the student-athletes,” Cox said. “(He said) they kept everything close to their vest to protect everyone involved and you don’t want rumors going out.”
The timing was also curious to Cox, as the season wasn’t even completely finished. Ranked No. 38 in the country, the men’s team was set to find out its postseason draw the following Monday.
Yurachek gave a similar answer on that front, adding that he was concerned about giving the coaches and players as much time as possible to find a new home. The transfer portal for tennis opens next Monday, May 4, following the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
“His answer was, ‘There is just no right time to do something like that,’” Cox said. “And I sure agreed with that. There’s not a good time at all to ever do it.”
According to the UA’s press release, money was the driving factor behind the decision. It stated that cutting the two programs would save the department about $2.5 million.
In 2024-25, which is the latest year for which data is available, the combined operating expenses for the two programs was $2.35 million. That is roughly 1.3% of the department’s overall budget, which prompted Cox to ask Yurachek why that was the tipping point.
“It’s purely financial,” Cox relayed from Yurachek. “It’s like a shell game. You have this much revenue coming in, you have this going out. There were so many moving parts. It was hard to understand.”
It simply boiled down to saving that money to apply elsewhere within the department.
Cox also took exception to Yurachek’s claim in his statement that Arkansas was “unable to provide the level of support necessary for our tennis programs to consistently compete in the SEC and nationally at the standard our student-athletes, coaches, alumni and supporters deserve.”
While he acknowledged that — like anyone in college sports — both coaches probably wanted more and that he doesn’t believe the tennis programs were getting any of the $20.5 million for revenue sharing, Cox said he didn’t “think they were hurting at all.”
Sure enough, the men’s team made the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years under fourth-year head coach Jay Udwadia.
The women’s team, which is led by third-year head coach Tucker Clary, narrowly missed returning to the postseason for the first time since 2003. Had a key player not suffered a knee injury early in the season, it might have been the difference in making the NCAA Tournament.
“I think that’s one of everyone’s goals and here we just did it with our current funding,” Cox said. “So that doesn’t hold much water right there. Granted, costs go up every year and we get that, but with the current funding now, we’re pretty good.”
Cox said he asked his former boss if that success wasn’t enough, but Yurachek didn’t really have a good answer. However, he got the sense that the AD was talking about the lack of SEC and NCAA titles.
What’s Next for Arkansas Tennis
Lost amid the news of tennis getting cut is the fact that the men’s team still had to prepare for the NCAA Tournament.
In fact, Cox did his interview with Best of Arkansas Sports while driving through Oklahoma en route to Fort Worth, Texas, where the Razorbacks lost to Cornell 4-3 on Friday afternoon – a match that still received Yurachek’s typical “good luck” tweet:
That’s a lot for the nine-man squad to digest just a week before the biggest event of the season.
“Jay Udwadia has done just an incredible job holding this team together, getting these guys pumped up, ready to go and play this weekend,” Cox said. “When you get on that bus to go down to the tournament in the NCAAs, leave this cloud behind you and go down there and represent and fight like hell.”
Meanwhile, those outside of the program are fighting hard to save it.
Cox said he had heard from hundreds of his former players over the past week, some of whom he hadn’t talked to in 10-15 years.
There is a groundswell of support to bring back tennis, even though the UA announced that fundraising was “not a sustainable option.” An online petition already has more than 4,000 signatures and others are working behind the scenes to generate support.
Yurachek might not have any plans to bring back tennis, but Cox made sure Yurachek knew he wasn’t done hearing from them.
“We’re not going away,” Cox said. “I just wanted to make him aware that tennis players are problem solvers. That’s the way we’re wired. It’s a gladiator sport and win or die, we’re going to stay in the arena as long as we can.”
