FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – This past weekend, the greatest Razorback player to not actually be a player died unexpectedly.
Laddy Diebold (pronounced DEE-bold) is the lead in perhaps the greatest college football story never put to a Hollywood script. He was just a typical small town kid from Wynne who made his way to the University of Arkansas with dreams of using much of his time there watching his beloved Razorbacks in person when he eventually found himself part of one of the most unthinkable plots in school history.
During his four years there, Diebold became fast friends with several members of the Arkansas football team. The relationships he built were so deep that not only did David Bazzel, one of the most prominent players on the team at the time, write about his passing on social media this week, but he shared a story that was first made public about 10 years ago of how numerous Razorbacks football players conspired with Diebold to pull off a plan akin to “Oceans 11.”
In 1985, not long after he graduated, Diebold planned to settle in among the 51,000 fans attending the game against SMU to watch the final home game for Bazzel and a Razorbacks team that was six points away from possibly entering that game as the No. 1 team in the nation. However, a casual passing conversation with another senior who would play his final game, Brother Alexander, altered his path.
“He’d asked me what it felt like to run through the A,” Brother told KATV in a 2013 interview featuring several of the conspirators. “And, of course, I said ‘You know, it’s an awesome, awesome feeling. I’m sure every young kid growing up, always dreamed of running through the A.'”
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