Former Notre Dame players Mike Keene, left, and Stan Sumrell stand in old Notre Dame gym where first inter-racial game against Howard was played in 1965.
photo by John Shearer
Over on East Eighth Street, just beyond Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church and the former YWCA building, sits the old All Saints Academy/Notre Dame High building.
Except for space used by a small number of non-profit agencies and a dance troupe, the 89-year-old old school building maintained by Sts. Peter and Paul sits mostly empty today.
But 50 years ago this winter, it was quite full of people. And as a result of what took place, the building is now full of historical significance as well.
At 4 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 11, 1965, the first inter-racial high school basketball game in Chattanooga’s history took place when Notre Dame beat Howard, 94-66, in the Irish’s tiny and antiquated gymnasium.
At the time, Notre Dame was still about eight months from moving into its current Derthick and Henley-designed structure in Glenwood below Missionary Ridge.
But with the game, it, Howard and the rest of Chattanooga went ahead and moved into a new era in the city’s race relations.
“I remember seeing all the TV cameras here, and then I knew it was a big deal,” recalled Stan Sumrell, a standout member of the Notre Dame team at the time.
With high school basketball season winding down in 2015 with the conclusion Saturday of the state boys’ tournament in Murfreesboro, several people involved in the 1965 game offered their memories.
Mr. Sumrell and Mike Keene, who also played on that Notre Dame team, even obligingly gathered in the old gym where the historic game took place to reminisce after Sts. Peter and Paul’s officials generously opened the building’s doors. Mr. Keene admitted he had not seen the gym since he graduated from high school in 1966.
But for both of them, the memories were still vivid, much more so than the dulled paint and floor finish in this facility that has changed little over the last 50 years other than the removal of some floor-level stands on one side.
Mr. Sumrell recalled people standing outside and looking in some windows. He also remembered that he had an injured ankle but was still able to play and contribute primarily through made foul shots.
Mr. Keene said he was a reserve on the team and remembers watching the excitement mostly from the bench. But while in the game, he recalls standing in a cramped area along the end line trying to throw the ball in and being completely boxed in by the tall John Isabel of Howard.
Tony Gilmore, a freshman reserve, was one of two black Notre Dame players dressed for the game, with Lebron Wright the other one. Although neither he nor the late Mr. Wright played, Mr. Gilmore still has great memories of the day and the excitement surrounding it, too.
“The energy in the gym was electric,” he said over the telephone from his Atlanta area home. “Howard, with their cheerleaders and crowd, brought a lot of energy to the gym. You couldn’t hear anything once the game started.”
The game had taken place exactly one week after Father Ryan edged Pearl, 52-51, in still-standing Nashville Municipal Auditorium in front of 8,300 people in what was the first inter-racial high school basketball game in the state.
The Notre Dame-Howard encounter was the second one.
According to some officials with Notre Dame, the Irish had also dressed and played some black players in football games about that time after admitting the first black students in 1963. This was just days after the famous civil rights March on Washington event, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Notre Dame was the first all-white high school in Chattanooga to integrate, after several local elementary schools had become integrated without incident in 1962 following a court order.
Mr. Gilmore said he and the other early black students came to Notre Dame from the still-standing St. Francis School on Citico Avenue, a black school connected to a black mission church served by then-Notre Dame principal Father James Driscoll.
Besides Mr. Gilmore and Mr. Wright, other early black students at Notre Dame included his wife, Deborarh Tatum Gilmore, and Terry Collins, twins Carlile and Camille Ghiden, Jackie Suddeth, Edgar Gibson, Albert Fields, and Chester Heathington, among others.
The exact story of how Notre Dame and Howard ended up playing seems a little lost to history and time. Most think the progressive-thinking Father Driscoll was involved.
He was involved in integrating Notre Dame, and former football coach and athletic director Tom Clary believes Father Driscoll deserves credit for his work in that area.
“To go through that successfully without riots or cross burnings, I give him credit,” he said.
Now 89 and living in Belleair Beach, Fla., along the Gulf coast near Clearwater, Mr. Clary said over the telephone that he thinks the basketball game was connected to the Hamilton Interscholastic League that developed between county and city schools.
Coach Clary was involved in the formation of it and remembered that Howard football coach Chubby James asked if Howard could join it.
Notre Dame about this time was also dealing with its own football team playing black players, and how that might be perceived in the community at the time. But Coach Clary said all the county coaches that had all-white teams handled the situation well.
“I want to commend all the coaches who helped me,” recalled Coach Clary, who was a teammate of Heisman Trophy runner-up Charlie Trippi on Georgia’s 1946 football team before an injury cut short his career. “They talked to the kids about playing us.”
Regarding the first basketball game between Notre Dame and Howard, the Notre Dame basketball coach at the time was Bill “Dub” Rewis. The now-78-year-old recalled over the phone from his home in Warner-Robins, Ga., that he had scouted Howard and thought it would be a good game for his team.
He also thinks he remembers seeing that the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association had announced that black and white schools would begin playing each other the next year.
I figured we might get a jump ahead and start that year,” said Coach Rewis, who also played at Georgia under Wally Butts before eventually ending up at the University of Chattanooga as a member of “Scrappy” Moore’s1958 Mocs team that beat Tennessee.
Joe Maffet, a member of the Howard team that year, recalled that Notre Dame was not originally on the Howard schedule, but was added at some point after the season was underway.
Regardless of the exact circumstances or details, the Chattanooga newspapers seemed to be aware of the significance of the moment. On the day of the game, Chattanooga Times sports writer Wirt Gammon Jr. wrote, “The Notre Dame-Howard game marks the first time that a team from an all-colored school has been pitted against an HIL team.
“Last week Father Ryan, the Catholic school in Nashville, defeated Pearl, a colored school.”
The Irish before the game were 8-5, while Howard under coach John Pitts was 4-2.
Although he did not make the team as a sophomore for Howard that year following a very limited team tryout, future Tiger all-state player Randell High remembers that his school considered the game an unforgettable opportunity.
“We wanted to see how we would stack up against them,” he said, adding that the white schools received larger articles in the papers at the times.
He remembers following that game, although he did not see it in person.
“I wanted to go, but I probably couldn’t have gotten in,” joked Mr. High, who eventually became the first black to play at Tennessee Temple under Bruce Foster in 1971 after a stint playing basketball in the Army on a German exchange program.
Mr. Gilmore thinks the game was in the afternoon because, while Notre Dame did not expect any repercussions in the community, the school figured any potential trouble would be less likely to happen in the day than at night.
In contrast to Mr. Gilmore, Mr. Maffet, who scored 8 points, does not remember many or any Howard fans being at the game due to the afternoon start.
But he does recall for sure the unusual gym, and how the half-court line was moved back to near the opponents’ free throw line for the offensive team.
Notre Dame’s cracker box gym, which featured vintage elevated bleachers with posts on one side, was built at a time well before integration would have even been considered in Chattanooga. But its old-timey charm architecturally seemed to add to the atmosphere for this historic moment.
In the follow-up article on the game, Times writer Jay Searcy said a standing room crowd of “more than 600 crowded into Notre Dame’s tiny gymnasium for the historic game.”
Although Howard would have some outstanding basketball teams in the coming years, it was all Notre Dame that afternoon.
As Mr. Searcy wrote, “A spectacular show of Irish shooting skill, an amazing 62.3 percent, carried Notre Dame to a 94-66 basketball victory over Howard High (Monday) afternoon in the city’s first meeting between an all-Negro and an all-white team.”
The star of the game was Notre Dame’s Brian Cook, who scored 29 points and was described by Mr. Searcy as a “slippery, sure-handed forward.”
Mr. Searcy, who went on to be sports editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said that Mr. Cook, along with Irish twins Donald and Ronald Varner, penetrated the Tigers’ man-to-man defense “like a rat burrowing through cheese.”
The two Varners ended up with 19 points apiece, as did Mr. Sumrell. George Hubbuch had 4, while Pat Echenrod and Mr. Keene each had 2.
Leading Howard were Percy Allen and Harrison Byars, who had 20 and 18 points, respectively. Ed Davis scored 10.
The Tigers were hurt by the fact that center Melvin Stewart was out ill.
The Hustlin’ Tigers also appeared to be hindered emotionally as well. Bob Gorham of the Chattanooga News-Free Press wrote that the small gym seemed to confuse them and make them nervous. He went on to say they showed flashes of brilliance with deft interceptions and fast breaks, but they could not get their offense clicking and had to rely on long-range jump shots.
Mr. Maffet, who went on to play at Talladega College under longtime college and pro coach Ben Jobe, remembered that the unusual gym and the milestone moment did cause problems for Howard.
“It was a tense time,” he said. “We were definitely out of our comfort zone.”
As a black student at Notre Dame, Mr. Gilmore was more in tune with how the Howard community was looking at the game beforehand. He remembered hearing people say when he was getting his hair cut that Howard was going to win, so he naturally took much satisfaction after Notre Dame won.
Mr. Maffet and Mr. High also recall that Howard was supposed to host Notre Dame in a followup game later that season, also in the afternoon. However, for some reason it did not take place, even though the Howard students did not learn of the cancellation until right before the game.
While the first game was a significant moment for both Notre Dame and Howard and the entire Chattanooga high school basketball community, it was not the first time that school year that Notre Dame had dealt with the larger realities of life through sports.
On Aug. 3, 1964, just as Notre Dame had begun fall practice at Camp Columbus by Lake Chickamauga off North Hixson Pike, 17-year-old Irish player William “Billy” Warren had collapsed during an afternoon practice in 95-degree weather.
As the Chattanooga News-Free Press described in detail in his obituary, he had begun feeling ill during some sprint work and had gone off the practice field to rest and receive treatment. He later became unconscious and was rushed to Rivermont Medical Center by Hixson Pike by Father Driscoll, who had come to the practice.
While in the vehicle, the young Mr. Warren stopped breathing, but coach Rewis, the basketball and assistant football coach who was also in the car, tried unsuccessfully to revive him.
Dr. Robert Hofmeister at Rivermont also could not revive him, nor could a special ambulance crew that was called, and he was taken to Memorial Hospital. There, he was officially pronounced dead after Dr. Harry Anderson had also worked on him.
Also hospitalized as a result of that hot practice in the days before better safety knowledge and more stringent weather-related practice restrictions were fellow Notre Dame players William Powell, Andy Nolan and Chris Von Werssowetz.
But despite that very sad moment, this period of around the 1960s was considered a golden age for Notre Dame athletically, some remember.
Besides competitive boys basketball and football teams, Notre Dame was also state champion in wrestling under Nick Bratcher, who also was an assistant football coach under Coach Clary. And Chris Brown won four straight state singles tennis titles in the early 1960s.
And this was a school that had only around 450 students in grades 9-12 and had makeshift facilities like a borrowed practice football field over where the Challenger Center by UTC sits today.
Of that 1964-65 Notre Dame basketball team, which was prevented from playing in the state tournament after it lost a late lead to Kingston in the sub-state/sectional game, several of these longtime teammates also played sports in college.
Mr. Sumrell went on to play basketball at Middle Tennessee State, Donald Varner pitched on the baseball team at Tennessee, Ronald Varner played basketball at Florida Southern, George Hubbuch played football at Tennessee, and Pat Echenrod played football at Kentucky.
Fifty years have passed since that memorable day, and many of the Notre Dame players have now either retired or soon will be. The same is true with the Howard players.
Coach Rewis, who grew up in Hawkinsville, Ga., left Notre Dame in 1969, moved to Warner-Robins and eventually worked in driver’s education and bus driver training with the school system there before retiring.
Coach Clary, the father of Rhodes College athletic director Mike Clary, moved to Memphis, also in 1969, as the football coach at Catholic High there. He later became a principal in Atlanta before retiring to Florida.
Both Coach Clary and Coach Rewis still sounded quite sharp over the phone, with a hearing challenge about all that is slowing down Coach Rewis. They also both fondly remembered their time at Notre Dame.
Father Driscoll, who grew up in the Lindbergh Forest area of South Knoxville and graduated from Knoxville Catholic before becoming the first priest/male to head Notre Dame, left later in 1965 after an 11-year stint.
He served a parish in Memphis and later in Gatlinburg before dying on Nov. 12, 1988, at the age of 68. He was buried in the Catholic church’s Calvary Cemetery in East Knoxville. A sister, Mrs. Julia Schriver of Knoxville, still survives him.
According to friend and former colleague Monsignor Xavier Mankel in Knoxville, Father Driscoll was a likable man who enjoyed sports and history. He also took pride in helping integrate the school, Monsignor Mankel remembered.
As far as the old Notre Dame High School on East Eighth Street, this Clarence T. Jones-designed building that was dedicated on Sept. 12, 1926, with a Mass continued as a school for some time.
Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church continued to operate an elementary school there after 1965, and in 1973 it was merged with the historically black St. Francis School to form All Saints Academy. In 1985, the merged school closed.
In the 30 years since, the old building has been only partially used. As a result, it still has a classic look on the inside, and appears as if it would be an ideal place to film a movie set in the first half of the 20th century.
A member of the office staff at Sts. Peter and Paul church said no new plans are imminent for the building, even though she admitted that its downtown location makes the building or land ideal for future housing or other developments.
Part of the reason the building has been preserved, she said, is that it has much sentimental and historic meaning to older Notre Dame graduates and other Catholics in the community.
And its gym has meaning to the larger community as well. It was here where Notre Dame and Howard stepped out of their comfort zones and played a basketball game.
And today, long after the cheering in the gym stopped on that cold January afternoon, the praise continues around town over the fact that the fast breaks on the court offered slow-but-sure steps toward making Chattanooga whole.
“We knew it had significance, but we didn’t realize how big a deal it was,” said Mr. Gilmore.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net