1973 Baylor yearbook discussing return of Baylor Relays
photo by John Shearer
1975 Baylor Relays star Mike Barlow
photo by Photo from Bearden High yearbook
Former Baylor Relays competitors Steve Prince, left, and Mike Barlow today
photo by John Shearer
Future UT coach Holly Warlick, right, and her Bearden mile relay team that competed in Baylor Relays in 1975
photo by Photo from Bearden High Yearbook
Tennessee coach Holly Warlick shown recently in her UT basketball office
photo by John Shearer
When I was a ninth-grader at Baylor School in the spring of 1975, I participated in some of the junior high events in what was then the biggest track meet in Chattanooga – the Baylor Relays.
But what was most memorable from that day was watching the nighttime 100-yard dash and seeing a fast runner from Bearden High School named Mike Barlow. Not only did he win that race in 9.8 seconds, but he also anchored the 880-yard relay and dramatically came from way behind to pass Chattanooga City High’s swift-footed David Robinson to give his team the win.
“I got started eight yards back and I just knew this was my time,” recalled Mr. Barlow recently of that memorable and magical moment of four decades ago. “People came across the field and congratulated me, and from then on I got recognized as a legitimate runner.”
Added his teammate and future Bearden High coach Steve Prince, who also recently remembered that time, “That was where he made a name for himself.”
I know that performance by the Knoxville senior also made an impact on me as a young sprinter and gave me someone to try to emulate. I followed his career after that, and remember reading that he won the state individual title later that spring in the 220 and 440 in the days before metric distances were used. He also finished second in the 100 after a false start made him a little more tentative than usual.
So it was neat to interview Mr. Barlow, who went on to run at Tennessee, and Mr. Prince for a recent article I was doing for the Knoxville News Sentinel on the 40th anniversary of that outstanding Bearden team of 1975.
Mr. Barlow had also attended summer school at McCallie in 1974 to help him get ahead on his credits at Bearden and be able to focus even more on track his senior year.
That story also started me thinking about the Baylor Relays, including its unique second run beginning in the 1970s after being discontinued for 10 years. I also started recalling my own perspectives of the meet as a junior high competitor, high school runner, and even a meet official briefly.
And after looking through a few old newspaper articles on microfilm and other sources, I now feel like I have a solid historical perspective, too.
According to the old Baylor history book, “It Never Rains After Three O’clock,” by James Hitt, the meet started in 1927 at the suggestion of then-coach Jim Rike.
Coach Rike, who was also the football coach and had played sports at Ohio Wesleyan under future baseball general manager Branch Rickey, simply wanted to stimulate a greater interest in the sport of track among the high schools of the region.
And since Baylor had enjoyed some success in the sport during the 1920s, including by doing well at the famed Penn Relays, he thought the school was the ideal place to hold the meet.
He also wanted to promote better relationships among private and public high schools, a relationship that has not been made whole since, based on the private-public split for post-season competition in Tennessee beginning in 1997.
The first Baylor Relays was held on April 2, 1927, when more than 20 high schools and a number of junior highs and elementary schools competed on the old cinder track around Rike Field.
“Backed by the countrywide reputation of Baylor School and planned and arranged by the veteran Jimmy Rike, the Baylor relay was from the first assured of success,” wrote the Chattanooga Times on the Saturday of the meet. “But even its most enthusiastic backers did not expect anything approaching the flood of entries the first annual running of the event has drawn.”
The meet in the early years always seemed to be held about the first Saturday in April. Beginning in the 1970s during its second staging, it was usually around mid-April.
Besides the area high schools, the out-of-town teams at that 1927 meet included Albertville and Bessemer Highs in Alabama, Boys and Tech Highs in Atlanta, Knoxville High and Knoxville Central, Morristown High, and Sewanee Military Academy, among other schools.
Tech High had the most points, and a three-sport letterman named Bardwell from there won the inaugural meet’s marquee event – the 100-yard dash – in 10.3 seconds.
The Times the next day called the event a success, saying that crowds lined the outside of the track and even the infield.
The exact date of the construction of the old Baylor cinder track, which sat in the field between Heywood Stadium/Red Etter Field and the current Baylor fieldhouse/Duke Arena, is unknown. But it was apparently a few years before the first Baylor Relays.
The football team had actually used Guerry Field closer to the Baylor Hill until work was begun on the field inside the track in early 1929. The field later became the varsity football field and was named Rike Field. Bleachers had also been moved from Guerry Field to there.
Both Rike Field and the cinder track were the varsity facilities until Heywood Stadium opened during the 1971-72 school year. The old cinder track remained and continued to be used in a variety of ways by the school until it was dug up in the summer of 1987 as part of a multi-faceted campus remodeling plan after girls were admitted in 1985.
Today, the slightly re-sculptured lawn area is still known as Rike Field, and a marker tells a little of the field’s history.
After the first Baylor Relays meet was held in 1927, it was scheduled to be a yearly event. But in 1928 and 1929 it was not staged because the Chattanooga News and some area schools began holding a Dixie Scholastic Track Meet, Mr. Hitt wrote.
However, in 1930 it returned and would be the premier track meet in Chattanooga and the region into the 1960s.
Among the early highlights of the Baylor Relays, one occurred in 1931, when Pinky Moore won the 100 in a time of 10.0 seconds, a meet record that stood for a number of years.
In 1936, Cyril Urbas of the Kentucky Military Institute in the Louisville area amazed by winning four seemingly unrelated events. They were the shot put (48 feet, 6 inches) during its first year as part of the Baylor Relays, the discus (112-6) in his first time ever to compete in the event, the broad/long jump (20-1.25) and high jump (5-7).
The tall athlete finished second to Baylor’s Fred Newman in the javelin toss and seemed destined to be a good future decathlete, although the rest of his athletic career seems lost to time.
The athlete or athletes who seemed to receive the most attention at that meet, though, were the black employees of both Baylor and McCallie. As an insight into that time period regarding race relations and limited opportunities for blacks, the Times said the two staffs had a relay race against each other.
McCallie’s staff had won the year before and ended up winning again in 1936.
“The Tornado servants won amid the loudest cheering of the day,” wrote Springer Gibson of the Chattanooga Times of the otherwise white only meet. “The race is rapidly coming to be a great tradition in the Rike classic.”
By the time the Baylor Relays returned in the 1970s and segregation and limited opportunities for American blacks had long since vanished, the black athletes would be cheered simply for being the fastest as regular competitors for their schools.
Among the officials taking part in the 1936 Baylor Relays was meet referee and University of Chattanooga football coach Scrappy Moore, as well as pole vault official and McCallie track coach William Tate. A former University of Georgia track and cross country runner, he would return to Georgia that fall and would become the beloved dean of men and would have the student center at Georgia later named in his honor.
The head official of the 1937 Baylor Relays was Frank Thomas, the former University of Chattanooga coach, who by then had led Alabama and an average player named Bear Bryant to the 1934 national football championship.
Future University of Chattanooga President W.H. Masterson, who was then a Baylor teacher, also served as a meet volunteer during this time.
Also in the 1936 meet, fleet-footed “Breezin” Bob Andridge of McCallie competed in the 100-yard dash. Although his winning time was only 10.6, he had reportedly run the 100 under 10 seconds while at McCallie and was one of the fastest runners in Chattanooga in the 1930s.
A boarding student from Knoxville, he went on to play football at Tennessee, although he found plenty of other talented athletes like fourth-place Heisman Trophy finisher George Cafego there during the Vols’ glory run from 1938-40. He was joined on the Tennessee gridiron by Baylor Relays javelin champion Mr. Newman and 1937 pole vault winner Jimmy Rike (11-4), the son of Coach Rike.
And speaking of the Heisman Trophy, the 100-yard dash at the 1941 Baylor Relays was won by Baylor’s Eddie Prokop, who would go on to finish fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1943 at Georgia Tech. At that meet, the boarding student from Cleveland, Ohio, edged Howard Stillwell from Atlanta Boys High with a time of 10.1 in unfavorable weather conditions.
Mr. Prokop also placed in four relays and finished second in the discus throw.
Baylor’s Martin Ochs – who went on to be a newspaper editor at the Chattanooga Times -- and a Chapman from top team Castle Heights in Lebanon, Tenn., finished tied for first in the pole vault at 10-9.
Also participating in that 1941 meet as a young sixth-grader from Normal Park Elementary and winning the 50-yard dash was Wes Brown.
“The Baylor Relays was the best spring event during my elementary days at Normal Park,” recalled Mr. Brown this week. “I’ll never forget running in the 50-yard dash for fifth and sixth graders.
“I worked for two weeks on my start. In fifth grade I finished second to Bert Wills from Missionary Ridge, later a fine dentist in town, now deceased. In sixth grade I won the 50-yard dash in 6.7 seconds and am proud to say the record held for more than 10 years.”
Mr. Brown, who remembers being congratulated by standout Baylor varsity athletes Bill Healy and George Bryan after his win, said that the younger kids would compete in the mornings. They would be followed by the junior high and high school athletes beginning in the afternoon.
Mr. Brown went on to become a standout athlete and student at McCallie and won the Tennessee men’s state amateur golf tournament in 1948 while a student at Washington and Lee. He eventually became a longtime Chattanooga insurance agent and operated Moccasin Bend Golf Course with some partners for a number of years.
Although Mr. Brown did not go to school at Baylor, finding future students at the then all-male military school was part of the idea behind having youngsters compete in the Baylor Relays. At least that is the memory of Herb Barks Jr., whose father, Herb Barks Sr., was headmaster at the time.
“The Baylor Relays was an effort to get young kids on the Baylor campus,” he recalled recently. “It was a big event and Coach Rike liked the fact that little kids were running.”
One student they did get on campus and he became quite fast was Ellis Goodloe, who ran the 100-yard dash in 9.75 seconds for Baylor in the Baylor Relays in both 1953 and 1954 before running at the University of Florida.
The 1954 season also marked the fourth straight victory by Baylor in the team competition.
The last Baylor Relays held in its first run was 1963, when McCallie under coach Russ Tate edged runner-up Baylor in a cold rain for the team title. By then, Coach Rike had been replaced as the Baylor track coach by Clint Moore after serving from 1920-59 – an unrivaled 40 seasons.
The individual star in 1963 was Robert Markham of Paris, Ky., who won the 100 and tied for first in the high jump.
Sixth-grader Forrest Simmons of Lookout Mountain impressed in the sprints for the younger students in 1963. He edged future Baylor and Georgia Tech football star Rob Healy.
The meet also featured a hurdle shuttle relay across the middle of a muddy Rike Field.
Exactly why the Baylor Relays meet was not held after 1963 is not completely known. Perhaps another meet became popular, and Coach Rike was no longer there to keep it going.
However, it would return in 1973 under Baylor coach Hugh Walker. And this time, it would be held at the new artificial track at Heywood Stadium.
The exact reason the meet was brought back is also not known. The 1973 Baylor yearbook said it was “an old promise brought back to life.”
I tried to locate and contact Coach Walker, who kindly used to encourage me in track, but I was unsuccessful in finding him, even with the help of the Baylor office.
In the 1970s, the Baylor Relays featured a few new twists, including a sprinters medley relay, a distance medley relay and a shot putters relay. In the latter, all relay members weighed over 200 pounds and used a shot put instead of a baton.
Beginning in 1973, when I was a seventh-grader and in my first year at Baylor, the meet, which was won by Memphis Wooddale, also featured a new twist – the arrival of girls as regular competitors. Apparently in the past, the meet occasionally had girls competing in the younger grades, including Mary Alice “Fifi” Brown Brock, the younger sister of Wes Brown. She qualified simply by being the fastest male or female at Normal Park, according to Lew Brown, another brother.
And for at least two years – in 1975 and 1976 – one of the female competitors was a Bearden runner named Holly Warlick, who would win the state championship in the 440 both her junior and senior years.
Yes, it is the same Holly Warlick who now coaches a little women’s basketball at the University of Tennessee.
“It was competitive,” the coach recalled recently. “It was one of the best track meets outside of Knoxville. The Baylor Relays was one of the biggest ones in the school year. It was kind of a tune-up to go to the state meet.”
At the Baylor Relays, she apparently competed only on the relay teams, since the 440 was not an individual event.
Bob LeSueur, who coached the outstanding Bearden teams during that era, said he brought his team to the Baylor Relays during that time because he wanted some good competitions for his talented team.
“I tried to find the best competition for them that I could,” he said. “There were a lot of other schools there not just from Tennessee but also from Georgia. It was some really keen competition.”
He had also competed during the 1975 season in a three-way meet against East Ridge and McCallie, which were both strong that year, and also took his team to the Florida Relays.
In 1977 and 1978, after trying to play only on the golf team in the spring of 1976, I went back out for the track team and competed in both of the Baylor Relays while also trying to continue playing on the golf team. I was probably not overly talented at either sport, but I loved them both. I also tried to combine them when I could, including by running on the Valleybrook golf course cart path by my house.
While I performed in just a relay or two and was probably anonymous at the 1977 and 1978 Baylor Relays to everyone besides my parents and coaches, one or two athletes did impress the fans.
David Robinson of Oak Ridge High broke Mr. Goodloe’s 23-year-old record in the 100-yard dash with a time of 9.7 in the preliminaries, while Joe Williams of Ooltewah tied the record time of 10.4 seconds set in 1938 in the junior high division.
“Ironically enough, two athletes chose the golden anniversary of the Baylor Relays Saturday as the occasion to tie the oldest mark and break the second oldest record in the prestigious event held at the Baylor School facilities,” wrote Steven Epley of the Chattanooga News-Free Press.
I graduated from Baylor in 1978, but I was not finished with the Baylor Relays.
After going off to the University of Georgia and trying to play football as a walk-on, I was not doing very well during the ongoing spring practice, so I enjoyed taking a small break to come home for the Easter Weekend in 1979. Since I learned the Baylor Relays was also taking place, I decided to drop by and watch it.
Before I had much time to enjoy myself, coach Walker asked me if I would serve as an official. Since I did not have anything important to do in those days when I did not guard my personal time as closely as I do today, I agreed.
I had to come back that night for the finals, and little did I know what I was getting myself into while watching for proper baton exchanges and runners staying in their lanes. During one race, which was probably the two-mile relay, Harpeth Hall of Nashville was comfortably ahead.
However, as one girl, who must have been named Kathy McPherson, based on the old write-ups, rounded the final turn, I noticed that she stepped at least three times on the inside lane. That was a disqualification, so I told Coach Walker and he marked the team down as disqualified.
Within a few moments, the tearful runner came up to me and was quite upset, but I told her that I saw her step on the line several times.
As the situation turned out, she soon had a chance to redeem herself. In the mile run a few minutes later, she came in a respectable second place to her standout Honey Bear teammate, Sloan Burton. I remember she was obviously being quite careful about not stepping on the lines, and I gave her a thumbs-up as she rounded the final turn.
Afterward, she came up to me in a much better mood and said she had been careful to watch the lines this time. A couple of my classmates had also attended the meet and were standing there with me, so we all had a nice conversation with her. As a result, all was well that ended well.
Also during that meet and maybe the 1980 one, Mike Durham from Calhoun High in Georgia did well in several events. I would later get to know him at Georgia, and today he is best known among Bulldog fans as the father of former Georgia receiver Kris Durham, who roomed with current Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford.
By this time, the days of the Baylor Relays were about over. Apparently 1981 was the last year, and the Optimist meet would soon replace the Baylor Relays as the premier invitational meet in Chattanooga.
That was also about the time coach Walker left Baylor to begin college teaching.
However, the meet did go out with literally a bang, as Marcus Currie from Nashville Hillsboro set a national high school record with a 10.35 time in the 100 meters after Tennessee high schools switched to using meters.
It was a great ending to a meet full of great and memorable moments of athletes stepping up and giving their all in this most basic of all sports – track and field.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net