John Shearer: Remembering The 1977 Baylor Football Team, Part 4: A Wild Last Two Games

As Thanksgiving rolled around in 1977, my Baylor teammates and I were not home on break completely taking it easy.
 
But we were still quite thankful!
 
We had a date with destiny, so to speak – we were getting ready to host Oak Ridge High, the No. 1 team in Tennessee, in the Class AAA state semifinals. We knew it was a challenge, but we thought it was not insurmountable.
 
As teammate Ryan Crimmins remembered recently, we had kind of rewritten the popular song from the 1977 Burt Reynolds and Sally Field movie, “Smokey and the Bandit,” to fit our goal. Instead of singing, “East bound and down,” we were saying, “State bound and down, loaded up and truckin.’ We’re gonna do what they say can’t be done.”
 
And that latter sentence was not going to be any truer than on Friday night, Nov. 25. 
 
Because school had let out on Wednesday, head coach E.B. “Red” Etter had asked if any of the day players would host some of the boarding players until Friday night after the game. Although players were friends primarily with those in their grades, I had befriended Don Acree, a sophomore defensive player, perhaps through getting involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes my senior year.
 
As a result, he ended up staying at our house a couple of days and eating Thanksgiving dinner with us at an in-law’s house. I remember Don was nice and quiet and well behaved, and I had no idea he would later have to deal with the demons of mental illness that in 2015 would cause his life to be taken in an unfortunate confrontation with police in the Nashville area.
 
Although I was still facing the slight personal disappointment of having to miss much of my senior year due to an injury, as well as not getting to play a whole lot in the playoff games, I decided to try to help the team any way that I could. And that included by talking, which was not my natural outlet of expression.
 
Like the tradition of players always jogging back and forth from the gymnasium locker room to the lower fields before and after practice, Baylor at that time had another ritual of the players circling together on the practice field after the coaches had left. The captains and other seniors would try to remind the teammates of the importance of the game. 
 
I know we did it on a Thursday before a big game, but can’t remember if we did it the entire week of practice.
 
For some reason I can remember that as we got into the playoffs, I was among those who would try and encourage the team. I can remember before the Oak Ridge game mentioning how neat it would be to upset the highly touted team.
 
Of course, everyone already knew how big an opportunity it was.
 
As we were getting ready for Oak Ridge, an Oak Ridge assistant coach named Chick Graning was getting ready for Baylor. The offensive coordinator for the Wildcats at the time, he was about to make his one and only visit ever to Baylor as an opposing coach.
 
But he was quite familiar with the school with the historic buildings on the scenic campus by the Tennessee River. The reason was that he was a 1957 graduate of Baylor and was considered one of the most able student leaders of his era.
 
He recalled recently from his home in Natchez, Miss., that in one game, he was caught from behind on a play. While Baylor was almost always good during that era, that particular effort on one play did not sit well with head coach Humpy Heywood. 
 
So at the next practice, much to Graning’s surprise, coach Heywood put him with the second string offense, and for 45 minutes, made him run the ball. Coach Heywood stood behind him to make sure he ran hard, too.
 
“He was running behind me yelling,” coach Graning recalled with a laugh, adding that coach Heywood was definitely a hard driver. “He taught me how to run.”
 
Like a number of good Baylor players from that era, Graning later went down to Georgia Tech to play for Bobby Dodd at a time when Georgia Tech was a perennial power in the South. He recalled that Bobby Dodd was also respected and the players would take his words to heart, but he was not nearly as hard nosed as his old high school coach Heywood had been.
 
While at Georgia Tech, Graning was involved in an unfortunate play in the 1961 game against Alabama.  He was hit hard by Crimson Tide defensive player Darwin Holt on a play and was hospitalized. The play also resulted in some bad blood between the two schools and coaches Dodd and “Bear" Bryant for a few years.
 
Mr. Graning later had to face another adversity when his first wife died in a car accident, but he settled into a coaching career and was head coach at Sevier County High before becoming an assistant at Oak Ridge under coach Emory Hale beginning in 1974.
 
Coach Hale – who was Heisman Trophy winner and former college coach Steve Spurrier’s quarterback coach at Johnson City Science Hill – was known for occasional unique acts to play mind games on coaches and for motivation and maybe good luck. When he played Baylor in 1977, old photos show him uniquely wearing a tied cloth headband around his head.
 
“That was just something he did,” recalled longtime Oak Ridge assistant coach Barry Saunders, who had just arrived as a teacher that school year and would join coach Hale’s staff the next year. “He never did shave in the playoffs.”
 
Coach Graning said coach Hale was like a confident banty rooster, and if he could figure out a way to get in an opposing coach’s head, he would. 
 
Coach Hale, who now lives on a farm in retirement in the Saluda, S.C., area, had come to Oak Ridge in 1969 and would begin a college coaching career as head coach at Austin Peay after leading Oak Ridge to state titles in 1979 and 1980. Coach Graning would later follow him before becoming successful in sales with AFLAC.
 
In the 1977 semifinals against Baylor, coach Hale was bringing in a team that was ranked No. 1 in the state and ninth in the nation, even though it had lost a lot of seniors from the year before and had exceeded preseason predictions.
 
Coach Graning recalled that Oak Ridge had a great group of youngsters to coach due in part to the fact that the town that had grown up as a community of scientists in the atomic age, and many parents of players and students were highly educated.
 
As a result, the football team was able to run some complex schemes, like going in motion and splitting the linemen to fool defensive players into thinking they could charge through gaps.
 
While the Wildcats were focusing on the task at hand against Baylor, coach Graning did briefly experience a moment of nostalgia. While running up the aisle of the Baylor home stands to get in place on top of the press box to view the game, he spotted a familiar face.
 
It was his old coach, “Humpy” Heywood, who was watching the game. Unfortunately, coach Heywood was not looking his way, and he had to hurriedly get to his position.
 
“I didn’t get a chance to speak to him and it broke my heart,” coach Graning recalled. “Talk about a wonderful influence on my life. I’ve hated that to this day.”
 
When the Baylor-Oak Ridge game began, it looked like it was going to be an easy win for Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge – the first team Baylor had played named the Wildcats since the first game against Hixson – had gone out to a 14-0 lead in the second quarter on short touchdown runs by standout all-state quarterback David Webber and running back Sam Krakoviak, whom coach Graning nicknamed “Cracker Jack.”
 
The first touchdown had been set up by a Baylor fumble at the Oak Ridge 3-yard line and a 42-yard pass from Webber to Paul Arakawa.
 
Krakoviak was filling in for Alfred Stephens, who had broken his ankle on a punt return early in the game, an incident that required an ambulance to come out on the field briefly. Coach Graning said that was a big blow, as Stephens was a fine young man who also called signals as the free safety.

Despite the lead, Baylor was not going quietly into the night, however. It had come too far that season.
 
With less than four minutes left, Baylor began moving the ball down the field and scored in only five plays on an 8-yard pass play from quarterback Rusty Carnes to tight end Greg Simmons. 
 
Although we mostly ran the ball, the score had also been set up by another pass play from Carnes to Steve Hudson and a good run by Ryan Murphy.
 
But Baylor was not finished with the half yet. Defensive end Russell Craig soon recovered a fumble at the Oak Ridge 29, and Carnes scored on a short run with only 18 seconds in the half. 
 
Mark Grigsby missed the extra point, so Oak Ridge still led 14-13 at the half.
 
This game was full of many acts, and that would continue into the second half. The next scene would belong to Baylor as well, and started after junior linebacker Randy Lagod – who would later be a standout player at Jacksonville State – recovered a fumble on the Wildcat 35.
 
After another pass from Carnes to Simmons – who were becoming quite a combination in the playoffs after Baylor was mostly run oriented – Troy Potter scored from the three. He also ran the two-point conversion, and Baylor led 21-14 midway through the third quarter.
 
The game was far from over, however. Oak Ridge tied the game up in the third quarter on a Keith Baker one-yard run. 
 
Early in the fourth quarter, Baylor went ahead 28-21 on a short run by fullback Bill Healey. Healey had made another good run in the drive, as did David Farmer on a 16-yard carry.
 
The Red Raiders went ahead 31-21 with five minutes left in the game when Mark Grigsby redeemed his missed extra point in the first half by making a 29-yard field goal.
 
Baylor began to think it could possibly win in what would be perhaps the biggest Baylor upset since the victory over McCallie in the 1974 regular season. However, it still had a little work to do.
 
The gutty Oak Ridge Wildcats were able to score a touchdown with 22 seconds left, but Baylor was able to recover the onside kick attempt and run out the clock. 
 
Although I believe I only played on the kickoff return team and came in at the end of the game as the offense ran out the clock, the heroes for Baylor were plenty. Another one was linebacker Tinky Williams, who had several tackles.
 
It was just an overall very memorable game. News-Free Press sports writer Gary Davenport, who had become the main writer for the Baylor games during the playoffs, summed it up by saying, “The game will likely go down as one of the most classic ever played at Heywood Stadium.”
 
In somewhat of a surprise and unusual scene, while we in the locker room by the stadium in those days when teams still met after the game inside and not on the field, several of the Oak Ridge players walked in and congratulated us.
 
That had evidently impressed Baylor coach E.B. “Red” Etter, who along with his players and fellow coaches was helping Baylor show some playoff magic for the first time since 1973. As he told Mr. Davenport, “I want to compliment their players and coaches for the sportsmanship displayed when it ended.”
 
Coach Hale, who had received a 15-yard penalty near the half for protesting the Baylor fumble recovery that seemed to turn the momentum, was quite complimentary of Baylor as well. As he told Buck Johnson of the Chattanooga Times, “It’s a super school with the best coach this state has seen, and it has the most hard-nosed line anybody could ask for.”
 
As we went home that night, we learned the somewhat surprising news that we would play not Father Ryan as many expected, but Christian Brothers High School of Memphis. CBHS had defeated Father Ryan, 17-3, in the other semifinal after earlier beating Brownsville in the quarterfinals and Memphis South Side in the opening round, both by 6-0 margins.
 
And guess where the game would be? That’s right, Memphis. And not only that, but it would be in the large Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, where Baylor had also won a state championship four years earlier over Memphis Hillcrest.
 
This was in the days before neutral sites started being used for state championship games.
 
An air of excitement filled the Baylor campus the week of the game. We had defeated top-ranked Oak Ridge with several recent alumni back in the stands watching the game over the Thanksgiving break.
 
Also filling the air was the rain that had been quite a menace and frequent visitor to Chattanooga that fall. I distinctly remember one day, perhaps on Wednesday, when we went to some old warehouse, possibly in the Carter Street area downtown, and ran through plays.
 
It looked like the First Tennessee Pavilion, and may have even been it for all I know. It had enough space where we could run through plays and throw some passes. A Baylor alumnus or someone coach Etter or headmaster Herb Barks knew must have kindly offered the space.
 
While we were getting ready for the game, the cheerleaders were working hard at their weekly practices to help the team as well.
 
Beth Braddock Warren, a Girls Preparatory School senior and cheerleader that year, recalled the fun experience of being a part of a team that was doing well. She said being skilled at gymnastics was definitely not a requirement in those days as it is today, and she had become involved her senior year simply because she liked sports and liked to yell.
 
She recalled the “Give me a B” cheer, and said the students and fans at that time would always follow the cheers enthusiastically and with participation. Overall, she remembered that being part of something fun was quite enjoyable.
 
“My focus was on the fun and the relationships,” she said. “My memories include smashing a pie in Rob Frazier’s face from a ladder during a pep rally, and eating burgers with the gang (Doug Dyer, Joe Jumper, Greg Simmons, Mark Hudson, etc.) at Shoney’s after every home game.
 
“Baylor was a special place and I halfway felt that it was my school,” continued the Bright School teacher and older sister of former North Carolina basketball player Jimmy Braddock. “I am so very glad that it opened up to girls in 1985 and that my four daughters are alumnae.”
 
Among the male cheerleaders that year was senior Jim Stanton. He said he actually cheered for only about one or two home games that season after being recruited by fellow cheerleader Jim Roddy. But he recalls that it was fun.
 
“We were trying to make as much noise as possible to support the players on the field,” he recalled. “Bringing me down from the stands was like hiring a temp service at the office. I just happened to be available and was learning the ropes as I went. Obviously, we were having a great year, so the games were a lot of fun and I was delighted to be a part of it.” 
 
Besides trying to do my own form of cheerleading by throwing in my two cents worth of encouragement in my low key way as the team met on the Thursday before leaving for Memphis, I realized I might be helping the team in an actual playing way.
 
As I had mentioned in Part 3 in this series, coach Etter had kindly used my services by having me line up as one of the outside blockers when we kicked an extra point or field goal, and threw a pass to me on a fake field goal attempt against Columbia Central.
 
I had actually lost yardage on the play, so coach Etter, in his never-ending thinking about football strategy, came up with a play in which Rusty Carnes threw to me again. But instead of running, I was to pass it to an end running in the flat, perhaps Steve Hudson.
 
Although I did not have a particularly strong arm, I had been able to execute the soft pass to the end during the few times we practiced it during the week leading up to the game.
 
I remember getting excited thinking this might be my big opportunity to help execute an exciting play and contribute in a meaningful way to the team for the first time since the Hixson game 13 games and three months earlier. 
 
I even remember the Thursday night before the game, practicing the catch and toss play either by myself or with my father, Dr. Wayne Shearer, in the front yard.
 
On the day of the game on Friday, Dec. 2, we arrived at school in the morning and were quickly bussed to Lovell Field. As we had known all week, we were going to be flown to Memphis aboard a jet, a rare opportunity for a high school team at that time.
 
Somehow an alumnus – it was long rumored to be Coca-Cola bottler Frank Harrison – had offered to pay for a plane trip. The Baylor team had also flown to Memphis in 1973 and maybe even to Bristol in 1972 for those state championship games, so the gesture was kindly continuing.
 
I have never forgotten that the chartered plane we took had the Piedmont Airlines insignia on it. The Charlotte-based Piedmont did not actually offer regular service to Chattanooga at that time, though.
 
When our 12-1 team arrived in Memphis during the late morning, the royal treatment for a high school team did not stop there. I am not sure who had arranged it, but a police motorcycle escort took us to our destination, using a team that halted traffic at each intersection.
 
It was an experience we would never forgot.
 
I remember I was on the bus with coach E.B. “Red” Etter. When we passed Graceland – only weeks after Elvis Presley died – he recounted to those on the bus that some Chattanooga Central players had tried to climb on the entrance gate during a previous visit to Memphis.
 
I think we ate at maybe a couple of cafeterias around Memphis and spent at least a couple of hours hanging out in a big room at the athletic complex of what is now the University of Memphis. 
 
I remember being near the usually outgoing Troy Potter at that time and he was unusually quiet. Perhaps he was putting on his game face and was aware of the once-in-a-lifetime moment that lay ahead in getting to play for a state championship in the highest classification. The lone junior running back had been among the stars for Baylor in the playoffs so far.
 
When the game began in the large and uniquely shaped stadium that still had natural grass, a good crowd for a high school game was on hand. That included Jack Frost, although it was not unbearably cold, if memory serves me correctly. No rain was on hand, though.
 
Parents, students and others had made the jaunt from Chattanooga, making the long trip via bus and automobile instead of having the luxury of an airplane flight. For me, playing in Memphis had a little personal significance, just as playing at Hixson and at Warner Robins, Ga., had early in the year.
 
My parents had met and married in Memphis and lived there from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. They had driven over, and my aunt – my mother’s identical twin, who lived in Memphis -- came to the game as well. One fellow student said he spoke to my aunt, thinking she was my mother.
 
The coach of Christian Brothers High School was Tom Nix, no relation to the Warner Robins, Ga., Northside coach Nix we had faced early in the season. 
 
Now 91 years old, coach Nix – one of a number of opposing head coaches from 1977 still living – said over the phone recently that he was familiar with coach Etter and the tradition he had built at Central before coming to Baylor. Coach Nix remembered some of the regular games between Chattanooga Central and Memphis Central.
 
Coach Nix – who coached at Memphis Whitehaven from 1953-55 and at CBHS from 1956-83 and coached future baseball star and announcer Tim McCarver -- had also once previously coached against coach Etter.
 
“We had coached against each other in the first all-star game after World War II,” he recalled, saying he had great respect for coach Etter. “We practiced at Cookeville and played at Vanderbilt. He beat us on a special play.”
 
Little did he know, but in 1977, he would have an opportunity to return the favor with a trick play drawn up by assistant and CBHS alumnus Jack Moran, who liked to come up with unusual plays.
 
Before the game, while we were in the locker room, some good luck wishes were read. That included one from our senior class’ old seventh and eighth grade football coach, Bob Polk, who had led us to undefeated seasons before returning back home to Knoxville.
 
I think captain Richard Hays read it, and coach Polk had said something like, “What began in the fall of 1972 now has a chance to be completed…” For me, that was a particularly emotional moment.
 
In the game against the team with purple jerseys in front of 5,794 fans, we were the ones who scored first, and on a trick play. It was not my fake field goal play, but a short pass from halfback David Farmer to Troy Potter. 
 
The PAT was no good, and right before the half, CBHS went ahead 7-6 on a three-yard run by quarterback and three-sport athlete Ronnie Skinner and successful extra point kick. The touchdown had come on a 95-yard drive following a Farmer fumble, according to Chattanooga Times reporter Larry Fleming, who still writes for chattanoogan.com.
 
At halftime, the game seemed like it could go either way, as maybe a championship game should, but we still felt like we could win.
 
Following a short Bill Healey touchdown run in the third quarter but unsuccessful two-point attempt, the Purple Wave went ahead 15-12 early in the fourth quarter on a 12-yard run by Skinner and two-point conversion by the quarterback, who later played at Ole Miss. 
 
It has been set up by a second Baylor fumble that had followed a Dan Reynolds interception. 
 
The excitement of the tight game continued late into the contest. With 3:45 remaining in the fourth quarter, we went ahead 19-14 on a short Rusty Carnes run and Mark Grigsby kick. It had been set up by a good run by Troy Potter, who finished the game with 104 yards rushing.
 
Victory seemed in grasp, even as CBHS took the ball at its 23 and began driving the ball down the field. All we needed to do was just hold the Purple Wave one or two more plays. The Brothers’ drive had actually continued with a couple of pass interference calls against Baylor.
 
Then, with less than a minute remaining, the play that will always bring smiles to CBHS and frowns to Baylor occurred. And it was a trick play, too.
 
As coach Nix recalled recently, “It looked as if we were going to have to do something different.”
 
At Baylor’s 25-yard line, Skinner took the snap and handed it off to tight end Michael Pruett who was coming around to the right on a reverse. Skinner, meanwhile, tried to stealthily sprint down toward the left side of the goal line.
 
Baylor under defensive coordinator Gene Etter, the son of “Red” Etter, had the play covered somewhat well. But Skinner was able to jump and catch the ball right in front of the goal – and two Baylor defenders -- and score.
 
“Dog-gone we did it and we won the game,” recalled coach Nix, who is beloved among CBHS patrons and has the school’s stadium in East Memphis named for him.
 
It was the first-ever pass Skinner caught in a high school game, and the first that Pruett had thrown. It also marked the first time a team from Shelby County had won a state championship at any level since the TSSAA playoff system had been enacted in 1969.
 
We did get to try one last pass, thrown by Frank Hirsch, but the game soon ended, and we were devastated.
 
Baylor senior safety Trip Reilly had evidently suffered a concussion at some point in the game, but for everyone else, all we were suffering from were broken hearts.
 
“That was just a crazy dadgum thing,” said teammate Ryan Crimmins of that play, recalling that he thinks Baylor should have never let the game come to that point.
 
Efforts to reach former CBHS quarterback Ronnie Skinner for this story were unsuccessful, but in an article in the Memphis paper that my aunt sent me the summer after that game, he sheds some light. 
 
Invited to New York to meet football star O.J. Simpson – yes, that O.J. Simpson – in a Hertz promotional event related to the catch, he said, “The play was designed for me to go long, turn around and look for Mike. Well, when I first stopped I realized I was out too short. 
 
“I could see there was a big rush, so I just turned around and headed for the goal. I thought, ‘Heck, I might as well run to the end zone.’ I looked up and there was the ball. I had no idea how many people were around me. It was a play I’ll never forget….not in a million lifetimes.”
 
While Baylor might like to forget that play – which was brought to the forefront again this fall with a 40th anniversary recognition of the CBHS team – its players, including me, will likely never forget the successful season.
 
Offensive lineman Doug Dyer, who was also a state wrestling champion, recalled, “The loss was a real disappointment at that time, but looking back 40 years later, now it’s just a special memory. We win. We lose. We move on.
 
“I’ve moved on, but there were many lessons learned on that playing field. Lessons we carry with us for a lifetime."
 
Greg Simmons, a tight end on that team, who went on to be a scholarship player at Vanderbilt and was the only major college recruit on the squad, had come to Baylor in the 10th grade from Tyner Junior High. But 40 years later, he feels as much a part of the Baylor experience as those who started in the seventh grade.
 
“We were not a team made up of stars and prospects. We were a group that had been part of Baylor for six years who believed they could win,” he said. “People who came in along the six-year path like me were just thrilled that you let us be part of the ride and part of a special class.”
 
He also recalled how memorable the win over Oak Ridge was and even thinks Baylor might have beaten CBHS in a followup game.
 
Ryan Crimmins said he was dogged about the loss to CBHS for years. But when one of his sons played baseball for Baylor in 2006 and they had a chance to play Christian Brothers on the way to a state championship, he by chance met former CBHS quarterback Skinner, whose son played for CBHS.
 
He said he found out the former quarterback was at the game, so he approached him. Before he could get a word in, though, Mr. Skinner knew what he was going to ask him.
 
“He said it was a pure fluke and they had never completed it in practice,” Mr. Crimmins recalled. “That allowed me to put my demons to rest.”
 
These days when he thinks about the 1977 team, he said he is mostly thankful for his overall school experience and memories of positive values learned. It is those same values that he tries to instill as a current member of the school’s board of trustees.
 
“Looking back on our time at Baylor, I think what I liked most was the opportunity to compete at the highest level -- be it academics, attending a glee club concert and hearing how well prepared the music was, or playing football against the best Tennessee had to offer,” he said. “I always felt Baylor was going to do its best to get us ready to win, and I think all of us working hard toward a common goal was a life lesson and a privilege, at least for me.”
 
As for me, I for some reason initially always felt like I had missed something by not getting to play a whole lot due to an injury and later by just contributing on special teams in the playoffs after the offensive teams had been pretty much established. And I did not even get to try that pass on the fake field goal against CBHS, probably because the right scenario never occurred.
 
But to my surprise, when we held our football banquet at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo’s main banquet hall – now the check-in area – after Christmas, I began to feel more a part of the team. First, I was surprised and flattered to be asked to give the invocation by coach Etter when the banquet started due to being in FCA, and I was later presented the Substitute with the Best Spirit trophy.
 
Backfield coach Bill McMahan even offered some unexpectedly kind words about me when presenting the trophy.
 
The next year in college, I still felt like I had some football in me due to my prolonged injury my senior year, so I decided to walk on at Georgia. Despite my fear at stepping out on such a grand stage, I was able to be a solid contributor on the freshmen/JV team at Georgia and was able to catch passes and run the ball in some of the South’s most famous stadiums, including Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.
 
It more than made up for the individual disappointments I had my senior year of being injured and not getting to contribute as much as I had hoped.
 
As the years have passed and I have matured, though, I have begun to realize more the rewards of the team aspect of sports. As a result, being a high school player has become among my richest sports memories.
 
Even in my limited role, I would not trade the memories of being on the 1977 Baylor football team for anything.
 
* * * * *
 
Coaches on the 1977 Baylor football team were head coach E.B. “Red” Etter, Gene Etter, Sib Evans, Fred Hubbs, Bill McMahan and Ron Phillips. The equipment manager was Joe Key, while the trainer was Sandy Sandlin.
 
Senior members of the team were B. Billings, Trey Bryant, Rusty Carnes, Russell Craig, Ryan Crimmins, Doug Dyer, David Farmer, Rob Frazier, Bobby Frost, Mark Grigsby, Richard Hays, Bill Healey, Mark Hudson, Joe Jumper, Rob McRae, Bobby Morrison, Ryan Murphy, Trip Reilly, Ken Royal, John Shearer, Greg Simmons, Nick Thomas, Craig Troxler and Tinky Williams.
 
Junior members of the squad were Wes Bowman, Hamp Brown, Ricky Clowdus, John Crawford, Bill Goldman, Mark Goldstein, Frank Hirsch, Steve Hudson, Randy Lagod, Mitch Lyle, Josh McConnell, Jim Morris, Rivers Myres, Trip Pilgrim, Troy Potter, Dan Reynolds, Ralph Smith, Richard Smith, Bill Stephenson, Craig Taylor, Jim Uhlinger, Bo Watson and Jeff Wright.
 
Sophomore members of the team were Don Acree, Bill Adams, Tony Bayer, Freddie Berger, Hadley Callaway, Greg Campbell, Danny Collyer, David Craig, Steve Gehlmann, Ted Gilchrist, Allen Gill, Eddie Hart, Brad Hestand, Brent Hestand, Grayland Hilt, Knox Horner, Ian Huckabee, Buster Joyner, Marc Lyle, Bill McAllester, Dan Miller, Brian Morris, Bryan Pool, Cole Powell, Bill Royal, Don Samples, Randy Shuford, Jeff Tanner, Joe Thomas, Todd Tindall, and Tommy Trotter.
 
A freshman member of the team was Scott Williams.
 
Student managers and/or video assistants were Davy Allen, Scott Godfrey, Chuck Nix, Brooks Taylor, Stuart Ivy, Mark Robey and Rob Wilbanks. The student trainer was Wade Baker.
 
Girl cheerleaders included Joan Kelly, Patti McCall, Beth Buckbee, Jennifer McCall, Cendy Strawn, Bonnie Wilson, Beth Braddock, Meg Persinger, Mary Claire Pruett and Beth Flint.
 
Dr. Frank Trundle filmed the games, while Mike Stewart kept statistics.

To see the previous stories in this series, read here.

Jcshearer2@comcast.net.