John Shearer: SEC Basketball Tournament Was Held At UT Before World War II

  • Sunday, March 12, 2017
  • John Shearer

 Except for a few brief stretches or seasons, the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball tournament has not historically drawn a whole lot of anticipation among Tennessee Vol fans in recent decades.

 

That is probably true for fans of most SEC schools not named Kentucky. After all, this is a football conference first and foremost.

 

But during four seasons back in the late 1930s and early 1940s, not only were Tennessee fans eyeing the SEC men’s tournament with strong interest, but SEC fans were keeping a close eye on Knoxville as well.

 

The reason was that the SEC tournament was held on the UTK campus in 1936, 1937, 1939 and 1940.

The site was Alumni Memorial Gym, which had been constructed in 1934.

 

As the 2017 SEC men’s tournament concludes and March Madness begins in earnest, a look back at the tournament in 1936 shows a week that belonged to Tennessee literally on and off the court.

 

The tournament began on Friday, Feb. 28, and lasted through Monday, March 2, of that year, with no championship game held on Sunday due apparently to the traditions at the time of minimal non-church activities taking place.

 

The tournament included nine teams, even though the SEC at the time had 13 schools – the 10 traditional ones that were part of the conference until the 1992 expansion plus Georgia Tech, Sewanee, and Tulane.

 

An explanation of why only nine teams came to the tournament that year was not in the Knoxville Journal articles the week of the tournament.  However, when it was announced during the tournament that Tennessee athletic director and tournament director Col. Paul Parker hoped the school could host the tournament again in 1937, an article said that hopefully all teams could come.

 

The 1936 tournament was evidently close to a sellout, at least for entire tournament purchases.

 

Col. Parker also urged Knoxville fans that week to “continue their friendly reception of visiting teams, and show them every courtesy possible.” Trash talking was evidently discouraged!

 

On that first day, Feb. 28, five games were scheduled. Auburn and Georgia were to meet at 3:30 p.m. in what was apparently the “play-in” game. That was followed by Georgia Tech against Vanderbilt at 4:30, Alabama and LSU at 7:30 after a supper break, Kentucky and Mississippi State at 8:30, and Tennessee versus the Auburn-Georgia winner at 9:30.

 

Needless to say, the games in 1936 evidently did not take nearly as long as today, and that might explain why the Auburn-Georgia winner had to play twice in one day, an unlikely scenario today.

 

The game was apparently a little different from today in ways besides just length of time, too.  A look online at how the game evolved shows that several modern basketball advances were taking place in the 1930s, including a mid-court line and a 10-second rule to cross it, as well as what became the lane violation, or three-second rule. However, about that time, a jump ball was held after every basket.

 

Also, a schoolboy in Virginia was developing the jump shot in the 1930s, although it was probably not universally used for a few more decades.

 

Terms like cagers or cagemen for basketball players or top of the key for a position on the court also had more understanding back then. Until about shortly after World War I, the court was often actually a screened-in cage, with no out of bounds plays. And the free throw lane and circle around it looked like a key before the lane was widened to give less advantage to tall, big or outstanding rebounders.

 

The word jersey was also reportedly first used to describe the athletic uniforms in basketball before other sports and came from the fact that some wool came from Jersey, Channel Islands, in the English Channel.

 

Further research would be required to see exactly what all rules were in play in that 1936 tournament, but the scoring was lower. In that first day’s action, Auburn beat Georgia, 43-26; Georgia Tech upset favored Vanderbilt, 42-37; Alabama defeated LSU, 52-30; Kentucky beat Mississippi State, 41-39, in the day’s closest game; and Tennessee beat Auburn, 43-25.

 

Auburn was coached by Ralph “Shug” Jordan, who would later become better known as the successful Auburn football coach. One of his basketball players that year was Joel Eaves, who also played football. A former coach of Sewanee and native of Copperhill, Tenn., Mr. Eaves would go on to become one of the better basketball coaches of his era in the Southeastern Conference at Auburn from 1949-63.

 

But he would perhaps best be known for becoming the Georgia athletic director in 1963 and hiring a little known Auburn freshmen football coach named Vince Dooley to lead Georgia on the gridiron.

 

Most of the teams seemed to have two or three football players playing for them.

 

Another storyline was that several players, including many members of the Alabama team, had some sicknesses.

 

The crowds for the first afternoon game that Friday were said to be sparse, but the numbers picked up quite a bit by the evening in the on-campus gym that apparently seated close to 3,000.

 

In the exciting semifinals on Saturday – Feb. 29, Leap Day – Tennessee advanced to the tournament finals for the first time since the SEC was formed in 1932 with a 39-28 win over none other than the Kentucky Wildcats. Coming on the heels of another win over the Wildcats a few days earlier at that same Alumni Gym, the win also marked the first time ever that Tennessee had defeated Kentucky twice in the same season.

 

“The victory also maintained Tennessee’s perfect home record since Coach (Blair) Gullion took over the cage reins at the start of the season,” wrote Journal sports editor Barney Ballard of the coach who was an all-American at Purdue and later coached Cornell, Connecticut and Washington University in St. Louis.

 

Mr. Ballard was one of a large contingent of sports writers, including Wirt Gammon of the Chattanooga Times, covering the tournament.

 

Tennessee in that game and the others in the tournament was led by captain Harry Anderson of the Memphis area, Little “Biggy” Marshall of Morristown, Gene Johnson and Alvin Rice.

 

Kentucky, meanwhile, featured star player Ralph Carlisle, who had 17 points, and Red Hagan.

 

Although Kentucky lost in the semifinals, the program was already going well after former Kansas Jayhawk reserve Coach Rupp arrived from a high school job in Freeport, Ill., as the coach in 1930. Many of the coach’s most defining moments were still several years away, though.

 

Tennessee and Kentucky had played in the 9 p.m. nightcap in front of 2,500 fans. In the other semifinal game played beginning at 8 p.m., also in front of about 2,500, Alabama beat Georgia Tech, 43-34.

 

That set up the showdown on Monday night, March 2, after a day of rest on Sunday.

 

“Climaxing one of the most successful college tournaments ever held in the South, the Tenenssee Vols and Alabama’s Crimson Tide clash tonight in Alumni gym for the Southeastern Conference basketball crown,” wrote Mr. Ballard of the Journal.

 

Alabama was coached by longtime football assistant Hank Crisp, who had lost his right hand in a silo accident at the age of 13. Among the Crimson Tide players were multi-sport athlete “Big Jim” Whatley, future Chattanooga High football coach Clarence “Rudy” Rohrdanz and future Moc baseball coach Perron Shoemaker.

 

Mr. Whatley, who was one of the stars of the 1936 SEC tournament, went on to coach baseball for years at Georgia.

 

In front of 3,000 in the Alumni gym, the Vols had a game to remember. Alabama took an early lead and led Tennessee, 13-11, at the half. But the Vols rallied to take the lead, held off Alabama late and gave the hometown fans a night to remember.

 

“The crowd was on its feet when the game ended and Tennessee was awarded its first conference championship in history,” Mr. Ballard wrote.

 

The star of the game and tournament, at least for Tennessee, was said to be Harry Anderson, who was also a track star for the Vols.

 

According to coach Gullion, he was quite a team player. “He is so willing to sacrifice personal glory for the benefit of the team,” his coach said of the player who later worked in Chattanooga as an athletic director for a textile plant for a period before moving back to Memphis. “He has a disposition that makes him an ideal man on any team.”

 

Another coach – the one and only coach Rupp – also praised him, saying his performance in the semifinals was what beat his Wildcats.

 

Kentucky under legendary coach Adolph Rupp would go on to win the final three tournaments in Knoxville, even though Georgia Tech had been regular season champions in 1937 and Alabama in 1939 and 1940.

 

In the 1937 and 1939 Wildcat tournament wins, Tennessee was the victim, while Georgia was the runner-up in 1940.

 

In 1941 the tournament began being held at the still-standing Louisville Gardens in Kentucky. It remained there until the SEC post-season tournament was discontinued after the 1952 season.

 

The tournament started again in 1979 in Birmingham and has since been at multiple sites, including at UT’s Thompson-Boling Arena in 1989. It has been in Nashville in recent years but is scheduled to make a one-year stop at St. Louis’ Scottrade Center in 2018.

 

Since 1936, the Tennessee men have to date won three more SEC Tournament titles – 1941, 1943 and 1979.

 

As for the old Alumni Memorial gym building where the tournament was held eight decades ago, it still stands to this day, although in a different form.

 

Located at the foot of the Hill part of campus on the northwest side of Neyland Stadium, the structure served as the home of the Tennessee basketball team until 1958, when Stokely Athletics Center opened in its smaller form.

 

However, Alumni Gym continued to be used by the Tennessee women’s team as its program began to grow, including for a couple of years after Pat Summitt became the coach in 1974.

 

Beginning in the early 2000s and completed in 2003, the building was converted into a modern classroom, office and auditorium facility and was renamed the Alumni Memorial Building.

 

Today, it gives little hint that it once hosted a big tournament in the days when March Madness was still very much in its infancy.

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net

 

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