Randy Smith: Remembering The Howard Riverside Rivalry

  • Thursday, February 15, 2018
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith
As we enter the high school basketball post season, I fondly remember perhaps the greatest sports rivalry in Chattanooga sports history. (With apologies to Baylor-McCallie fans) When I first came to Chattanooga in 1975, I did twelve prep football games and 72 boys and girls basketball games, all in the 1975-76 school year. Among the boys games I did that year on WDXB radio were several Howard versus Riverside games. Two of those that year were at UTC's MacClellan gym; a sold out, packed to the rafters MacClellan gym.
My vantage point was in the broadcast position in the top of the gym. It was the same position that the late, great Bill Nash broadcast UTC games from for 22 years.

Howard was coached by Henry Bowles and Riverside was coached by Leroy Alexander in 1976. Just a couple of years earlier in 1972, Howard and Riverside met five times; two regular season meetings, the district finals, regional finals and the state tournament finals. Riverside won all five meetings, claiming the 1972 state championship. The coaches were great in this series and the players were even greater. In 1976 Howard was led by Cornel Williams who is now a succesful attorney in Texas. Dillard, "Dank" Hawkins was the catalyst in the backcourt for Coach Bowles and waiting in the wings were three tremendous athletes in Howard junior high, Reggie White, Charles Morgan, who joined Reggie at Tennessee to play football and a lanky 6'-6" forward named Stanford Strickland who later starred at UTC for the basketball Mocs.

Riverside was led by 6'-7" post player Sylvester Davenport and a hot shooting guard named Daryl "Big Apple" Brown. I can't remember which team won those meetings in 1975-76. All I remember is the tremendous competition between the two schools; a competition that was indicative of the wonderful rivalry between them.  Play was tough but play was fair and I never remember a fight on the floor or off the floor. There was always trash talking before and after the games but never anything that led to violence. Coaches Bowles and Alexander would never let that happen  but that rivalry was also about more than just winning and losing. The players had a healthy respect for each other.

I spoke with "Dank" Hawkins about that rivalry and the players involved several weeks ago and he spoke fondly of the great players on each side. We spoke about the great Henry Bowles who unbelievably has been gone for more than a year now. Coach Bowles was my friend. He alwayts made sure I had a table with good access at mid-court for every game I did in the "Hustlin' Tigers" gym.

My position was always between the two sets of bleachers on one side of the floor. There was electricity on the wall about twenty feet behind the table and I always plugged in my equipment with a long extenstion cord. Once when Howard was hosting Knoxville Austin-East high school on a Saturday night, it was freezing cold outside but the temp inside the Howard gym was more than just toasty.  The fans were packed like sardines that night, with at least thirty fans standing behind my table watching the game as best they could. As Cornel Williams launched what would be a game winning shot at the final buzzer, those fans standing behind me began to surge foward to see the final shot. They managed to unplug my equipment taking me off the air.  As they poured out on the floor to celebrate, I quickly ran and plugged my equipment back in, knowing full well that no one listening to the game heard anything I said when William's shot went through the net. I got back on the air in a few seconds and did my best to recap what had happened. It was one of the best nights I had in my career.

I never want to be one who always thinks things were so much better years and years ago. But in this case, it was. 

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Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com
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