Kyle Rote, Jr. - Sewanee's greatest modern day athlete and one of American
soccer's most heralded players of his time - will be inducted into the
Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame Friday night (Feb.1) in Nashville.
Former Sewanee coaches Shirley Majors and Horace Moore are past inductees
in the hall of fame. The entire Majors family - including Larry Majors who played football at Sewanee - were selected in 1966, while Moore was chosen in 1993.
Rote earned varsity letters in soccer and track and field (captain in both
sports) at Sewanee, graduating in the spring of 1972 with a degree in
psychology and as a member of the Order of Gownsmen (academic honor
society).
He was the first collegian from Tennessee to represent the United States on the U.S. National Team in soccer and also received Sewanee's Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award in 1986. The Sewanee men's soccer program hosts the Kyle Rote Jr. Soccer Invitational each September.
In the spring of his senior year here on the Mountain, the Dallas Tornado
selected him in the first round of the North American Soccer League draft. The following year, he was the NASL scoring champion and voted the 1973 NASL Rookie of the Year.
In the next four years he relied on his all-around athletic ability
-three-sport letter winner in high school - to win three ABC "Super Star'' Competitions; 1974, 1976, 1977.
Today, he is a sports agent and public speaker in Memphis.
Raised in the world of football - father, Kyle Rote, and uncle, Tobin Rote, played in the National Football League - Kyle Jr. was all-state in Texas - in football, not soccer - played his freshman year of football at Oklahoma State. But a 1968 summer soccer tour in Europe had a lasting effect on his athletic career.
"Playing in Europe that summer for a U.S. junior team, I was fascinated by
the interest in soccer by the rest of the world and discovered that they
had little interest or concern about America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys of
the NFL,'' said Rote. I knew then, that I wanted to make a significant
contribution to the world of soccer.''
Armed with his European soccer experience, along with encouragement from high school friend Hank Davis - a freshman soccer player at Sewanee in 1968 - and his high school chemistry teacher, Rote transferred from big time football at OSU to Sewanee and its little known soccer program under coach Bones Griffith.
He father also gave his blessing on the move.
"My father had played football at SMU and in the NFL with the New York
Giants, but he was very supportive of my decision to transfer to Sewanee to
get a good education and play soccer,'' Rote stated. "He had always
stressed the importance of academics.''
Rote quickly had a positive impact on Sewanee soccer as the Tigers had a
winning record his sophomore and junior seasons and his single season goals scored record of 17 in 1969 stood for more than a decade.
Raised with every type of ball in his hands, except a soccer ball, his
first exposure to the vast world of soccer came as a spectator at the
Dallas Tornado matches in the summer of 1967.
"I was amazed at the conditioning of these athletes who ran for 90 minutes
and did not wilt in the Dallas summer heat,''said Rote.
Rote and his high school friends started the soccer program at their school without a coach and proceeded to be the best team in the area, beating the well established prep schools in a summer league - the Dallas Independent Soccer League (DISL), with Rote serving as League Commissioner.
"We were the Black Bandits, a name we carried over from our area champion
touch football team, which was formed the previous winter,'' he said.
According to Rote, the team name was derived for two reasons.
First, due to respect for the talented black athletes of that era - the Southwest Conference was in the infant stages of allowing black athletes to play varsity sports.
Second, after the Chinese Bandits, the famed football unit on the great LSU teams of the 1950s and 1960s.
"Those LSU teams were known for doing whatever it took to win and were
dedicated to being the best, and my friends and I wanted to be the best,''
said Rote.
Being the best has guided Rote throughout his athletic, academic and
professional careers and his induction into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame is just one more testament of that goal.