Gene Etter Recalls George Shuford’s UTK Sports Days

  • Thursday, September 1, 2016
  • John Shearer
As many Chattanoogans and others continue to remember the multi-faceted life of George Shuford, former Baylor baseball coach Gene Etter this week recalled his teammate’s days as a standout University of Tennessee athlete.
 
Coach Etter was two years ahead of Mr. Shuford at Tennessee and said after being contacted that Mr. Shuford was a successful football and baseball player whose career was interrupted due to an unusual and unfortunate injury.
 
The misfortune occurred not on the football field or baseball diamond, but just outside what is now Neyland Stadium on the hillside that temporarily became a snow-sledding slope.
 
It was the same steep hill that was a scenic spot surrounding the stadium for Tennessee football fans for decades, but since 1980 has been covered up with North end zone seating.
 
Coach Etter thinks the unfortunate incident occurred about early 1960, when a good snow made some of the scholarship football players with plenty of energy want to have some fun going down the hill just outside their dorm, East Stadium Hall.
 
“There was a playroom on the far side of the dorm, and some of us  ‘borrowed’ the cushions from the couches in the room,” recalled coach Etter.
“The cushions worked well, and we built a rise about 2/3 of the way down the slope, which enabled us to get off the ground for a few feet.”
 
Wanting to try and go a little faster, the players headed out around Knoxville to see what they could find to ride, and coach Etter said they eventually came back with a metal car hood from a junkyard.
 
“I'm not sure about this, but I think Shuford was the first to try it,” coach Etter said. “The raised snow was still there, and there was a huge difference between the car hood and the cushions, so when it came off the raised portion, it launched high and far, all the way to the street.
 
“George's knee came down on the curb of the street.  The doctor who did the surgery said it was the worst (knee injury) he had ever seen.”

Coach Etter said he learned the unfortunate news when someone came into the dorm where he was and described what had happened.
 
While going downhill on the hood created a low point in his UT career, Mr. Shuford also bounced back to enjoy an uplifting moment from a ball going up in the air. On Oct. 21, 1961, at Birmingham’s Legion Field, he kicked a 53-yard field goal against Alabama.
 
According to accounts found in the Knoxville and Chattanooga newspapers at the time, the goal – which was described as wind-aided – came early in the first quarter after a poor Alabama punt. Wearing jersey No. 24 and with back Glenn Glass holding, Mr. Shuford kicked the field goal to put Tennessee up 3-0.
 
Unfortunately, that was the lone highlight of the game for Tennessee, as Alabama went on to win 34-3 on its way to an 11-0 record and the national championship in what may have been coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s best team in his successful tenure.
 
Besides such standouts as Lee Roy Jordan, Billy Neighbors and coach Bryant’s favorite player – quarterback Pat Trammell of Scottsboro, who would die of testicular cancer in 1968 -- the Alabama squad also had a number of future coaches and administrators. They included Bill Battle, Charley Pell, Bill “Brother” Oliver, Jack “Daddy” Rutledge, Mickey Andrews, and Mal Moore.
 
For Tennessee, it was its first loss against Alabama since 1954.
 
Mr. Shuford’s kick was seen by 48,000 Legion Field fans – including those who had to sit around the stadium after the new upper deck stands were deemed unsafe the day before. Thousands of others saw his kick on ABC television in a game broadcast by Mel Allen, voice of the New York Yankees.
 
The straight-on kick was said to tie a Tennessee record set in 1920 by Vol Buck Hatcher against Sewanee in a game played at none other than Chattanooga at old Andrews Field, which had the same basic footprint as Engel Stadium.
 
The boot was also described as the longest in the United States since a kicker named McClure from Virginia Tech kicked a 53-yarder in 1941. Mr. Shuford’s Tennessee record would hold up until 1968, when it was broken with a 54-yarder by Karl Kremser.
 
The Chattanoogan would go on to be the leading scorer on the Tennessee team as a kicker in 1962 and enjoyed a successful Vol baseball career as a catcher.
 
Mr. Shuford had come to Tennessee after developing his athletic skills at Northside Junior High and then Central High, where he played both football and baseball under legendary coach E.B. “Red” Etter, Gene’s father. He was a charter inductee into the Central Hall of Fame.
 
Gene Etter said that Mr. Shuford was an end and linebacker when he came to Tennessee, but after the injury was mostly a kicker. He was also listed as a quarterback, which was just a blocking back in the old single-wing offense of coach Bowden Wyatt.
 
Mr. Shuford went on to play in the Baltimore Orioles baseball organization and hit .364 at Bluefield in the Appalachian League and had eight home runs. Although he was not quite as successful his second year in Stockton, Calif., coach Etter said he probably should have kept playing professionally.
 
“I don't know why he didn't continue playing, as his overall stats for the two seasons were good.  I never talked to him about it,” he said.
 
Mr. Shuford went on to raise a family with wife Dorothy and enjoyed a successful business career. He also gave back to the community, serving as a longtime high school and Southeastern Conference official and was elected to the old city school board and the Hamilton County Commission. He was also appointed as an Erlanger Hospital trustee.
 
Coach Etter – who helped coach Mr. Shuford’s son, football kicker Randy Shuford, and Mr. Shuford’s grandsons, baseball players Andy and Adam Shuford -- remembered that Mr. Shuford while at Tennessee definitely had the personality for future public service.
 
“George was a good friend, liked by all,” he said. “He was very outgoing.  He had opinions and would let you know them, whether or not they were what you would like to hear.”
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net
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