Once Stanley Morgan suited up in a Tennessee uniform for a game as a freshman in 1973, he had arrived bigtime with a rarely seen level of speed and agility as a receiver and running back.
He would go on to become an unforgettable offensive star and special teams player throughout his four years wearing No. 21, despite the fact the team did not come close to finishing No. 1. That would include a school-record 4,642 all-purpose career yards.
His Tennessee career would be followed with a long and successful stint as a standout receiver for the New England Patriots and other NFL teams.
But as he admitted in a recent phone interview from his Memphis home, he almost didn’t arrive in Knoxville as a player.
And he almost quickly left after he got here.
“People don’t remember this, but I signed with South Carolina, and the only way I got out of it was that South Carolina went independent, and the NCAA didn’t recognize independent schools,” he recalled.
As he explained, he had felt pressured by both South Carolina and Clemson, the latter located by his hometown of Easley, South Carolina. But he went ahead and signed with South Carolina knowing his decision might not be finalized.
“Everybody left me alone, and I had time to think,” he said. Vols head coach Bill Battle had visited him and his mother, and he eventually decided he wanted to go to Tennessee. “I called Bill Battle and told him I wanted to come to Tennessee,” he said.
After the late former UT lineman and freshman coach Clifton Stewart, who had been the main recruiter of Morgan, was sent down the next day to sign him, he arrived in August 1973 to the now-razed Gibbs Hall athletic dorm.
But as happens sometimes for freshmen, even a likely star like Mr. Morgan, the player’s and the team’s expectations did not completely mesh. He said he had been told they would play the best players, but he said he found himself behind solid senior wide receiver Emmon Love in part due to the typical coach’s preference to give seniors the nod.
As a result, Mr. Morgan, knowing he was one of the fastest guys on the team and was beating the secondary in practice for passes, became frustrated. “I almost left,” he admitted.
He did not, though, and Vol fans of a certain age will be forever grateful. “Stanley the Steamer,” as some referred to him in the press, showed flashes of brilliance even as a freshman and ended up leading the team in receiving. He then went on to become a featured star the next three years rotating between receiver and running back and even returning punts.
The 1970s era when Mr. Morgan starred has come back into focus in part due to the Thanksgiving Day death of former Tennessee head coach Bill Battle. Although I had interviewed Mr. Morgan before his coach’s unfortunate passing, I did later catch up over the phone with former Tennessee and Marion County High standout Eddie Brown, who was an all-American senior defensive back in 1973.
He was certainly saddened to hear about the death of his former coach, who later went on to a successful career heading up Collegiate Licensing Company before becoming the Alabama athletic director. Mr. Brown attended his memorial service at Canterbury United Methodist Church in suburban Birmingham and remembered that he was always considered gentlemanly and of high character, despite not winning enough in the end to suit passionate Vol fans.
“He was a great man,” he said. “He treated everybody fairly. He did so much for people behind the scenes and didn’t want any credit. He just treated everybody really well. He set a great example of what you are supposed to be like and what you are supposed to do.”
Besides remembering coach Battle, that era is also relevant today because it was a half century ago, which creates a prime time for reminiscing. As a result, I thought it might be fun particularly to look back at that unusual 1974 season of exactly 50 years ago.
And as a junior high and high school running back who also liked catching passes at that time, I must admit that I wanted to interview Mr. Morgan because he was one of my favorite players during that formative era. Others included fellow Vol receiver Larry Seivers, the late Georgia running back Kevin McLee, and Heisman Trophy-winning running back Tony Dorsett of Pittsburgh.
While I did not possess their skills enough to be even a standout in high school, although I will blame a senior year hairline fracture for part of my shortcomings, they did inspire me to dream.
I had first laid eyes on or heard about Stanley Morgan when he was a freshman. Although I might go up to about one Tennessee game a year at that time, I happened to attend the Tennessee and TCU game with the late Baylor classmate Ken Royal and his family in 1973, when Mr. Morgan was a freshman. I remember watching him make an acrobatic catch along the sidelines below me and realized he was probably a special player.
And I think a year or two later, I was up for another game and bought at the UT bookstore then in the now-razed University Center an orange jersey with his No. 21 on it. It became a favorite casual shirt, and I think I wore it under my football uniform my senior year at Baylor for good luck. Today it is tattered and worn but still in a plastic container of cherished old clothes I have not yet had the heart to part with.
Regarding that season of 1974 when Mr. Morgan was really blossoming as a key star, it resulted in only a 7-3-2 record. While it will never be remembered among longtime Tennessee fans on the level of their championship seasons, or maybe even the recent resurgent ones under coach Josh Heupel, for drama that turned out mostly well, it ranks up there high.
And for coach Battle, it was especially a season full of ups and downs, as amid some of the inspiring wins he lost both his parents to death within days of each other. And that came for him amid the pressures of trying not to lose games as fans in those pre-social media days were questioning if the program was declining.
But Mr. Morgan was always a positive contributor to the team, even if he never knew in which way that might happen. As he remembered with a laugh, “At the start of the week, I didn’t know what position I would play.”
The Tennessee season of 1974 also had a dual personality as well, as the team struggled greatly in mid-season, but rallied to win or tie the last six games. This had come on the heels of some struggles in late 1973 after several good previous seasons.
As a result, the Vols players and coaches were hoping to right the ship going into 1974. While the first game against then-respected UCLA did not answer that question, the game did hint that the 1974 season would be one to remember emotionally.
On Sept. 7 in a rare nationally televised afternoon game at Neyland Stadium when fans usually had to depend on radio announcer John Ward to keep them updated, the two teams tied, 17-17.
However, Tennessee perhaps felt better than this periodic California rival, as it rallied late against the Bruins, which were led by star quarterback John Sciarra and first-year coach and future NFL great Dick Vermeil. The star of the game was, you guessed it, senior quarterback and three-year starter Condredge Holloway, whose career was brought back into focus in recent years with the 2012 ESPN film, “The Color of Orange: the Condredge Holloway Story.”
In front of a Neyland Stadium crowd smaller than today but still raucous, he led the Vols down the field on an 80-yard drive late in the game and scored the 12-yard TD as UCLA also missed a late field goal. The drama of Mr. Holloway’s late heroics would have been good on its own, but he also injured his shoulder and had to leave the game for a period before his dramatic return.
While I would have loved to have also interviewed Mr. Holloway about his key role in this era, a UT sports official told me he has declined almost all interviews since his retirement as an administrative support person with the Tennessee athletic department.
While this was Mr. Holloway’s senior year, a sophomore was also starring – Mr. Morgan, who caught a 72-yard TD from Holloway in the first drive of the game.
Two weeks later, the Vols beat Kansas but then lost, 21-0, on the road to an Auburn team that would finish 10-2. The second big dramatic game of the year then came in an unexpected one – against small Tulsa at home on Oct. 5.
With Tennessee fans getting restless and the coaches and players getting anxious, Mr. Morgan saved the day with a 48-yard punt return TD late, and the Vols held off a late aerial rally to win, 17-10. Mr. Morgan had also started his first game at running back after playing wide receiver.
Unfortunately for Vol fans, disappointing losses would follow to tough LSU and Alabama. The latter occurred at home on Oct. 19 by a score of 28-6 and resulted in a moving van being sent to coach Battle’s home as a not-so-subtle hint that it was time for him to leave.
But despite the losses, the Vols’ players tried to remain resilient. And that resulted in dramatic finish No. 3 in the form of a visit by Clemson, which during that era was not usually strong. The Tigers, who featured future Steelers end Bennie Cunningham, led late in the fourth quarter, and Tennessee had to come back and then score a touchdown and a winning two-point play for a 29-28 win.
During the latter, Mr. Holloway made an exciting scramble and threw the ball seemingly away before it was miraculously caught by another blossoming sophomore star – Larry Seivers. The game was also big for Mr. Morgan, who grew up just a few miles from the Clemson campus in Easley, South Carolina.
The Vols gained some momentum along with the win and went on to beat Memphis, Ole Miss, and Kentucky before facing Vanderbilt on a cool and rainy Thanksgiving weekend Saturday in Nashville.
Vandy, which was an impressive 7-3 under young coach Steve Sloan, became another team that year seemingly headed to victory over the Vols with a 21-13 lead with just over a minute to play. Commodore Barry Burton then lined up to punt, but fumbled the snap, and Tennessee had the ball at the Vandy 11-yard line. An opportunity to snatch victory from seemingly certain defeat once again arrived.
Mr. Morgan soon scored a TD, and then Mr. Holloway and Mr. Seivers teamed up for another dramatic two-point pass and Tennessee escaped with another happy tie in those pre-overtime days.
The Vols then received a bid to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis on the night of Dec. 16 against Maryland and future NFL star Randy White. “That was the coldest game I ever played in in my life,” recalled Mr. Morgan, who also played at cold New England in the NFL.
Despite the chilliness, the Vols warmed the fans’ hearts with a dramatic finish. And for the second game in a row, a reprieve came on a bad punt snap by Maryland deep in the Terrapins’ territory.
A quick pass to Mr. Seivers from another sophomore star, quarterback Randy Wallace, who was filling in after Mr. Holloway was hurt during the game, gave the Vols a 7-3 lead and eventual victory. Mike Gayles had also aided the victory at running back.
Vol fans were ecstatic, and the disappointments of the year were forgotten.
But in this season full of drama, the excitement did come with tragedy. Coach Battle’s 66-year-old father, W.R. Battle, who had been the athletic director at Birmingham-Southern, suffered a heart attack in the stands as the game was ending and died. The coach’s mother, Kathleen S. Battle, had also died less than a month earlier.
It was a bittersweet-but-unforgettable end to a year full of memorable ups and downs.
The Vols would also struggle in the win-loss category in 1975 and 1976 before coach Battle resigned. But the struggles would not be due to the contributions of people like Mr. Morgan, Mr. Seivers, and quarterback Wallace, who had people praising them individually amid the lower approval ratings of the team.
Another bright spot Mr. Morgan had playing at Tennessee was that he did defeat his hometown college of Clemson twice. And while he admittedly tried to be a team player as well by switching offensive positions, even playing tight end some along with running back, he did have his favorite position.
“I would rather have played receiver because I came in at 170 pounds and I was fast,” he said, adding that the late assistant coach Lon Herzbrun later told him he had run a timed 40-yard dash in a swift 4.18 seconds in training. “When they put me in the backfield, I didn’t like it, but I went ahead and did it because I thought the coaches knew better.”
He added that when he got to the pros, his experience playing the more bruising running back position made him a tougher player than if he had just played receiver.
Mr. Morgan also had to adjust to a few emotional challenges off the field while at Tennessee, as he said he was still one of only about 9 or 10 black players on the team in those still-early days of football integration, with fellow classmate and running back Mike Gayles another one. He said he appreciated those like Mr. Holloway and Haskel Stanback, who paved the way for him. He said he even jokingly refers to Lester McClain, who was the first black varsity starter at UT in 1968, as his grandpa.
Morgan considers Mr. Holloway, the first black quarterback in the SEC, a special player with skills more like a lot of NFL quarterbacks of today who can both run and pass. “You just didn’t give up on a play when Condredge got the ball,” he said.
He also admired many of his other teammates, including standout receiver and fellow class member Mr. Seivers, who had played at Clinton High School just outside Knoxville. “He wasn’t the fastest guy, but if he got around the football, he was going to catch it.”
While Morgan finished with 48 football catches at Tennessee, his biggest catch might have been marrying his wife, the former Rholedia McGuire of Memphis, whom he met while visiting her now-razed Humes Hall dorm his freshman year. They have two daughters and five grandchildren and had settled in Memphis, where he also worked some for FedEx after his pro playing days. He jokingly added that his wife remembers more about his career than he does.
Like some former star players at numerous schools, he also does not feel a need to attend every UT game he can. He jokingly admitted that occasionally he and his wife have come to Knoxville on a game weekend, and she has gone to the game while he played golf.
But he still pulls hard for Tennessee and is still a “Vol for Life.” He will also be pulling for the Vols in their upcoming game Saturday night at Ohio State in the college football playoffs.
“I’m very proud I chose Tennessee,” he said. “It gave me my wife, and I had some enjoyable moments there. I really cannot complain.”
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Jcshearer2@comcast.net
Stanley and Rholedia Morgan