John Shearer: Alan Pressley Enjoys Encouraging People With Shadowboxes

Alan Pressley has kept company with familiar coaches and other well-known and accomplished people over the years getting signatures.

He has not been a coach himself signing players and presenting them with scholarships, but simply someone trying to offer a little goodwill and happiness. A carpenter, he presents shadowboxes he makes that feature familiar sports autographs and other memorabilia to fit an occasion.

His recipients have included some well-known people he is trying to cheer on and help them remember an achievement or occasion, as well as the less fortunate or victims of unfortunate situations he is simply trying to cheer up and make them forget an event.

“I like giving things to people less fortunate,” he said in summing up his motivation.

Retired General Sessions Judge Clarence Shattuck, who has been the recipient of his shadowboxes and has been involved with Mr. Pressley on special occasions honoring fellow retired Judge and friend Ron Durby, considers him a master craftsman with an equally big heart.

“He’s done so many of them that it is amazing,” said Judge Shattuck during a recent luncheon interview with Mr. Pressley at Aubrey’s restaurant by Northgate Mall. “He has even got one in the Women’s College Basketball Hall of Fame” (in Knoxville).

As Mr. Pressley discussed his compassionate carpentry work, he said it came about through both his love of sports and his vocational training. Calling himself “definitely a Stan Farmer boy” in reference to the beloved former Central football coach and administrator, he graduated from Central High in 1976 when Hobart Millsaps was still the principal.

Playing football for then-coach Tommy Runyon, he remembered playing a game against McMinn County, which was then coached by Bennie Monroe and featured future UT star Hubert Simpson. A cornerback, he remembers the bruising Mr. Simpson running toward him a few times.

Knowing he could not easily tackle him – and maybe not wanting to have to tackle him, either – he said he strategically fell down in front of him right as he was about to arrive, and Mr. Simpson went to the ground each time. Although some of the McMinn County players incorrectly thought he was trying to play dirty, the play inspired UT assistant Lon Herzbrun, who was there along with head coach Bill Battle scouting Mr. Simpson.

Although Mr. Pressley did not end up having the legs and physical skills to play at a school like UT, his heart would later help him cross paths with coach Battle in some of his shadowbox work.

He would go on to be a union construction worker dealing with nuclear outages at places like TVA’s Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants until some heart issues resulted in his retirement.

The longtime University of Tennessee fan’s connection with recognitional shadowboxes began when his Vols were also receiving plenty of hardware in football.

“When the Vols won the national championship in ’98, two months later I went to Bi-Lo (later taken over locally by Food City) and saw these Tostitos bags (saluting Tennessee) and they were very colorful,” he said. “And then by chance I got my hands on some Western cypress. I’m a carpenter, so I thought those would look good in a shadowbox.”

He ended up making about eight of them and stood them up on top of each other like a pyramid. He then showed them to some people at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Karen Nazor Hill of the paper wrote an article, and Mr. Pressley’s friend Frank Kinser, who happened to be on the UT board of trustees, saw it.

“He said, ‘I saw the article in the paper, and it looked great.’ And he asked if I would like (then head football coach) Phil Fulmer to sign some of them.”

Mr. Pressley went home and cut some thin timber board and painted the pieces in white and Tennessee orange in different sizes and took them in pillowcases to Mr. Kinser’s office for coach Fulmer to possibly sign.

“About two weeks later, he called me up and said your package (of signed board pieces) is over here,” he recalled with excitement remembering the event.

Eventually, Mr. Pressley became acquainted with the UT coaches and others themselves and was getting them to sign items. He said he has made about 200 shadowboxes with coach Phillip Fulmer’s autograph. He even made a special one for the coach after his coaching tenure ended and he found the special time to present it. The only drawback was that it had the autograph of athletic director Mike Hamilton, who had fired him, Mr. Pressley remembered with a laugh.

“Phil has turned into a personal friend of mine now,” he added.

The late UT women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt was also a favorite, he said, and he became well acquainted with her and then-assistant Holly Warlick, the former Lady Vol standout who succeeded her. He remembered that he would go by coach Summitt’s office regularly, and one time kept slowly going past her office hoping to get her attention.

“She said, ‘Come on in here. Don’t ever walk by my office without speaking,’ ” he remembered.

He recalled that she also once told him that whatever he needed in terms of autographs to let her know.

Among the other UT coaches he has gotten to know and like are current men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes and baseball coach Tony Vitello, who led the Vols to a baseball national championship last year.

He said coach Barnes has a good personality, and if you sit down with him, you are going to cry due to his engaging style of conversing. Of coach Vitello, known affectionally as Tony V., he said, “You know he is cool, but he is a cool guy.”

Around the UT athletic department over the years, Mr. Pressley has become known as the pillowcase guy due to how he carries the wooden plates to get signed.

Mr. Pressley has also gotten shadowboxes from coaches and others from SEC rival schools. He developed a relationship with a football operations representative at Alabama and got numerous signed wood plates from former Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban.

He has also become acquainted with former Georgia Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker and has gotten numerous autographs from him to use for Bulldog fans and supporters.

Mr. Pressley said he does make custom shadowboxes for people for a fee, but a lot of his work involves charitable gifts often for people experiencing a tough time or someone celebrating a special occasion. If he sees someone who has undergone trauma or misfortune on the news, he will try to put together a shadowbox.

Those in recent years have included everyone from a couple of Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe Middle School students with cancer, a youngster who witnessed the killing of a family member in the Soddy-Daisy area, and police officers injured in the line of duty.

Among the other well-known officials whom he has crossed paths with to get an autograph and/or make a special presentation to are UT benefactor Jim Haslam Sr. of Pilot oil, Gov. Phil Bredesen, Peyton Manning, and former NCAA President Myles Brand (also known as the former Indiana University chancellor who fired basketball coach Bobby Knight after he grabbed and scolded a student).

He said that when he met Mr. Haslam Sr., he ended up visiting with him and his group he was with that day, and Mr. Pressley jokingly recalled that some people wondered who Mr. Pressley was.

He said that Mr. Manning, whom he understands is busier now than he ever was playing football, had signed a few wooden plates early on for free, but his business manager/managers later cut that out.

Mr. Pressley said the athletic directors early on told him that he could get all the UT coaches’ autographs he wanted, but not to bother the athletes. However, he thinks some of that philosophy might have changed since his early days making shadowboxes due to the development of NIL (name, image, likeness) rules that allow for college athletes to be financially compensated.

He also has a shadowbox with some bricks from the now-razed East Brainerd Elementary he hopes to present to new Voice of the Vols and former Tennessee Titans announcer Mike Keith in the near future. Both went to East Brainerd Elementary, although Mr. Pressley was a few years ahead of him.

He has also done some shadowboxes related to local high school athletes and coaches. He did one related to Baylor School where he got former football coach E.B. “Red” Etter to offer his memories of coaching there. He said the coach – who had also led old Central High to many great seasons – even asked if he could take a few extra days to carefully craft his memories.

Mr. Pressley also did some shadowboxes featuring commemorative Coca-Cola bottles that were in the offices of such noted soft drink bottlers from the Chattanooga area as the late Jack Lupton, the late Frank Harrison, and Summerfield Johnston. Developer John Thornton also got one.

His later connection with former UT coach and more recent Alabama athletic director Bill Battle came when he was able to get coach Battle to call in a couple of times during various celebrations for former General Sessions Judge Ron Durby. During the last one recognizing coach Durby’s 82^nd birthday, coach Battle was in declining health not long before his death last Nov. 28 but still was able to speak with Judge Durby. A tape of the call was passed along to the Paul W. Bryant Museum.

Judge Durby had played at Alabama for coach Bryant with coach Battle.

Local 3 News broadcaster David Carroll helped highlight that event, as he has with several, Mr. Pressley said.

Judge Shattuck also attended the Judge Durby event and said it was a special event aided by Mr. Pressley’s work. He said he and the late Judge Sam Payne had also helped Judge Durby in encouragement and other ways as he went off to the UT College of Law after serving on the football coaching staff for the UTC Mocs. Judge Durby also helped serve as a graduate assistant for the football staff at UT while going to law school and while coach Battle was the Vols’ head coach.

Judge Shattuck and Mr. Pressley jokingly pointed out, however, that Judge Durby did not learn to bleed orange after his stint with the Vols, saying he was still all Alabama Crimson Tide.

Mr. Pressley definitely pulls for Tennessee, but more importantly those who often need a picker upper.

This man who gets as many autographs as a voting precinct worker on presidential election day has now put together close to 800 shadowboxes – and counting.

But for him, it is just a way of putting his hands – and heart – to work.

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net