There have been a lot of wonderful articles by Paul Payne on Chattanooga basketball from the Ron Shumate forward, but let’s take a glimpse at the coaching of Ben Boulware, Tommy Bartlett and Leon Ford.
As a child growing up in Chattanooga my father would take me to almost every home game in football and basketball that Chattanooga played. Though my dad tried to pay to purchase tickets, the ticket staff let us in for free for most games. I guess they were happy someone came to a game. That was also true in football.
Some games were played in the old gym on Oak Street and others at the Rossville Community Center, Kirkman High and a few at Brainerd High. This is, of course, before Maclellan Gym was built What reminded me of this time is I recently saw a score from Covenant University beating Oglethorpe in baseball.
Oglethorpe brings back memories because if we could beat Oglethorpe in basketball, we really had a great win. That was a game I looked forward to Chattanooga playing every year and look at us now. Then games with Carson Newman and Tennessee Wesleyan were also games of high interest.
In those days wins under Coach Boulware were sparse, nine wins out of 66 games. Then Coach Bartlett came in and won 57 games while only losing 37. And who can forget at the Old Gym on Oak Street Chattanooga beating Ole Miss 76-74. What a victory. At the time and even today it still ranks as one of the greatest basketball victories in Chattanooga lore.
Coach Barlett left for Florida and Leon Ford, another great coach and super nice guy, had a 126-126 record. By this time, we had moved into Maclellan gym and the crowds increased from 30 or 40 fans a game to a 1,000 or so the first couple of years then gradually increased until you had a sold-out gym under Ron Shumate.
When Maclellan Gym opened they sold season tickets, and I bought three at midcourt. One for my dad and one for my date, my dates all liked my dad better than they liked me, but it was fun anyway. And there were some great players, two All-Americans in Larry Barnett, who was a big burly 6’6 or 6’7 center who dominated the boards and then we had David Bryan, who played locally at City High. David has some of the softest shots around the basket you have ever seen. Dickie Sanders, now athletic director at ETSU, was a great playmaker, though not an All-American. I am not sure any of them played together except possibly Bryan and Sanders. Then there was Tom Losh, a great guy beside being a great basketball player. I am sure there are many others but my memory at my age sometimes goes, like did I have fried opossum or stewed prunes for breakfast, they both give you the same results.
And as now you had great coverage back then from the local newspapers with Alan Morris of the News Free Press, who walked to most games from the Free Press office, smoking his cigars and Wirt Gammon of the Chattanooga Times. Today we have two great sports writers of the Mocs in Paul Payne of the Chattanoogan and Gene Henely of the Times Free Press.
I am only writing this to remind truly old basketball fans of Chattanooga that success began with Tommy Bartlett. Leon Ford continued that success and then Ron Shumate took it to another level and on grew the program into one of the best mid-majors in the nation where it is today. And here’s hoping we can keep Coach Earl for several more years.
Douglas Smith