Indiana Second Team to Go 16-0

 

The Undefeated Yale Bulldogs of 1894

The 1894 Yale Football Team won 16 games and lost none. 

The "Y" Sweaters: The men in the dark blue sweaters with the large white "Y" are the varsity starters.

The Canvas Jackets: You’ll notice some players wearing quilted or canvas-fronted vests; these were the primitive "pads" of the era, designed to help players slide through tackles and provide a small amount of rib protection.

It’s a shame S. Brinkerhoff Thorne and his Yale football teammates aren’t still around. They would surely march around campus cheering “Rah, rah, rah for Indiana” just as they marched around the campus in 1894 cheering the election of Thorne as captain of the team.

You see without Indiana’s amazing charge through the just-ended college football season, culminating in a perfect 16-0 record and the national championship, no one would be talking about that 1894 Yale team.

Indiana was the first team to match Yale’s matchless record of perfection of 16 wins. No team before Yale had won 16 games in one season. And Yale did it in a mere three months, winning their 16^th and final game on Dec. 1, 1894 by a score of 24-0 over Princeton in the mud and slush of a New York City field before 20,000 fans. It took Indiana almost five months to complete its 16-0 season.

Ah, but things were different in 1894, you say. Yes they were but some things were strikingly similar.

The differences first. No Yalie, not even S. Brinkerhoff, wore a helmet. The protective device –called a head harness - had only been invented a few months earlier by George Barclay, a halfback at Lafayette College, who was known for his vanity (he didn’t want a cauliflower ear from a game injury). Forward passes were not allowed in 1894; the offense was mostly just spinning and handing off and lateraling and running and kicking field goals. That’s why they called it foot ball. A field goal was worth 5 points while a touchdown counted for only 4 points – FOOT ball. (A point after a touchdown was two points, same as a safety.) The system had been developed by the legendary Walter Camp, coach at Yale for nine seasons, before taking the coaching position at what was then known as Leland Stanford University. (His student manager at Stanford, who organized the team and handled the finances, was Herbert Hoover, yes, that Herbert Hoover.)

Now for a few similarities that may surprise you.

 

Betting was big.

It wasn’t called FanDuel or DraftKings but betting on college football was widespread and not at all secretive.

The New York Tribune reported before the final game of the 1894 season, “Princeton insists upon odds of 2 to 1, and Yale men, with a sad recollection of the money lost at those terms a year ago, refuse to offer more than 5 to 3, and few takers are found at the odds. A bet was made between two prominent alumni of Princeton and Yale, of $100 to $10 that Yale would not score, the short end being taken by the Princeton man. A few bets of $100 to $75 on Yale were also made at the Fifth Avenue and other hotels.”

The New York Telegram went so far as to name names:

“The football fever was rampant about the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Collegians and city enthusiasts gathered in the corridor and barroom, but the crowds of last year were not in evidence. There was some betting, the odds being about 2 to 1 on Yale. Frank McKee, the theatrical manager, made the only attempts to get money on. He bet $100 to $50, $150 to $75, $80 to $40, and $100 to $50 in quick succession before leaving. Billy Edwards was the stakeholder in all these bets, the small end being taken by Princeton students as a rule. "I hold about $2,000 in bets only," said Edwards. "The betting is unusually light, the odds ranging from 2 to 1 to 100 to 60 on Yale."

 

There was even an early version of “prop bets” in 1894.

For the gambling novice a prop bet (short for proposition bet) is a wager on a specific event inside a game that isn’t the final score (and often isn’t even “football,” strictly speaking). Think: first player to score, will there be a safety, coin toss result, how long the National Anthem lasts, even what color will the Gatorade be?

Witness this “prop bet” story from the Dec. 13, 1894 edition of the Hartford Courant:

“General Benjamin Butterworth, whose son was a member of Yale's football eleven at the recent games, said without reservation, that the injury which his son encountered at the game between Harvard and Yale was the result of a deliberate assault upon him by one of three Harvard men. The blow was intentional. There were several bets made prior to the game that Frank Butterworth would not play in the second half of the game.”

A prop bet.

 

Football was rough.

It still is: a Miami player took a swing at an Indiana player only moments after the end of the national championship.

Here’s how rough it was in 1894 as outlined in this story that was carried by more than 50 newspapers on the morning of the Yale-Princeton game:

“POLICE WILL INTERFERE.

“There Will Be No Slugging in the Princeton-Yale Football Game.

“NEW YORK, Dec. 1. - Police Superintendent Thomas F. Byrnes announced today that no exhibition of brutality would be permitted at the Yale-Princeton football game on Manhattan Field. He has instructed Inspector Colton to stop the game if it should prove to be anything but a purely scientific contest.

“The superintendent said that he would not allow the players to act like a lot of prize fighters and publicly maim each other for life. The game would be stopped at the first exhibition of brutality.”

The fact that New York had sent police inspectors to the game to ensure no slugfest so incensed Yale men – who prided themselves on playing the “scientific” game - that the next week the school’s football players and professors vowed never to play another game in Manhattan.

 

Who’s Number One?

You would think that a team that won a record-setting 16 games, while losing none, would easily be declared national champions.

Not so, fast. This was 1894, long before the AP and UPI Polls, even longer before computer models and the College Football Playoffs. Championships were more like barroom arguments. And in this case there was another pretender to the crown, a school that had won 14 games while losing none, and felt it had played the tougher schedule.

Here's how the Rochester Times-Union described the situation:

“CHAMPIONSHIP UNDECIDED.

“Question Will Not be Settled as Yale and Pennsy Won't Meet.

“NEW YORK, Dec. 15. - Pennsylvania still feels aggrieved because Yale refuses to meet her eleven on the gridiron. There is really no eastern champion. (Wisconsin had been declared the “western champion.”) It is known that neither Princeton nor Harvard had the best team. Between Yale and Pennsylvania there is no basis for forming a choice. Yale men think the blue-legged warriors are unbeatable: the warriors of the red and blue feel confident of the abilities of Capt. Knipe's team to wallop anything, while non-partisans are divided, all saying that a Yale-Pennsylvania game would be a ‘corker.’

“Yale has played Trinity, Brown (twice), Williams, Dartmouth, Lehigh (twice), West Point, Tufts, Harvard, Princeton and the Crescent, Orange, Boston, Chicago A. A. and Volunteer Athletic Association, and has scored a total of 485 to her opponents' 13 points.

“Pennsylvania has met Franklin and Marshall, Swarthmore, Georgetown, Lehigh, Crescent Athletic Club (twice), University of Virgina, Annapolis, Lafayette, Warren, Camden Athletic Club, Cornell, Princeton, and Harvard, and has scored a total of 352 to her opponents' 20 points.

“Yale has averaged 30.31 points per game, to her opponents' .81 points; Pennsylvania, 25.14 points per game, to opponents' 1.42 points. In the big games with Princeton and Harvard, when each team played its full strength, Yale scored 36 points to her opponents' 4, and Pennsylvania 30, to her opponents' 4.”

Let me interject here that neither of Yale opponents, the Volunteer Athletic Association or the Orange, took the train up from Knoxville.

In 1894, the Volunteer Athletic Association of New York and the Orange Athletic Club from New Jersey were prominent independent athletic clubs, serving as strong, semi-professional teams where former college stars provided tough competition for Yale and Pennsylvania and other college teams before the rise of fully professional leagues. These were basically social clubs with high-level football teams, featuring players starting careers in law or business.

These teams were part of an era in football where club teams filled out schedules for colleges like Yale, creating challenging games and showcasing top talent outside of just college campuses

The Orange Athletic Club won the American Football Union (AFU) championship that season. Yale beat them 24-0 on October 20, 1894

The Pennsylvania schedule was similarly sprinkled with these semi-pro social club teams.

While Pennsy fans were denigrating Yale’s strength of schedule, “the New Haven people cannot see why University of Pennsylvania has an exceptional team,” according to the Chicago Tribune. “The best the Quakers could do to Princeton was to win by twelve points, while Yale doubled that figure. It is considered that Pennsylvania failed to score against Harvard Thanksgiving day as long as the Harvard players were not disabled, and failed to cross the goal line till Capt. Emmons and the Harvard backs had retired. Pennsylvania barely escaped being shut out by Cornell and won by a single touchdown. Yale’s score over Princeton makes Yale people think that Yale would have won from Harvard by twice as big a score had the slugging, the off-side, and the momentum play rules been enforced as strictly as against Princeton.”

There was obviously only one way to settle this debate: a challenge match. And Pennsy was ready to issue just such a challenge.

Only one problem.

As Yale team manager Benjamin Cable told the Philadelphia Enquirer before the Princeton contest, “(After the game) the football eleven is to disband. Our examinations begin next week and further play is out of the question.”

They really were student-athletes.

 

 

 

"Brinck" Thorne (left): He was a star halfback who would go on to lead the team as captain the following year and eventually became Yale's head coach in 1896.

Frank Hinkey (Captain in 1894): He was known for his slight build (around 150 lbs) but ferocious tackling, which earned him the nickname "The Silent Scotsman."

 

 

 Famous Players on the 1894 Yale Bulldogs

• Frank Hinkey (Captain): His fame cannot be overstated. He was a 4-time All-American and is widely considered the greatest "small" player in college football history. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in its inaugural 1951 class.
• Sam "Brinck" Thorne: After being a star in the 1894 game, he captained the 1895 team and was later a successful head coach at Yale. Like Hinkey, he is a College Football Hall of Famer.
• George Adee: The quarterback of the 1894 team. Beyond football, he became a major figure in American sports as a Tennis Hall of Famer. He served as the president of the U.S. National Lawn Tennis Association (now the USTA) and was instrumental in the early years of the Davis Cup.
• Anson McCook Beard: He became a prominent and wealthy New York lawyer, and grandfather of the photographer Peter Beard (who married model Cheryl Tiegs).

If a Butterfly Could Sing...

 

If A Butterfly Could Sing, It Would Sound Like Dolly Parton

 

Dolly Parton celebrates her 80^th birthday on January 19^th. I interviewed her fifty years ago for the Kingsport Times-News, only a couple of months after her 29^th birthday and barely a year after her break up with her longtime singing partner Porter Wagoner. She had just finished headlining a country music show (there were three other acts who preceded her) and then spent a good half hour signing autographs for everyone waiting in line. It was almost 1:00 in the morning when she boarded her bus for our interview. She was as cheerful as if she had just woken up. She answered my questions for almost an hour, never looking at her watch, never signaling to any of her entourage to rescue her from this inquisitive writer. The interview only ended after her bus driver came back and said, “Miss Parton, we have to go.”

Here is a story about the young Dolly Parton based on my notes from that March 14, 1975 interview. She was very much then like she is today, half a century later.

 

 

The blonde hair piled toward heaven frames a petite face distinguished by large Spider Lady eyelashes. A tight cowgirl pantsuit gets your attention.

She looks outlandish but in a pretty “more is more” kind of way.

Then she opens her Revlon lips to begin her part of the show. If a butterfly could sing, it would sound like Dolly Parton.

The near capacity crowd at the Dobyns-Bennett Dome had waited patiently for three hours, through three other acts (Hank Williams, Jr., Billy “Crash” Craddock, and Ronnie Milsap) and three interminable intermissions to see her. They'd cheered her every song. And when she finally finished her act, a hearty band of loyalists had kept her signing autographs until past 12:30 a.m.

Dolly Parton had come back home, to East Tennessee.

And on such an eventful day: just that morning, she'd learned that her latest single, "The Bargain Store," had climbed to the number one spot on the country charts, her fifth solo number one.

It was less than a year since the celebrated Dolly-Porter split, an amicable parting of the ways of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner after seven years of success. And it was a scant six months since she'd put together her new act - The Dolly Parton Show featuring the Traveling Family Band.

It was a chance she took, leaving the success and security of Porter 'n' Dolly for a solo career as a singer-songwriter. But the gamble seemed to be paying off.

 

Dolly Parton is country music's reigning sex symbol, an outlandishly dressed woman whose exterior belies a sensitive soul, a songwriter of restraint and taste. It is the heart of a poet trapped inside Mae West's body.

"All I ever wanted to be was a star," Dolly Parton told me about her childhood aspirations. To a girl growing up in a rundown house in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, stardom had an image. Stars wore the finest clothes, drove the biggest cars, owned the nicest houses.

She became the Dale Evans of country music, the bright, sparkly partner of country music’s most flamboyantly dressed country boy, Porter Wagoner.

And by 1974, she was, as they say, doin' good.

A member of the Grand Ole Opry. On TV every week on the popular "Porter Wagoner Show." Every record they released in the Top 10. And acclaim as Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association.

There was even growing recognition as a songwriter. Merle Haggard was recording her composition "Kentucky Gambler" (it would later make it to No. 1 on the country charts). Maria Muldaur had included her "My Tennessee Mountain Home" on her million-selling "Midnight at the Oasis" album. Everyone from Linda Ronstadt to Mac Davis was singing Parton's praises. And songs.

At 28 in 1974, Dolly Parton was at the top of her profession.

That's why country music was shaken nearly to its cowboy boots when she and Wagoner announced they were splitting up. Amicable was the word they used at the time.

"We're still friends," Parton says. "We have a publishing company together, and we still record our duets. The break was as much his idea as mine. When Porter first asked me to join his show, I told him that some day I wanted to have my own show, and he understood that."

Even in 1975, it was clear that she just outgrew him. As long as she remained with him, she would just be the back half of Porter 'n' Dolly.

 

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on a cold Saturday in January 1946 in Sevierville, Tenn., a tiny mountain town on the periphery of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Dolly was one of six daughters and six sons in the poor, but deeply religious Parton clan.

She grew up without a radio or television in the house so most of her early musical training came at church and in school.

"I was singing a lot before I heard anybody but my family and the people at church. We didn't have electricity until I was 9. Our first piano didn't even have any ivory on it. But it sure helped me write some songs.”

She told me she wrote her first songs at the age of five, a pair of ditties called "Little Tiny Tassel Top" about a corn cob doll and "Life Doesn't Mean Much To Me."

"Here I was all of 5 years old singing 'Life doesn't mean much to me,'" she says with a laugh.

Since then she estimates she has written thousands of songs. "I have boxes and trunks of songs that like a little bit being finished and others that are complete, but I haven't recorded because I keep writing new stuff. I write all the time."

By the time she was ten, she was a regular on Knoxville grocer Cas Walker’s programs, making twenty dollars a week for appearances on the morning "Farm and Home Hour" TV show, his noon radio show, and the Wednesday and Thursday night TV shows. In between school and the Cas Walker shows, Dolly appeared on the famous WNOX Midday Merry-Go-Round and sang in country music shows all over east Tennessee.

At Sevier County High School, she was a member of the Future Homemakers of America and a snare drummer in the marching band.

Dolly as a senior in high school.

She picked up her high school diploma and her bus ticket to Nashville the same day. When she arrived in Music City that hot summer day in 1964, it was like a Hollywood movie. She met future husband Carl Dean in the Wishy Washy Laundromat the first day in town. And within two weeks, she had signed a contract with Monument Records.

The next three years were for laying the groundwork. She started putting out records, some of which climbed onto the lower echelons of the country charts.

All the while she was pursuing her songwriting career, writing when she could, and collaborating with her uncle Bill Owens on other songs. (She lived with her uncle Bill and aunt Christina when she first moved to Nashville.)

In 1967 Porter Wagoner caught Parton on one of those nameless country music shows that populate Saturday afternoon TV. He was searching for someone to replace his longtime partner, Norma Jean, and he thought Parton would be perfect. Her signature on a contract sealed it, and for the next seven years, Porter 'n' Dolly were as synonymous as George 'n' Tammy and Conway 'n' Loretta.

Then in 1974 came the announcement that shook the country music world: Porter and Dolly were breaking up. Their fans were dismayed - what had gone wrong? Could they no longer get along?

"'Course we've had business problems,” she told me. “Anybody who works together does. Like somebody said the other day, if two people are in business and they don't have no trouble, one of them ain't doing their job. If you don't have an opinion, you ain't much of a partner.”

Her first backup group, the aptly-named Traveling Family Band, was composed of Dolly's brother, Randy, two cousins, Dwight Puckett and Sydney Spiva, and a no-relation guitar player named Bill Reary.

 

Performing is one thing. But to Dolly songwriting is special. “Writing is such a part of me. It's such a natural thing for me to rhyme words. It's just a God-given talent: I've never had any trouble rhyming words. There are certain situations that remind me of things and I start putting words together into a song. Every writer writes different. For me the words and the music just seem to come together. I can't ever remember writing one without the other."

Her favorite song that she has written is "Coat of Many Colors," a ballad about a patchwork coat that her mother made for her when she was a little girl. "It's a true song and a personal song. It means a lot to me because I know how much I put into it."

She says she has a new song coming out that deeply affected her when she wrote it. "It's a sacred song and I got this strange feeling when I was writing it. I cried and that's something I'd never done after writing a song. But the words just started coming and I had it written in a few minutes. When I got through writing, I felt unburdened."

That song, “The Seeker,” was released on May 19, 1975 – two months after my interview - on RCA Victor.

Dolly Parton's records have changed in the past year or two and her music is being played on more than just country radio stations. In fact, her summer 1974 hit, "Love is Like a Butterfly," made the complete crossover and was played on a number of so-called Top 40 stations, even climbing onto the pop charts for a time. But Dolly says it isn't a reflection of any changing style within her, merely that she's braver now and willing to try newer variations on her records. "My writing hasn't changed much over the years, but record styles have changed and I'm getting to do more things now. Music is venturing out in new areas. Used to if they thought you were hard country and you did something a little uptown, they thought you were trying to get out of the category. But now a lot of people are trying new things."

Not that she’s happy about all those new ways. "I like a lot of the things that are being done in country music today, but I hope there will always be true country. Like Hank Williams and Porter Wagoner and Ernest Tubbs. I'd hate to see that die away. I hope there will always be a market for it."

She likes the new contemporary country rock sound, particularly the music of the Charlie Daniels Band, Goose Creek Symphony, Barefoot Jerry and Willie Nelson. Especially Willie Nelson.

"I loved Willie Nelson when he was just plain country. When I first moved to Nashville, he was on Monument Records and I was too. I remember I used to set on the floor of the studio over there for hours and listen to him sing and play. He didn't have much going record-wise then - you couldn't give him away because of his odd phrasings - but I just loved it. He was way ahead of his time and I'm real glad to see him getting the recognition now."

Country music is a traveling road show. Dolly Parton and her group play 120 nights a year, mostly on weekends, in all parts of the country, from Portland, Oregon to Miami, Florida. After her post- midnight interview with me in Kingsport, Dolly's bus headed out for an all-night ride to Raleigh, North Carolina where she would be performing on Saturday night. In Raleigh it would be much the same thing - last on the bill, an after-concert autograph session, and another all-night bus ride, this time to Norfolk, Virginia for a Sunday show. From Norfolk, the Dolly Parton bus would head back to Nashville for a few days of rest before heading out on the road again the next weekend. All total, Dolly and her crew will travel 200,000 miles this year, most of it via bus.

The hours on the road are long, slow ones. Often Dolly will travel eight hours. just to give a one-hour show. What does she do to entertain herself on the road? “We play a lot of games, like Password. And I'll listen to tapes and do a lot of the paperwork concerning the band. Sometimes I write songs."

It used to be the Porter 'n' Dolly Show.

But now it's just the Dolly Parton Show. Dolly Parton has come to the front. Her solo career is booming. Appreciative audiences. Hit records. And finally, recognition as a top-notch songwriter.

Still, in her heart, past all the rouge and the mascara and the hairspray, Dolly is just a starry-eyed country girl.

The Boy Who Tried to Fight Elvis

 Elvis Would Turn 91 Today

In Sept. 1955 he came to Kingsport where he performed at the Civic Auditorium, the middle act on a country show - although he was a long ways from country. 

Billie Mae Smith wasn’t exactly an Elvis fan in August 1955. She was a year out of high school and managing Huddle’s Record Shop. “A salesman came in with records that Elvis had recorded. I had never heard of Elvis but after hearing the recordings, I ordered some to sell. The salesman said, ‘Here are some tickets to an Elvis show that will be at your Civic Auditorium in September.’”

Billie Mae Smith in 1955

So when September 22nd came, she grabbed two of her friends and they were among the 270 folks who didn’t exactly fill the auditorium that night.

Elvis came on second, after the Louvin Brothers, and when he finished his set, he went out to the concession stand near the Stadium side exit, selling photos and talking up the young girls who were crowded around.

He flirted with Billie Mae’s friend Darla Hodge, then led a group of admiring girls out to show off his new Caddy. And the next thing Billie Mae knew, she was piled into Elvis’ Cadillac heading to Jimmie’s Steakhouse at the Upper Circle for club sandwiches.

From there they headed downtown to cruise Broad.

“I remember I kept looking at his hair because he had a permanent in it so that when he shook his head a curl would fall in his eyes.”

Wayne "Booge" Allen in 1955 yearbook

They were stopped at the red light at Center and Wilcox when Fate would arrive: Booge Allen pulled up next to them.

Booge – real name Wayne – was driving down Center Street in his green and white Chevy Bel Air.

Booge was a recent D-B grad and in a week he would be starting classes at ETSC – as ETSU was known at the time.

He was sitting at the red light at Wilcox when he heard a familiar voice. It was his girlfriend Billie Mae Smith and she was riding in the car next to his.

She called out, “Come over to my house later, I’ve got someone I want you to meet.”

Wayne would tell me years later that he remembered looking over and his girlfriend was in the car with Elvis Presley. “And I remember thinking, I don’t want to meet Elvis.”

And that was the night that Booge would acquire the label that would stick with him the rest of his life: The Boy Who Tried to Fight Elvis.

You see, while Booge didn’t particularly want to meet Elvis, he wasn’t too keen on Elvis cozying up to his girlfriend.

So he drove around and then headed over to Billie Mae’s house on Catawba.

Billie Mae and Elvis had beaten him there. They were inside at the kitchen table having coffee.

One of Elvis’ bandmates met Booge and told him, “You’re not wanted here.”

Booge didn’t take this too well. “I said, ‘The hell with you; two can play this game.’” He raced down to the Texas Steer Drive-In - it was on Center just before you got to Kingsport Press - picked up two of his friends, and returned to Billie Mae’s.

“I told the guy outside that if he wanted trouble there was more than one of us now.”

Elvis and Billie Mae heard the commotion and came out. Billie Mae introduced Booge and Elvis. But they didn’t shake hands.

Booge remembered, “Elvis said, ‘I’m breaking this guy’s heart. Maybe I’d better leave.’”

Billie Mae took Booge aside, told him everything would be all right and sent him home.

Elvis didn’t stay much longer. It was the last night of the tour and he was anxious to be back to Memphis. Just one thing before he left.

“When he went outside to leave, he reached out and pulled me up close to him and kissed me. My knees went weak. He had the softest lips I have ever kissed.”

It was a goodnight kiss for all time. “It was very thrilling.”

Booge came back later and circled the block but Elvis had gone.

Booge and Billie Mae later went their separate ways. But every year they would call each other on their birthdays.

Billie Mae didn’t get to call Booge in 2016. He passed away before his 80th birthday.

I like to think Booge and Elvis are in the same place now. Maybe they’ve finally shaken hands. I doubt it.

Photo that Elvis later mailed to Billie Mae

Kingsport History Comes Out of the Attic

 

Every Picture Tells A Story

If you’ve read the Sunday Kingsport Times-News in the last, oh, 35 years, then you know the “Out of the Attic” feature. Each Sunday from 1987 till 2022 the newspaper published a reader-submitted photo from Kingsport’s past, scenes in and around the city. 

The general rule was that photos had to be at least 25 years old. Most of the submissions were even older. In fact the very first “Out of the Attic” photo, published on Aug. 30, 1987, was from 1908, 79 years earlier.

It was a photo of railroad workers at the Stonega Mining Camp in southwest Virginia. It featured an extremely long caption:

“In days past, if one worked in the coal mines, living in a mining camp was the best option. Company stores charged more for food and other supplies, but the housing was cheap, and schools and medical services were provided. The camps alleviated the need to trudge over mountains and through valleys for work and necessities. This photograph, provided by the Wise County Administrator’s office, was taken at Stonega Mining Camp in 1908. The men in the photograph were railroad workers, possibly responsible for the construction of this primitive railroad through the camp. The camp, one of hundreds scattered throughout Southwest Virginia, was owned by Stonega Coke and Coal Company, which later merged with Westmoreland Coal Company. The mine existed from the late 1800s until 1952, according to Earl Houser, a life-long resident of Stonega and former Westmoreland employee. The coke processing plant closed two years later. The mine was reopened in 1961, and it operated until the minerals were exhausted, Houser said. Although no longer a mining camp, many of the buildings still stand in Stonega, and Houser lives in one of the old camp houses. During its heyday, hundreds of people lived and worked at the camp, which was prosperous enough to have a hospital, Houser said. Movie theaters also were located there, he added.”

 Whew. That is a caption!

What was missing was instructions for anyone who wanted to submit future photos. That wouldn’t come for another two weeks, when an Out of the Attic photo of a Watauga Street gathering that included Lula Dobyns, the wife of the city’s first mayor, and often called “the first lady of the city.”

The instructions for submitting photos read, “Anyone interested in submitting old photographs for publication should send them to Out of the Attic, c/o Vicki Booth, Kingsport Times-News, 701 Lynn Garden Drive, P.O. Box 479, Kingsport, Tenn., 37662 or drop them by the office during regular office hours.”

And with those early photos “Out of the Attic” was off and running, a run that lasted 35 years and more than 1,800 photos all totaled, until it ended in July 2022.

I even submitted a few myself over the years.

Some of the photos are of interest only to relatives of the pictured. But others raise even more questions than they answer.

Take this Jan. 1988 “Out of the Attic” photo submitted by Eula Chase Wheeler.

“Performing in the ‘Paste Princess’ in 1924 (or 1925) was memorable for Eula Chase Wheeler. She sang in the chorus for this show, put on by the Kingsport Press at Kingsport’s Strand Theater. Edd Triebe, formerly of New York and future president of the Kingsport Press, wrote and directed the show and Elizabeth Hamlet (center) was the princess. Members of the chorus surrounding her were (from left) Kate Baker, Grace Trimble, Stella Loflain, Mamie King, Bonnie Livesay, Verna Larken, Chase (Wheeler), Theresa McClellan, Irene Chase (Eula’s sister) and Hazel Barnes. Tickets for the show ranged from $1 for orchestra seats to 30 cents for gallery seats, Wheeler said. The show ran for two nights, she said.”

To begin with, I had no idea that the Kingsport Press at one time sponsored an annual musical-comedy featuring local talent, an out-of-town director and a script by a Press executive, in this case, vice-president William Nordmark.

So I had to dig out the original story.

“The Paste Princess” was not produced in 1924 or 1925. Eula Chase was off by a year. The extravaganza, which was a precursor to the annual Kiwanis Kapers, was produced in April 1926.

The Kingsport Times even reviewed it, giving it a rave.

John M. Oliver wrote, “Showing before two packed houses at the Strand Theatre on Monday and Tuesday nights, ‘The Paste Princess,’ presented by the employees of the Kingsport Press, has been acclaimed by an overwhelming majority of those who witnessed it as one of the best productions ever put on here. [Kingsport was 10 years old at the time!] The ability of those in the play, the dazzling costumes, and the wonderful stage settings, all combined to make the production a success.”

“The Paste Princess” was dedicated to E. W. Palmer, president of the Press, “in appreciation of his sincere interest in the welfare of all the employees.”

The review continued for another ten paragraphs, praising everyone except, seemingly, the ushers who cleaned up afterward.

 

Out of the Attic wasn’t the Kingsport Times-News only attempt to connect readers to Kingsport’s past. The newspaper was running photos from Kingsport’s early days as early as 1939, when Kingsport’s early days were only 20 years earlier.

Miss Eula Gaines, the paper’s Arcadia correspondent, was a frequent contributor of old photographs.

 In 1953 the paper even organized a contest for old photos, offering $3 for each one published. (That’s about $37 today.) Over the course of the next two months the paper published almost 30 under the title “When Kingsport Was Younger.”

 So here’s a trip down Kingsport’s memory lane featuring photos from "Out of the Attic," "When Kingsport Was Younger," and correspondent Miss Eula Gaines’ personal collection. 

Here's the second Out of the Attic, published Sept. 13, 1987:

Among the women is Lula Dobyns, first president of Kingsport's PTA and wife of Kingsport's first mayor.

An early submission by Eula Gaines.

The 1910 Fourth of July Parade from "When Kingsport Was Younger."

Coach S.O. Price's undefeated 1946 Kingsport Junior High team. Assistant coach is Elery Lay. 

Fred Barger would become better known as Pal Barger. Elery Lay went on to become principal at Dobyns-Bennett. 

Kingsport's First Store in 1910 from Miss Eula Gaines.

Grand Opening of the State Theatre, March 5, 1936 - Balcony seats 15 cents!

WKPT radio announcer Bob Poole, host in 1940 of the early morning show "Poole's Paradise." He also did a popular "Man on the Street" show.

The first Kingsport High School basketball team (1918-1919) to play indoors. (Previous teams had played on an outdoor court.) 

The Last "Out of the Attic" - July 24, 2022

The First Tennessee-Vanderbilt Football Game in 1892

 

The 1892 University of Tennessee Football Team

The First Time Tennessee Played Vanderbilt - 1892

I called Bruce Haney in November 1982, the day after Vanderbilt defeated Tennessee in football 28-21. I wanted to know what my old UT roommate thought because Vanderbilt hadn’t beaten Tennessee since 1959 and usually could be counted on as a reliable win for the Vols. “I knew Vanderbilt would beat us again sometime,” he said. “I just didn’t think it would be in my lifetime.”

Logical thinking from an engineer. In Bruce’s lifetime, between 1947 up until that 1982 defeat, Vanderbilt's football record against Tennessee was 2 wins and 33 losses. Vanderbilt won in 1948 (28-6), when Bruce was one, and 1959 (14−0). 

And then the shocker in ’82.

It wasn’t always that way, as students of Vanderbilt football – if there are any – know. Vanderbilt was once a Southern football power. General Robert Neyland was hired by UT in 1926 to “get Tennessee football up to the level of Vanderbilt.”

With Tennessee and Vanderbilt set to face off this Saturday in a game that actually means something, it might be a good time to look back at the rivalry’s beginnings in 1892. The in-state rivals actually played twice that season, home and away.

It was only Tennessee’s second year of fielding a football team and the first year had not been promising. Tennessee lost its only game.

But 1892’s season got off to a smashing start with Tennessee traveling to nearby Maryville College and prevailing by a score of 25-0, the first win ever for a Tennessee football team. (Not really a big deal since the team had only played that one official game in its inaugural season of 1891.)

Next up were the lads in Nashville and Tennessee fans, what there were of them, were optimistic.

The anonymous scribe of the Knoxville Sentinel noted of UT’s “Crack Football Team:” “The University of Tennessee has the best football eleven this year that the institution has ever been able to boast, and the boys think that last Saturday's victory at Maryville of 25 to 0 in favor of ‘our side’ will be followed by many others. E. A. Cannon, of Harriman, an ex-Yale man, has been engaged to coach the crack eleven and will doubtless bring the team up to its highest possible degree of development.”

Since sideline coaching was banned at the time, coaching essentially meant playing. Cannon (who was actually Princeton ’89, not Yale) would play fullback after that first game with the team. Eligibility was apparently not a thing then.

Scheduling and scoring were quite a bit different in 1892, too.

College football at that time was less a sport and more a polite excuse to legally maim your classmates. The forward pass was still illegal (thus no “Manning” on the UT roster), so the “strategy” mostly involved everyone smashing into everyone else in formations like the famous Flying Wedge - basically a human battering ram that occasionally produced a touchdown and frequently produced concussions. Protective gear was optional, meaning most players suited up in whatever patched-up laundry they owned, plus maybe a leather nose guard if they were feeling daring.

Yale’s legendary coach Walter Camp had started shaping the rules - downs, the line of scrimmage, five-yard grid marks - so sportswriters could call it “scientific” football with a straight face. But most of the game boiled down to 22 guys on a field making it up as they went along. And amazingly, most of them lived to tell the tale.

 

1892 Vanderbilt football team

 The Crack Eleven of UT would take the train (no buses or cars yet) over to play Vanderbilt on Friday Oct. 21^st  - game time was 10:30 a.m. That’s right, in the morning. Then the Crack Eleven would take the train south to play Sewanee College’s Crack Eleven on Saturday morning. Football games on consecutive mornings.

“Foot ball,” as it was spelled then, was such an alien sport that the Knoxville newspaper writer felt compelled to educate his readers:

“So many attempts have been made to explain the American-Rugby game of foot ball to the uninitiated on paper and the result has been always attended with such partial success that it has come to be said of this sort of football as of many other things: ‘IT HAS TO BE SEEN to be fully appreciated or even understood.’

“To the ignorant observer a modern game of foot ball looks very much like a friendly free fight over a brown watermelon and the more you learn about the game the more you are disposed to adhere to this first impression, with a slight correction regarding the watermelon part of it.”

 

Let’s just say the trip west to Nashville and on down to Sewanee didn’t go as the few football followers in Knoxville had hoped. (How few? 200 would attend the Vanderbilt rematch in Knoxville a month later.)

 

The headline in the afternoon Nashville Banner told the story:

After a Hard Fought Battle the Home Boys Win by the Score of 22 to 4.

Yes, Tennessee scored 4 and no, it wasn’t two safeties. Scoring was different in 1892: a touchdown was worth four points, the kick after counted for two points. A field goal was worth 5 points, a nod to the name foot ball. And the game was played in two 45-minute halves.

Here’s sportwriting 1892 style:

“A splendid crowd saw the formal opening of the fall athletics at Vanderbilt University to-day, and cheered and waved hats and fluttered handkerchiefs.

“Vanderbilt opened the game with a poor attempt at a wedge, going ten yards through a hole in the centre. Now well into the fight Vanderbilt picked up and in short rushes beat their opponents back, Allen, Barr, Jones, Fletcher and Craig figuring prominently. Jones fumbled the ball once, but Knoxville kept it but a moment, and when Vanderbilt again got possession of it, Jones broke through in a mighty effort, backed and guarded beautifully by the whole eleven, and scored the first takedown. Time, 5 minutes; score, Vanderbilt 4, Knoxville 0. Throne kicked good, score, Vanderbilt 6, Knoxville 0.”

What followed in the newspaper was a running summation of the scoring. Give the writer a break; he had a deadline to meet. After all the story of the morning game appeared in the afternoon paper!

Here are the highlights of the rest of the game, most of them lowlights for what the Banner called “the Knoxvilles.”

Tennessee scored on a 25-yard scamper by C.D. Brown with 38 minutes left in the first half but the kick by George Marfield failed. Score 6-4.

A series of short rushes lead to a Vanderbilt touchdown, a failed kick, and it was 10-4 at the half.

“The Knoxvilles” wouldn’t score again.

The Banner wrote, “During the intermission the Knoxville sympathizers were sure their men had the best wind, and would outlast the Vanderbilts, and the Vanderbilts were of the same opinion. But the balance of the game showed differently.”

The only excitement came thirteen minutes into the second half.

“When Vanderbilt got possession of the ball they began again their trick of short, hard rushes, and after ten minutes of steady advance, Burch pressed over the goal line. But the ball happened into the air. It was a critical moment. But it is safe for Vanderbilt. Throne reached up, clasps the flying leather and slides over Burch to the third touchdown.”

The score was now 16-4.

“Knoxville seemed to have lost heart. They fumbled the ball, ran heavily and made weak breaks against centre.”

Vanderbilt scored once more and it was over. Had there been a scoreboard it would have read 22-4.

Back in Knoxville the game merited only a single paragraph and that seeming to offer an excuse for the loss:

“NASHVILLE, October 21 -- The foot ball game between the Vanderbilt and University of Tennessee team resulted in defeat of the University of Tennessee team by a score of 22 to 4. Marfield, of the Knoxville team, sprained his ankle.”

And thus began the 133-year history of Tennessee-Vanderbilt football.

It continued in Vanderbilt’s favor until the Knoxvilles hired General Robert Neyland in 1926.

From 1892 till 1926 Vanderbilt won 18, lost 2 and tied 3.

Since Neyland’s arrival the record is 79-14-2 in Tennessee’s favor.

Tennessee has won the last six.

Going into Saturday’s game, Tennessee is ranked 18^th, Vanderbilt is ranked 12^th and vying for a spot in the college playoff. For a change Tennessee is looking to play spoiler.  

Tennessee is a 2.5 point favorite.

The game is at Neyland Stadium, named for the man who turned the rivalry around.

 

The V or Flying Wedge from the 1892 Harvard-Yale game (no photos exist of the 1892 UT-Vanderbilt game)

 

Who was UT’s first football coach?

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, it was J.A. Pierce who was hired in 1899 and guided the team for five years.

The Knoxville Sentinel of 1905 would disagree.

Here’s the proof from an October 11, 1905 story:

COMES BACK TO KNOXVILLE.

E. A. Cannon Will Engage In Business Here, After Absence of Ten Years.

E. A. Cannon, who was the first football coach at the University of Tennessee, being in charge of the team in 1892, is in the city, and will make Knoxville his future home. He has been residing in Syracuse, N.Y., for the past ten years, where he has been very successful in the engraving business.

 

Who was on that 1892 team?

Tennessee took 14 players on its travel team to Nashville. For a frame of reference, the current Tennessee Athletics Department has listed on its staff directory 19 assistant or associate athletic directors.

Here’s how the Knoxville Sentinel described that 1892 squad:

“THE CRACK ELEVEN:

“James Fisher, center rush; ‘Daddy’ Brown, right guard; Lynn White, left guard; Charles Farris, right tackle; Edwin Werts, left tackle; Albert Wegener, right half back; C. D. Brown, left half back; John Cox, right end; George Marfeld, left end; Howard Ijams, quarter back; Charles Moore, full back. Substitutes, C.H. Reed and William Bates.” Plus newly engaged E.A. Cannon.

 

About that very first game a year earlier in 1891….

Here’s how the Knoxville Journal and Tribune described it:

SEWANEE WON.

Our University Boys are Not in it With Them.

Special to the Journal.

CHATTANOOGA, TENN., November 21. — The down train this a. m. brought forty-six Knoxville boys from the University of Tennessee, who came to meet the Sewanee boys and contest for the foot ball championship of the state. The Sewanee team came the night previous. Sewanee wore purple colors, Knoxville the orange and white and the two teams have owned the town. A heavy rain had been falling all day and the boys played in the rain. About one hundred people witnessed the game. Sewanee won easily by a score of 24 to nothing. After the game all of the boys took in the theatre.

 

Theatre!

It wasn’t a Marvel action film. There were no movie houses in 1892.

But Chattanooga did have an Opera House and the boys probably took in the matinee production of the play “From Sire to Son,” starring “distinguished Actor and playwright Milton Nobles with the gifted ingenue Dollie Nobles.”

 

Where did Tennessee play their home rematches with Vanderbilt and Sewanee (both also losses)?

They played on their new home field “purchased by Dr. Dabney [University President] for this purpose in the Riverside addition. This field is situated on a level piece of ground midway between the terminus of the Riverside street car line and the river and is in every way admirably adapted for the purpose.”

It would be a wonderful ending to this story if Riverside Field had grown to become Neyland Stadium. It didn’t. It is now a parking lot on the edge of the Tennessee River, near the east side of the modern-day Neyland.

But there is a bit of a happy ending. The week after the second loss to Sewanee, Tennessee defeated the Chattanooga Athletic Club 16-6 giving Tennessee a 2-5 record in just its second season of football.