The Celtics Steal the Show

 

The Night The Boston Celtics Masqueraded As A Newport (Tennessee) Steak House Team (Or So The Story Goes)

Every story has two sides, the old saying goes. But after digging into a tale I heard from an old college friend, I've come to believe there are three sides to every story: each participant's and the reporter's who tells it.

Here's the story as recounted to me by my friend Charlie Hamilton, a well-known character from the UT campus during my grad school days in the early seventies. Charlie grew up in White Pine, Tennessee, and one summer he worked as a gopher for the notable Morristown businessman Z Buda. While moving a file cabinet, Charlie discovered an old newspaper article taped to the back. And that's where this story comes from.

In the 1940s, Z Buda owned a popular steakhouse in Newport and sponsored an independent basketball team, Z Buda’s All Stars. They had a fierce rivalry with another nearby independent team, the Cosby Hot Shots. After losing two straight games to the Hot Shots, Z Buda was determined not to lose again.

After both teams had warmed up for the third  match, they returned to their respective dressing rooms. But when the Z Buda All Stars reappeared on the court, something was different. Now wearing the All Stars' uniforms were five players from the Boston Celtics!

Charlie’s story sounded so fantastic that I knew it had to be true, or at least mostly true. And, as it turns out, it was!

It took some digging through old newspaper clippings, but I finally unearthed this February 29, 1948 column by Knoxville News-Sentinel sports editor Bob Wilson:

 

Newport Cage Team Pulls Big Surprise When Cosby Imports Former Vol Stars for Meet

Best basketball yarn I've heard this season comes out of Cocke County... There was an independent tournament going on at Cosby and the rivalry between the Cosby Hot Shots and Z. Buda's Steak House team of Newport, was keen. The Cosby manager, so the story goes, imported Bill Wright and Ted Cook, two former U-T stars from Knoxville, to play on his team, which probably wasn't exactly cricket, as the boys say... Well, came the night that Cosby's Hot Shots and Buda's Steak House lads faced each other on the court in a crucial tournament game the Hotshots, with Wright and Cook in their lineup, took the upper hand as the firing started... However, after about five minutes of play the Buda team called time out and all five players headed for the sideline, while five towering hardwood performers, who had quietly come out of the locker-room, rushed on the court

It was the New York Celtics' starting quintet and when the Hot Shots took a look at the professional stars, they tossed up the sponge and called it quits. Buda, the restaurant proprietor and sponsor of the Steak House quint, being resentful of Cosby importing Wright and Cook, had engaged the Celtics at a cost of $350 to come unannounced to the tournament and play for his team .. Their appearance on the court was as much a surprise to the spectators as the Hot Shots for only Buda and his players knew they were coming.

 

Holy hoopsters! It was true.

One detail was a little off. It was not the Boston Celtics but the New York Celtics. The Boston Celtics were one of the eight teams that founded the NBA in 1946.

The New York Celtics were even older, founded before World War I as a barnstorming team, and considered one of the first professional basketball teams. But that group had disbanded at the start of World War II and the Celtics that showed up in the Newport gym that night in 1948 was new version created by former Original Celtics player Dave Cullerton, who had been a three-sport star at Centre College. This group had no relationship to the Boston Celtics.

Z Buda didn’t fly them in for his All-Stars game either. They had played two nights earlier against the Morristown VFW and the next night against the Knoxville Globetrotters. For the Celtics five it was a short trip to Newport and an easy payday.

But the story doesn’t end there. A week later sports editor Wilson returned to his typewriter for a follow up:

 

The New York Celtics team of the late thirties

It seems that there is another side to the recent Cocke County Independent Basketball Tournament controversy which resulted in Z. Buda subsidizing the New York Celtics to oppose the Cosby Hot Shots under the name of Buda's Steak House. M. L. Cureton, manager of the Hot Shots, gives the Hot Shot's side of the argument in the following communique, which was passed along to me by the editor:

"In your Sport Talk by Bob Wilson under date of Sunday, Feb. 29, it appears that Mr. Wilson needs some information. This information could change his yarn which he states is the best one he has heard this season to true facts.

"In the first place he is misinformed as to place of play. This tournament was not held at Cosby, but at Newport, the home town of Z. Buda's Steak House.

"It is true that there is considerable rivalry between the Cosby Hot Shots, and Z. Buda's Steak House. It is true that the Cosby manager imported Bill Wright and Ted Cook, former U-T Vol players, to play with his team. It is also true that he imported John Waddell of Greene County to play with the Hot Shots.

"Now: It is also true that Z. Buda imported Gosnell, and Matthews from up Washington College way, and Wolfenbarger from Rutledge to play with his team. Also Mr. Poteet from Johnson City, so if it wasn't exactly cricket for the Hot Shots to get outside players. it wasn't exactly cricket for Z. Buda to get outside players. Both teams imported players so neither team was strictly Cocke County material.

"It is also true that all of Cosby's Hot Shots played the first two games of the tournament, and no new players were added for the final game. All players on both teams were entered in this tournament before playing time, and the bringing of the N. Y. Celtics into this tournament was a violation of rules, and if Cosby had played this team, they would not have been playing Z. Buda, as the New York Celtics are a team all their own.

"As to the Hot Shots looking at the Celtics and tossing up the sponge and calling it quits: Your Mr. Wilson would have been better qualified to write about this game, if he had been a spectator.

"He could have seen the Hot Shots out in front by a score of 10 to 5. He could have seen Mr. Wade Clarke, who has played ball with the Steak House, in action as an official. Mr. Clarke had two fouls on Sutton and one on Templin in around four minutes of play. Sutton and Templin were Cosby players. He could have seen between four and five hundred dissatisfied fans march by the box and receive their $1 admission refunded. In this number was Mr. Alex Buda, father of Z. Buda.

"All bets on this game were cancelled and if Cosby had tossed in the sponge, the manager of the Steak House team would have collected all bets.

"I am writing this to let you know there are two versions of this affair."

 

Ah, but there is a third version of this affair – the third side of the story - and it arrived in the sports editor’s mailbox three days later, from, of course, Z Buda himself.

 

Z Buda had more than one fish story to tell in the winter of 1948

The Cosby Hot Shots-Buda's Steak House basketball controversy, which resulted from a tournament game at Newport, still rages…Z. Buda, who sponsors the Steak House boys, was more or less fuming over a letter written by Manager Cureton of the Hot Shots, and published in this column Sunday....In order to settle the squabble he offers to meet the Hot Shots in a game, both teams using their regular players, with the proceeds going to Bill Wright, who played for the Hot Shots, and who is now ill.

"We will play Cosby any time, any place and spot them 10 points, regular team against regular team," said Buda. "I suggest that we get two good officials out-of-town for the game."

Buda said he was just waiting for the Hot Shots to send in a letter of explanation before he told his side of the story:

"They said I imported players for the tournament, which is not true. Gosnell, Matthews and Wolfenbarger have played for my team for two years," he writes. "Wade Clark, a TSAA and Southern Conference official, officiated when Cosby beat us 36-29 this year, and they picked him to call the tournament along with Webb of Maryville. Cosby wanted me to co-sponsor the tournament with them and we were to split the gate receipts. When I brought the Celtics on the court they refused to play. I was the one who had the official announce a refund of the money to the fans when Cosby didn't want to, for I'm not in basketball for the money, but merely for the sport and sport alone. I might add that Cosby officials told me to get anybody I wanted to for my team as they had the best team there was. They thought I would go to Knoxville and get players and they knew that all the good ones were in Atlanta playing in a tournament. They thought I was sunk.

"Most of the people in Cosby were pulling for my team, for we beat them 59-38 at Cosby two weeks before the tournament. I would like to know where you got your first story, especially about what I paid the Celtics. I got them here with the help of Greeneville and Morristown, and not even close to the amount you said.

"Greeneville barred Cosby from competing in their tournament for using Cook and Wright against them.

"There were no lists of players turned in for our tournament, however, it was agreed that teams would use their regular players. I didn't get in touch with the Celtics until Cosby had used Wright and Cook. I would not have used the Celtics if Cosby had used their regular players."

 

There you have it: the true story of the night the New York, not Boston, Celtics played in Newport, Tennessee, masquerading as a local steak house quintet.

 

If you are curious, here are the New York Celtics players as listed in the Knoxville News-Sentinel story about their game against the Knoxville Globetrotters team:

Members of the Celtics and their former colleges are: Tom Gatzek, Texas Christian; Bob Karstens, Pittsburgh; Frank Horazy, NYU; Tony Crement, Illinois; Jack Jennings, Tennessee; and Junior Kertesz, Manhattan College.

According to the newspaper the Celtics claimed to have won 96 of 104 games at that point in the season.

They frequently toured with the Harlem Globetrotters, usually playing an undercard game against either the Hawaiian All-Stars or Jesse Owens’ Kansas City All-Stars.

 

 

Alex “Z” Buda Jr. was a well-known Newport businessman. He got his nickname in high school from his zig-zag style of running on the Newport High football team. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned to Newport and opened his namesake steak house. (He had learned the restaurant business from his father, who had owned Newport’s popular Busy Bee Café.) Buda went on to own numerous businesses in Cocke and Hamblen counties. He opened the first outlet mall in Pigeon Forge and was instrumental in turning the town into a tourist mecca. His Z Buda’s Smokies Campground is now The Island tourist attraction. At one time he owned Minnis Drug Store in Morristown, where he had worked as a teenager. He was credited with funding over 1,000 scholarships at Walters State community college. He served three terms as mayor of Morristown.

His Celtics shenanigan was just a footnote in a long career.

The Unhandyman

 

A New Book!

(just in time for Father's Day)

If you were to look up the word “unhandyman” in the dictionary, you wouldn’t find anything. It’s not in the dictionary.

But if it were in the dictionary, it would have my picture next to it.

I am The Unhandyman.

Not that I don’t try to be handy.

I’ve battled leaky faucets and leaky sailboats. (I sunk the sailboat!)

I’ve battled some-assembly-required bookshelves and lots-of-assembly-required swing sets.

And I’ve lost every time.

I finally accepted my shortcomings when I heard my five-year-old son explain to my mother how you fix things: You take a screwdriver and you throw it and you say “Dammit.”

I’m so used to being “The Unhandyman” that I’ve titled my latest book “The Unhandyman: Misadventures in Fixing Things.”

There was the time the tub was clogged. I had tried a plumbing snake and was all set to pour Drano in when my friend Bruce Haney stopped by to see if he could help. (Bruce has been my clean-up man for years, fixing the things I tried to fix and only made worse.) He just flipped the lever on the tub, the stopper popped up and the water miraculously – in my view anyway – disappeared.

There was the time the smoke alarm wouldn’t stop chirping, even after I took the battery out! Turned out it was a different smoke alarm that was chirping.

And then there was the time I assembled an entire swing set! In the garage. The problem was it was in the garage and it wouldn’t fit under the garage door to take outside. So I disassembled it, reassembled it outside – I’d already assembled it once; how hard would it be to assemble it again? – only to find a Mystery Part laying on the ground. Wonder how important that part is….

I could go on. I do in the book.

“The Unhandyman” is available on Amazon ($5.95 plus shipping, free shipping if you are a Prime member). It’s also a Kindle e-book (free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited).

Remember, not every dad wants a Home Depot gift card for Father’s Day. 

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. Here is my father and me on Father's Day 1950.

A Dining Group Through the A-I Ages

 

The Steinbeck Society was founded in 2008 as a monthly dining group with 12 members, all of whom went to the University of Tennessee in the early seventies, many of whom had worked on the UT Daily Beacon, the student newspaper. 

The group has gone through several iterations and a pandemic pause. It is now a weekly lunch group of 10, with an average attendance of 6. 

I wanted to memorialize the group with an illustration depicting a typical luncheon. I can't draw so I turned to Artificial Intelligence, which has advanced rapidly and can now create credible illustrations. 

I began with a simple command: I asked ChatGPT 4.0 to create an image of ten old men, members of the Steinbeck Society, gathering together for a meal. (Click on an image to enlarge.)

 

 I realized they were dressed much too formally so I asked AI to revise the image with the men wearing casual clothes.

 

 AI obviously thought I meant a dinner meeting so I asked it to change the image to a lunch gathering.

 

 The men looked much older than our group so I asked ChatGPT to make the men ten years younger.

 

 Too much hair so I asked AI to make three of the men bald.

 

 This time I told the program to make the scene more cartoonish.

  

Now I wanted fewer bald heads and fewer beards.

 

ChatGPT obviously didn’t get the picture so I asked for the men to all be clean shaven. AI apparently thought I wanted them to take their shirts off.

 

 No, no, clean shaven! AI instead stripped off their undershirts.

 

 I thought if I asked AI to change it to a breakfast gathering, it might put the shirts back on. I also instructed the program to create the image with ONE bald man. AI made it FIVE bald men.

 

This time I asked to move it to a diner and make all the men clean-shaven. I don’t think AI has any idea what “clean-shaven” means.

 

 I asked for a return to the cartoon style with all clean shaven men and one bald. And I got this.

So I gave up.

 Incidentally this group looks almost nothing like the Steinbeck Society. 

But I think about A-I image creation as Samuel Johnson did about the dog that could walk on its hind legs, "It is not done well but you are surprised that it is done at all." 

 

I should add that in addition to not being able to follow directions, AI also can’t spell.    

 

The Loss of a D-B Legend

 

Betty Cook, the forever librarian at D-B

Betty Jean Cook began her freshman year at Dobyns-Bennett in September 1947. She essentially never left.

“I graduated in June 1951 and I started with the school system in July. I tell the students they never let me graduate.”

For the next 56 years she worked at D-B, in the library, in the principal’s office, and in the superintendent’s office.

When she retired in September 2008, after 56 years – 60 years if you count her four high school years – at Dobyns-Bennett, I wrote a column about the end of the Betty Cook Era at D-B.

Betty Jean Cook died Monday at age 91.

Here is my tribute to Betty Jean:

 

Betty Cook in 1956

The Kingsport school system doesn’t keep records on workplace longevity (they can tell you how many games the basketball team has won) but this has to be a record: 56 years.

Betty Cook has outlasted 14 different principals, seven superintendents, eleven head football coaches, seven head basketball coaches, four head baseball coaches, nine band directors and eleven librarians.

“I told the kids I don’t know how to fill out a resume. I’ve never had another job. I’ve never attended another church (Pleasant View Baptist). And I’ve lived where I live since I was 4 or 5.”

56 years.

“It doesn’t seem that long. I’ve enjoyed my work. When I see all the people that went here that have been successful it makes me feel good that I might have played a part in that.”

Betty was hired by Ross N. Robinson, who was then superintendent of city schools, on the recommendation of then assistant principal Ruth Ramer. She worked for a few weeks in Robinson’s office, then transferred to the library, where she’s been almost ever since. “I left the library for a few years and worked for Dr. Lay as his secretary. He decided to retire and Dr. Evans asked if I’d like to move back to the library.”

Betty can’t remember exactly but she thinks she started out at $156 a month.

56 years.

She has personal connections to so many of her colleagues. When Principal Earl Lovelace was a student at D-B, Betty was the principal’s secretary. She remembers he was on the baseball team and saw someone sideswipe her car. “He got the license number and brought it to me. He said the other day he never thought when he left here 45 years ago that someday he would be accepting my resignation.”

She remembers football coach Graham Clark as a little boy from Litz Manor hanging around outside the stadium where she ran the ticket office. “I thought he didn’t have much money so I would let him in free.”

56 years. Oh what she’s seen in those 56 years.

“The people I graduated with, their children came here. Then their grandchildren and now their great grandchildren. It’s been a fun place to work, mostly. I have thoroughly enjoyed the students and the faculty.”

The biggest difference between today and when she started? The kids, of course. But she still loves them. “They just have too much pressure on them today. We say they don’t know how to have fun.”

56 years. All those principals and coaches and students, the old D-B to the new D-B. She saw teachers hired and retired.

No one else will ever have that kind of record at D-B. She was D-B’s greatest resource. When someone wondered about the namesake of the east side middle school, Betty could say, “Ross Robinson, he hired me.”

Yesterday she walked out of D-B and headed to her Park Street home for the final time.

“They said you’d know when to get out. It’s just time.”

What’s next for Betty Cook? “Not anything for awhile. Just enjoy myself.”

She enjoyed 16 years of retirement.

 

High scoring college basketball players 

Caitlin Clark, the star basketball player from Iowa, sits atop the NCAA record book as the most prolific scorer in college basketball history, women or men.

Over her four years, she has scored 3,771 points with perhaps as many as six games remaining in the NCAA tournament this month.

But despite what you may hear, she is not the top all-time scorer in college basketball. Just the top NCAA scorer. The NCAA didn’t begin sanctioning women’s basketball until 1982.

If you are old enough, you may remember the days of Immaculata and Delta State, powerhouse schools in the women’s’ game long before the NCAA decided to get in on the action. They all played under the banner of the AIAW, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, which sponsored a national tournament from 1972 till 1982. Lynnette Woodard of Kansas held the AIAW record until Clark surpassed it in February.

There is still one record ahead of her, although you may not have heard about it.

Pearl Moore of Francis Marion College in Florence, South Carolina holds the all-time scoring record with 4,061 points over four seasons. Moore’s record is sometimes diminished because she played at a small school. Francis Marion is usually identified as “tiny Francis Marion” but it wasn’t that tiny. In 1973, when Moore enrolled, it had 1,625 students.

Moore had another disadvantage – there was no three-point shot during her college years, 1973-1977, and no shot clock.

Moore’s coach at Francis Marion, Sylvia Hatchell, who later won an NCAA women’s title at North Carolina, used to describe Moore’s three-point shot in the days before a three point circle. “She would be on a breakaway and she would actually slow down so the other team could catch up. Then she would draw a foul as she made the lay-up.”

(Hatchell graduated from Carson-Newman and got her masters at Tennessee.)

Moore’s achievement was given credence in 1979 when she was featured in the comic strip “According to Guinness.” Isn’t the Guinness Book of World Records” the reference used to solve all arguments?

So there you have it, Pearl Moore is the Greatest Scorer in college basketball history.  

 

 If Caitlin Clark were to average 40 points in her final six games in the tournament – and that assumes her team makes it to the national championship game – she would finish with 4,011 points, still 50 shy of Pearl Moore.

 

All the attention to Caitlin Clark’s scoring has also brought renewed attention to another great scorer, the greatest high school basketball player I ever saw in person.

 

In the fall of 1965, I was a freshman at Duke. It was definitely a different era. Students didn’t even have to have tickets to the games. We just lined up at the gym door, showed our student ID to the ticket taker and then grabbed a seat in one of the student sections: lower sidelines or end zones.

On December 10, Duke played UCLA in a much anticipated match up. UCLA was the defending national champion and ranked number one, although their best player, a freshman named Lew Alcindor, had to stay back in Los Angeles.

So the Duke freshman team played a local junior college, Southwood, in the preliminary to UCLA.

These frosh games were usually an opportunity for the fans to warm up, to get our voices stretched out and our cheers in synch.

Southwood had a guard who was a perfect target for our insults. He had big floppy hair and socks that wouldn’t stay up with rubber bands, as much because of his bony legs as the sock size. So we started razzing him. Usually this would panic an opponent, especially a freshman opponent.

But not this kid. He liked it. He gave us grins and winks.

And he gave us the game of a lifetime.

He played what today would be called the point guard. He brought the ball up court. First time up he crossed mid-court and launched what had to be a 40-foot shot. Swish.

We really started razzing him then.

So next time down the court, he did the same thing. With the same result. Swish.

He gave us a look, but not an angry look. It was a look that said, Watch this.

By the third time our guards got the message and came out to guard him. He gave them one juke fake and took off for an easy lay-up.

Our freshman coach double-teamed him from then on. Didn’t matter. He could shoot over any two guys; anywhere from 40-feet in, he was a threat. He could dribble around any two guys. And he could pass over, under, around or through our entire team.

You’ve heard of players who were unstoppable. He was the definition of unstoppable.

Once near the end of the first half he was trapped at midcourt. He flipped a pass behind his back, between two of our defenders, to a man wide open under the goal.

Our fans gave him a standing ovation.

The Duke freshmen ended up winning the game but that Southwood kid, name of Pete Maravich, won the crowd.

 

Pete Maravich at Raleigh Broughton High in 1964

There is a Kingsport connection here. When I was a sophomore and sitting way down the bench on the basketball team, I would occasionally get summoned to play against the varsity. I hated having to guard Leroy Fisher, who was four inches taller and four times better. Charles Hunley could just back into me and push me under the goal. But the guy I hated to guard the most was Worley Ward, a gangly six-six center with long, long arms. Worley didn’t even start until the tournament, when he came on strong, earning All-State Tournament team and a scholarship offer from North Carolina State. He came back home the next summer telling us about the coach’s son, a skinny kid who dribbled a basketball everywhere he went. Worley said the players would pile in a car to go get a bite to eat, and the coach’s kid would ride shotgun with the window down, dribbling the ball on the pavement as the car barreled down the street.

The N.C. State coach was Press Maravich and the kid was Pete, who would follow his dad to LSU for the next season. And rewrite the record book.

Pete scored 3,667 points in his three years at LSU, years without a three-point shot or a shot clock.

Pete with his dad Press - look how young Pete looks

Yeah, it was a different era for Pete and for Pearl.

I’m sure if Caitlin Clark had played then, she would have been every bit as dominant as she is today.

Wedding announcements of the 60s

 

Wedding announcments used to fill the Sunday newspaper

It’s a different newspaper today than it was 50 years ago.

No baseball box scores, no full-page stock tables, no TV and radio listings. And obituaries? No problem as long as you are willing to pay for the obituary, by the word.

A staple of the Sunday paper in those bygone days was the wedding announcement. The Sunday “Home and Family” section was filled with them.

 Typical was this wedding announcement that I picked at random from the January 17, 1965 of the Kingsport Times-News, headlined:

Melinda Edwards Becomes Bride

It was one of 19 (!) wedding announcements in that Sunday’s paper!

 Wedding announcements always began by setting the scene:

Broad Street Methodist Church was the scene of the wedding of Miss Melinda Carol Edwards and Stephen Kent Fritschle. Rev. Ted R. Witt Jr. performed the double-ring ceremony at 4 p.m. Saturday.

Then they introduced the bride, groom and their parents:

The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd L. Edwards, 2352 Pendragon Road.

The bridegroom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Clifton E. Fritschle of 4171 Skyland Drive.

Next came a narrative of the ceremony:

Mrs. L. P. Gregory, organist, and Mrs. F. L. Hamilton, vocalist, provided a program of wedding music.

The church was decorated with a background of smilax with large cathedral candles at the front of the church. Arrangements of white snap-dragons, gladioli, and chrysanthemums were used on each side of the altar. The pews were marked with white bows and white flowers.

[For the uninitiated, like me, smilax is a genus of about 300–350 species, found in the tropics and subtropics. They are climbing flowering plants, many of which are woody and/or thorny.]

Perhaps most important in those days, a detailed description of the bride’s gown:

Given in marriage by her father, the bride wore a silk organza floor-length sheath with scoop neckline and bridal point sleeves. Re-embroidered chantilly lace and pearl trim encircled the bodice and skirt, which had a detachable bouffant chapel-length overskirt. Her shoulder-length veil was of English silk illusion with organza petals of Chantilly lace and seed pearl trim. She carried a cascade bouquet of white cattleya and phalaenopsis orchids.

Now the wedding party with more fashion descriptions:

The maid of honor was Miss Mary Lawson Groseclose. She wore a floor-length turquoise chiffon sheath with scoop neckline, empire waist, and matching chiffon overskirt edged in velvet.

Her headdress was a matching velvet bow with tiers of turquoise veiling. She carried a cascade bouquet of white camellias and roses.

Bridesmaids were Miss Paula Ripley and Miss Vicki McIntyre. Their attire was identical to that of the honor attendant. They carried cascade bouquets of white camellias.

The father of the bride-groom served as best man. Ushers were Mark Fritschle, brother of the bridegroom, and Albert H. Agett Jr.

Next came details about the post-wedding reception:

Following the ceremony, a reception was given by the bride's parents at Ridgefields Country Club, under the direction of Mrs. Graham Porterfield and Mrs. Blake Faris. [I should note that my mother baked many groom’s cakes for Mrs. Portefield and Mrs. Faris and I suspect she did the groom’s cake for this one, too.]

Mrs. Henry C. Meeks introduced the guests to the wedding party. Miss Gay Edwards, cousin of the bride, presided at the bridal register.

Assisting in serving were: Mrs. Russell H. Miles, Mrs. Wiley H. Weaver, Miss Cathy Weaver, Mrs. C. B. Duke, Mrs. Kenneth Umberger, Mrs. W. Allen Exum, Mrs. James Edwards, Mrs. T. W. Glynn III, Mrs. W. B. Greene, Miss Jan Fritschle, and Miss Elizabeth Fritschle, sisters of the bridegroom, and Mrs. Val Edwards.

And finally the honeymoon details:

For her traveling costume the bride chose an aqua blue three-piece double-knit suit, with a jacket of matching suede. Her accessories were beige and brown. She wore the orchid from her bridal bouquet.

Biographical sketches of the bride and groom followed that:

The bride was graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School and attended East Tennessee State University where she was a member of Alpha Delta Pi Sorority. She is employed by Bennett and Edwards, Inc.

The bridegroom was graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School. He is attending the Georgia Institute of Technology where he is majoring in engineering mechanics. He is a member of Theta Chi fraternity. He is employed by the firm of Wallace and Poole, associated architects.

Let us not forget all the folks who feted the bride in the weeks leading up to the ceremony:

Pre-nuptial parties included an open house given by Mr. and Mrs. R. F. Looney and their daughter, Allison Looney; a linen shower given by Misses Paula Ripley, Mary Lawson Groseclose and Vicki McIntyre. A kitchen shower was given by Mrs. Heywood Modlin and Mrs. Thelma Blankenbecler.

Mrs. Kenneth Y. Umberger, Mrs. E. J. Triebe, Mrs. Ralph Baldock and Mrs. Millege Daniel were hostesses at a coffee. A luncheon was given by Mrs. C. A. Ross Jr. and Mrs. Russell H. Miles. A miscellaneous shower was hosted by Mrs. Harley Needham, Miss Margie Fleenor, Mrs. R. G. Dillard, Mrs. A. P. Harkins, Miss Melba Minton, Miss Peggy Leonard, Miss Rita Archer and Mrs. Ray Clark. A coffee was given by Mrs. Henry C. Meeks, Mrs. C. B. Duke, Mrs. W. B. Greene, Mrs. Wiley H. Weaver, and Mrs. James Edwards.

The rehearsal dinner was given by the bridegroom's parents at Ridgefields Country Club.

[Melinda Edwards was D-B ’63; Stephen Fritschle was D-B ’61. The wedding pictures here are not of Edwards but are typical photos of 60s brides. Her wedding picture on the microfilm was too dark to reproduce here.]

 

Wedding announcements weren’t so elaborate thirty years earlier. Here’s a typical one from the April 11, 1935 edition of the Kingsport Times:

Mr. and Mrs. John N. Lady announce the marriage of their daughter Margaret Maxine to Mr. Faustine I. White Monday, the eighth of April nineteen hundred thirty-five in Bristol, Virginia.

The wedding was solemnized on Monday morning at 11 o'clock in the home of Rev. Sullins Dosser. A few out-of-town guests of the bride and groom attended the wedding.

Mrs. White is the attractive daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Lady of this city.

Mr. White is the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. J. White and is an employe of the Meade Fibre Corporation. He is a graduate of the Dobyns-Bennett high school.

Mr. and Mrs. White will leave today by motor for Washington. They will be at home after April the fourteenth, at 837 Dale street.

 

Lest we forget that not all weddings go according to plan, here is this 1935 story from, where else, Newport, Tennessee:

WEDDING GUEST IS CAUSE OF MIDNIGHT FIGHT AT NEWPORT

Two Newlyweds and Three Guests Are Locked In Jail, Awaiting Charges of Last Night

Newport, May 5. - Two newlyweds and three guests at their wedding celebration are locked in the Newport jail today, awaiting charges of breach of peace as the result of a midnight fight in which the son-in-law of the new bridegroom was shot thru both hips, struck with a poker and stabbed.

Howard Morgan, 40, the wounded man, is alleged to have sat in the lap of a 17-year-old girl at the wedding party, bringing on the general fight. Ill feeling between Morgan and several other guests is known to have existed for some time, the police were informed.

 

Bobby Peters, Singing Star

Kingsport football star and state senator Bobby Peters had another claim to fame in the sixties, a recording career, albeit a brief one. From the Dec. 13, 1963 Kingsport Times:

Bobby Peters Records Ballad About Kennedy

Former state Sen. R. L. (Bobby) Peters has turned his talents to the field of music.

Peters, a Kingsport businessman, announced today that he has composed the music and written lyrics for a ballad titled "A Sunny Day In Dallas" in an effort to express the emotions felt by Americans and other peoples following the assassination of

President John F. Kennedy. Peters said he has recorded the song and that the record, released to area radio stations Thursday, will be available to the public here soon.

Peters, who narrowly lost the nomination for Congress in Tennessee's First Congressional District in 1962, is a graduate of Princeton University.

While at Princeton, he met Kennedy who was a student at Harvard and then did not see him again until the two met in Nashville while Kennedy was campaigning for the presidency.

Peters said he composed the song "out of great respect” for the late President.

Link to Peter's recording:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWRtXWTKpCY

If this link doesn't work, go to YouTube and search for "Honorable Bob Peters.")

At the time of this recording, Bobby Peters was, in addition to being a State Senator, the president of Clinchfield Supply, a building supply company on East Market Street. He named his record label “Clinchfield Records.”

The recording is included with 15 other songs on the album “Tragic Songs from the Grassy Knoll: John F. Kennedy 50^th Anniversary” (Norton Records of Cleveland, Ohio, 1994, $14.95).

Kingsport in 1911, Robert Leonard, Bobby Cross

 

Kingsport In 1911 As Told By W.G. “Gould” Davidson To Mary Clement In 1951: 

"Kingsport Was One House Wide and Two Miles Long"

 

"I used to ride up to Kingsport from New Canton [a neighborhood in what is now Church Hill] on an old pack horse with two rolls of wool to swap. There were lots of boats on the river then hauling grain and wool. And a sight o' logs rafted down to Chattanooga.

"I’ve slept all night on the ground where Kingsport is when the river was so high you couldn't ford it or ferry it."

Davidson was born November 19, 1861, in Hawkins County, 3 miles from Rogersville. He has been married four times, each time to a girl from East Tennessee, and has two sons living, Charley, of New Canton, and Jim, of Ellensburg, Washington. A Southern Methodist and a Democrat, he once served as a constable and also as deputy for Sheriff John Barton in Hawkins County.

In the year 1922 alone, he says, he helped capture 272 moonshine stills. He has little sympathy with lawbreakers of any sort. "Any good citizen ought to be a law-abidin' citizen," he says emphatically. "Just because a man is a poor man doesn't mean he can't abide by the law if he tries."

Davidson spent 22 years as a farmer and now makes his home at 533 Peach Orchard Drive, Lynn Garden.

Although he uses a cane for walking, he is still robust. He has a keen memory and a lively sense of humor.

An "exhibition" held at the Bradshaw's Chapel School when he was 14 is one of his most vivid recollections.

"I was just a chunk of a boy then," Davidson explains," but I always had a lot of brass. There were 32 young men on the platform that day. I gave a speech about Indians and I won the medal."

The old man paused for emphasis, and directing his level gaze at his listeners, repeated from beginning to end the oration that won the medal for him - the saga of a lonely Indian in a land won by the white man.

Davidson recalls the time when he could milk 28 cows in an hour and a half, and stack as much as fifty tons of hay in one day.

But in spite of that, he thinks life was better in the old days when Kingsport was just a little boat port on the Holston and beef sold for 4 1/2 cents a pound. His heart is with the carefree days when money didn't mean so much and people took things a bit slower.

"My grandfather, Gould Davidson," he recalls, with a twinkle in his eyes, "owned all the land that Gate City now stands on. But he was an awful feller to drink.

"One day he went into the court house over there at Gate City and the judge fined him ten dollars for cussing.

"Gould pulled a twenty out of his pocket, handed it to the judge, and headed for the door. The judge called to him to wait a minute and get his change. ‘Oh, no, Judge,’ Gould said. 'You just keep it. I may want to cuss again directly.'"

 

 

 Name Your Baby "Bobby"

Bobby was a big name in Kingsport in the fifties and I can trace that fact to a column that ran in the Kingsport Times on Sunday Oct. 16, 1938.

It was a sports column by sports editor Frank Rule and the headline read NAME YOUR BABY "BOBBY"

“Kingsport has had its Bobby Dodd, its Bobby Peters and several other all-something-or-other stars in recent years and now comes along a lad who so far has bewildered this corner by his dazzling feats on the gridiron. Bobby Cifers. well on his way to establish a new scoring record for Kingsport, the Big Six conference and the state, has another year to shine with the Indians, but already he has marked himself as one of the immortals.”

 Those three Bobbys – Dodd, Peters and Cifers - gave us many of the local high school sports stars like Bobby Tate, Bobby Bedford, Bobby Slaughter, Bobby Reagan and Bobby Strickler.

We lost two well-known Kingsport Bobs last month: All-State basketball player Bob Leonard and All-Conference football quarterback Bobby Cross.

 

Robert Leonard RIP

Robert “Bob” Leonard, star of the Dobyns-Bennett basketball teams of the early sixties, died January 18th in Winston-Salem. His obituary mentioned his NBA career. I didn’t remember it, probably because I was in college at the time, the time being before ESPN and sports talk radio.

I dug around and discovered the Robert Leonard-NBA connection.

A May 12, 1966 Kingsport Times-News story was headlined “Leonard Drafted By Lakers” and gives a good overview of his basketball days:

 

Robert Leonard, an All-State basketball player at Dobyns-Bennett High School, was drafted yesterday by the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball League in the fifth round of the NBA draft.

An All-American standout at Wake Forest last season, Leonard now has his chance to have his dream come true, and that is to play pro basketball.

While at Wake Forest, Bob tallied 1,637 points in his 80 varsity games over a three- year period and averaged 20.4 points per contest. His freshman average was a neat 19.9 points per game.

Bob's 1,637 points is the school's third highest. Bob netted 603 points last season playing for the Deacs and he joined three other Deacon standouts in this honor. The others were Dickie Hemrick, Len Chappel and Paul Long.

He was also an All-Atlantic Coast Conference performer for the past three seasons at Wake Forest and picked by the pro scouts to the second team All-American team last season. He made the Helm's All-American squad in his junior year.

Not only did Leonard lead the Deacons in rebounding last season but averaged 23.3 points a game.

 The Winston-Salem Journal of June 29, 1966 picks up the story under the headline “Bob Leonard Fails to Make Laker Roster:”

The pro basketball career of Bob Leonard, the Wake Forest standout, lies somewhere between Los Angeles and Baltimore.

Leonard, picked by the Los Angeles Lakers in the college basketball draft this year, attended tryout camp in Los Angeles recently.

"I did all right," Leonard said yesterday, "but they just have too many guards. They told me that they would get in in touch with Baltimore (the Bullets) to see if they might be interested in having me try out."

The Lakers have signed John Wetzel, who played at Virginia Tech. according to Leonard. "They have always wanted to get a tall guard, and Wetzel is 6-5. I don't know how he will do when he runs up against some fast guards," Leonard said.

Concerning his immediate future, Leonard said, "Right now I just want to get through with school; I can think about basketball later."

Leonard is completing his requirement for a bachelor's degree at Wake Forest by taking one course this semester.

 

True to their word the Lakers got him a tryout with the Baltimore Bullets. According to an Oct. 5, 1966 report in the Winston-Salem Twin City Sentinel:

Paul Long, who will captain Wake Forest's basketball team this winter, and some of his buddies went to Charlotte Saturday night to see the Baltimore Bullets play the St. Louis Hawks in a National Basketball Association exhibition game.

Long was hoping to cheer for Bob Leonard, who is now on the Baltimore roster, but the former Wake Forest captain didn't get into the game. Mike Farmer, the Bullets' coach, used only six players as his team beat the Hawks, 114-109, and snapped a three-game losing streak.

Leonard said he hadn't played much in the exhibition games. He suffered a groin injury early in the Bullets' training camp and it slowed him down some. But he's feeling fine now, has survived the first squad cut and thinks he may stay with Baltimore.

"I'm trying to sharpen every phase of my game now," said Leonard. "Your whole game has to be better to stick up here. I really haven't had trouble with any one thing. I'm just trying to improve everything."

Bob Ferry, the Bullets' center, is one of Leonard's biggest boosters. "I've been in this league 10 years and Bob is the best defensive rookie to come up.”

 

Leonard made it to the final 16 on the roster but on Oct. 8, 1966, he was one of the Baltimore Bullets final three cuts.

He returned to Winston-Salem, finished his undergrad degree and began law school, all the while staying in shape by playing in the local city league.

 

Then on June 12, 1969 the Winston-Salem Twin City Sentinel reported:

Bob Leonard, a former Wake Forest basketball star, is listed on the rookie camp roster of the Carolina Cougars. But Leonard, who is in law school at Wake Forest, says this does not mean that he is trying out for the team.

"I have finished two years of law school and I am in the summer break," said Leonard yesterday. "I have been playing basketball every winter in the City League, on the same team with Whitey Bell (a former N.C. State player). I'm not in mid-season shape, but I'm in pretty good shape. I think it will be fun to go over there and see what I can do.

"I'd like to see Coach (Bones) McKinney again and some of the boys who will be in the camp. I'd like to see how I could do against them. It's sort of a challenge."

[Bones McKinney was his coach at Wake Forest.]

If things go well, will Leonard play with the Cougars?

Bob hesitated. "I just don't know," he said. "I think I would have to wait and make that decision when it comes. I have another year of law school and I have worked too hard these first two years to give it all up."

 

He did decide to go to rookie camp but once again the numbers were against him and he didn’t make the squad.

He finished law school, got his law degree, passed the bar and in 1972 was elected Forsyth County District Judge, at 28 the youngest judge ever elected in North Carolina.

 

D-B Scoring Leaders

From the March 15, 1962 Kingsport Times-News, Dobyns-Bennett basketball’s top scorers of the 1961-1962 season, Robert Leonard’s senior season:

Robert Leonard finished the 1961-62 season with 479 points as Dobyns-Bennett's top scorer, followed by Walker Locke with 346 and Ken Pruett with 186.

Others in order were Eugene Bush, 135; Earl Lovelace, 121; Richard Arnold, 120; John Shipley, 80; Charles Hunley, 69; Dick Nelms, 63; Ron Litton, 35, Tony Poe, 35; Jerry McClellan, 15.

 

 

I never heard anyone call Robert Leonard “Bobby.” It was always Robert or Bob. I had breakfast frequently in the early 2000s with his older brother Charlie and he always called him “Robert.”

But there was another genuine Kingsport “Bobby” who also died recently. Bobby Cross’s full name, as announced in the Kingsport Times when he was born in August 1943 was Bobby Gerald Cross.

Bobby Cross was an Honorable Mention All-State quarterback who led Dobyns-Bennett to its second consecutive state championship in 1960 (this was before playoffs, when polls determined the state champion). He died January 28 at age 80.

That 1960 football team went undefeated against Tennessee opponents, losing only to Roanoke (Virginia) Jefferson High 14-12.

Bobby had been the back up to All-Southern quarterback Wally Bridwell on the 1959 state championship team that went 9-0-1, with a tie against Roanoke Jefferson.

Bobby lived two doors down from me when I was growing up. I can remember him as one of the big kids, playing football in my next-door neighbor’s backyard. Many future D-B football stars came out of those backyard games, including Bobby, Danny Minor, Darwin Compton and Ken Tolliver.

Every now and then the big boys would let a tyke like me play – I was four years younger than the youngest of the gang, and eight years the junior to many.

On one of those rare plays that I got in, I decided to use the “body block” technique that I had just learned on Gary Cox, who was seven years older than me. Needless to say, I got the wind knocked out of me.

The first big kid to run over to me was Bobby Cross, who kept telling me, “You’ll be okay, just take a deep breath.”

It worked. I’m still here.

That was the way Bobby was, a big heart, and the first to notice and run to help when someone else was struggling.

 

I wasn’t much bigger than a football when I watched those big kids play next door. There were usually four boys to a side and they wore out the grass in that yard.

The homeowner, Walter Shankel, was watching the game one autumn afternoon when his friend Grady asked, “Aren’t you worried that those boys are going to destroy your lawn?”

 Walter, one of the calmest people I have ever known, replied, “That grass will grow back. But someday those boys will be gone.”

 

D-B’s 1960 Football Team

D-B’s football team finished first in the state in both the UPI and Litkenhous rankings in 1960 but wound up second to Nashville Litton in the AP poll. Litton, which was undefeated in the regular season, went on to lose in the Nashville Clinic Bowl to Battle Ground Academy. But that was after the final AP poll. D-B actually had more first place votes in the final AP poll but were ranked fourth and fifth on a number of, uh, middle Tennessee ballots.

The Litratings, which relied on a mathematical formula based on difference-by-score, didn’t conclude until after the bowl games. BGA finished second to D-B in the Litratings.

D-B finished with a 104.8 Litrating. BGA had a 101.1, which meant, according to Dr. Frank Litkenhous, creator of the rating system, that if the two teams met on a neutral field, D-B would win by 3 or 4 points.

The lowest ranked east Tennessee team in the final Litrating was Boones Creek with a score of 13.7.

The highest rated team in the state was Chattanooga Baylor with a 108.2 score but they were fenced off into a separate category with seven other private prep schools.