Back In '82......
This is my feeble attempt to take a moment each week to remember those who paved the way for us. All my childhood heroes, some still with us and some passed on, who made sports so special to us all and inspired a deep love of the game.
"Remember, Kid, there are heroes and there are legends. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die" -The Sandlot
Spending a lifetime in sports, I’ve learned that every town keeps its legends the way old houses keep their creaks—faint at first, then suddenly vivid when the right story opens the door. It’s one of the very reasons I wanted to start the “Back in ’82” section on our website: to pause and pay homage to these figures who seem to live half in memory, half in myth. From a time when video footage just didn’t exist and photographs were few, it is the stories—passed along, burnished by recollection—that give these legends their staying power. I often joke that every town has its own version of Bo Jackson—the man whose feats sound too large to be true, yet are repeated with a kind of hometown certainty. For Sardis, that man is former Blue Devil Bruce Hayes, their Bo Jackson, in a manner of speaking. I first met Bruce in August of 1986. He was the countywide traveling P.E. teacher, fresh out of college, and I was a fourth grader at Scotts Hill. I’ve never forgotten that day, for Larry Bird was my hero, and this new teacher handed me a Basketball Digest he’d finished reading—Larry on the cover, mid-shot, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the page. I read that issue a million times, wore its corners soft and left several pages hanging on for dear life. I still have it to this day. When I got home, I couldn’t wait to show my dad my prize—and that was when I heard my first Bruce Hayes stories. Dad told me that, pound for pound, Bruce was one of the best athletes he had ever seen. He talked about Bruce’s basketball prowess, then added, almost as an afterthought, that he was an even better baseball pitcher. He told me about Bruce playing college baseball at Lambuth University, and the way the ball seemed to leave his hand with a kind of authority you don’t teach—a God-given talent few men possess. Over the years, it wasn’t just my dad. Story followed story, each one circling back to the same refrain: how athletic Bruce was, and—without fail—how hard he could throw a baseball. He was one of those rare players who seemed at ease in any arena, as if the games themselves bent slightly to his understanding of them. He was a natural. His high school basketball coach, Danny Johnson, told me, “Bruce was the best athlete I ever had. He was one of the best players in our district all four years, could play any position, and had the ability to play bigger than he was.” Danny continued, “He was such a hard worker and never complained, and to go with all that he was also an extremely smart player.” Coach Johnson really only had one issue with Bruce the entire time he coached him: “He was too unselfish at times. I couldn’t get him to shoot enough—unlike Randy (Bruce’s brother, who was also a great player), he liked to shoot. Bruce always averaged close to 20, but he could have easily averaged 25 or 30 if I could have gotten him to shoot more.” He added, “I didn’t really coach Bruce in baseball, but I watched him a lot. He was a very good hitter and did such a good job with his pitching—he could really throw it hard.” All that Coach Johnson said can be easily verified with a quick Jackson Sun archives search. You will find four straight seasons of 20-point games and big-time upset wins. His college baseball coach, Jack Russell, was quoted on Bruce’s arrival at Lambuth: “He is one of the best pitching prospects we have signed. He has a great arm and is very intelligent.” That line—“really throw it hard”—echoes through anyone who ever saw him pitch. Story after story, article after article, all allude to the strength of his right arm. Bruce himself told me of a back injury he suffered his senior year, something Coach Russell also mentioned in an interview. Bruce said he never truly got back to 100 percent—and that is a scary thought. He had a tremendous college career, and they never had to face the very best of his stuff. As I went through junior high and high school, Bruce Hayes was always one of my favorite teachers. At the time, I didn’t think much about why—I figured it was because he had been such a great ballplayer, and I wanted to be one too. But when I returned home and took a job at my old school, Bruce was still there. We co-taught a class for twelve years, and it was there, seeing him through adult eyes, that I understood. I realized why Bruce Hayes had been my favorite teacher—and why he was almost everybody’s. I came to see that, as great an athlete as Bruce was, he is an even better man. Sitting on the playground, kid after kid would come up to him. Whether the subject was sports or hunting, cars or trucks, food or school—it didn’t matter. He took a sincere interest in whatever they brought him. Every child walked away feeling, if only for a moment, like the most important person in the world. And to this day, no matter the situation, if I get the chance to talk to Bruce, I come away feeling like I’m somebody. His coach once said he was one of the most unselfish players he ever coached; I can tell you he is one of the most unselfish men I have ever met. There were countless small kindnesses—so quiet they might have gone unnoticed if you weren’t looking. I remember telling him about a man I’d met who needed work; before long, Bruce had found him a job. When someone needed firewood, Bruce cut it and delivered it. When there were needs at school or jobs to be done, you could always count on him. Some of my fondest memories are of him roping me into helping cook for the kids or the staff—the air filled with laughter and the smell of meat smoking on the grill, and beneath it all the steady, comforting rhythm of something good being done for others. As kids would go on to the high school and I’d bump into them, they’d ask, “Does Coach Bruce still play tag—no tag backs?” I just smile when I see a teacher with their back turned, because Bruce loved to sneak up and scare someone, and then laugh with that jovial, unguarded laugh of his. Since he retired, I still have kids ask me regularly, “Have you talked to Coach Bruce lately?” Yes, back in ’82 there was a mythical figure with a cannon for a right arm, whose athletic achievements are still talked about today. Yes, in his way, he was a Bo Jackson. But since 1982, this man has quietly touched more lives than could ever be counted. And while I still have this platform, I’m grateful—for the impact he had on me as a kid, and for the lessons he taught me as a man. For me, Bruce Hayes remains what all true legends become over time—not just larger than life, but deeper than it, too. -Eric Hampton
Bruce Hayes
A few months ago, I jumped on the Stephen Wilson Jr. bandwagon, and as I traveled down that particular rabbit hole, I found a song titled “Year to Be Young 1994.” Man, those lyrics slap just a little bit. There wasn’t a single reference in that song I didn’t connect with. I had written earlier about the 1992 boys’ basketball season in West Tennessee lore—three West Ten teams bringing home the hardware two years before the year in that song. Well, two years after 1994, one of the great seasons for high school girls' basketball in our area came. In much the same way those lyrics carried me backward, seeing the names while researching this piece felt like stepping into a kind of magic time machine, where memories become clear, and the past feels close enough to touch. I was a freshman in college in 1996, playing at Jackson State Community College, and I made it to many Class A and Class AAA tournament games that season. I no doubt looked the part of “Year to Be Young.” As I pulled up to those high school gyms in my yellow truck, there’s a strong chance Nirvana was blaring through Walmart speakers and a self-installed Pioneer CD player. When I stepped out, my T-shirt very well might have said “No Fear.” Youth has a uniform, and in 1996, I was wearing it. But it truly was a great year for girls’ hoops in West Tennessee. In Class A, both Bradford and USJ made it to the dance. USJ was in the same district as my alma mater, so I was very familiar with their team. I had watched Mary Beth Haltom, Frances Kirkland, Allison Truell, Jenny Jackson, and the rest of that squad all season. They were led by Appalachian State signee Deirdre Sallee, a force in the paint who seemed to gather rebounds as naturally as breath. As good as USJ was, another West Ten team would bring home the hardware. The Bradford Lady Devils were a force throughout the 1990s, and their battles with Gleason were the stuff of legend. In 1996, Tonya Tuggles had established herself as one of the best players in the state. Here I’ll pause for a side story. When I later started coaching at Bradford High School, Tuggles was playing at Union University. One Sunday night, I had left some things in my office and stopped by the school to grab them. The gym was pitch dark, my office on the far side. When I walked in, I couldn’t see a thing—but I heard it: a rhythmic swoosh and a heavy thud. My imagination ran wild. I hurried across the court, reached my office, and flipped on the light. In the faint spill of brightness, I saw Tuggles in the darkness, jumping one of those massive weighted ropes. So much for that “No Fear” shirt—I nearly jumped out of my skin. But that work ethic, quiet and unseen, is what made her great. That state tournament run wasn’t just Tuggles. Bradford also had Jodi Loynes, Tasheika Brown, Christy Talley, Mindy Sellers, and Casey Mitchell. They took down USJ in the second round and finished the job with a win over Wayne County, another girls' basketball powerhouse. In Class AA, the West Ten sent only one team to the Glass House: Westview. But that one team came home with the Gold Ball—the first in program history. Mona Thompson led the scoring during the tournament run, and Tasha Atkins was the engine that drove the machine. Becky Hurst, Julie Lacey, Crystal Hurst, and Beth Ann Boroughs provided steady contributions throughout. In the championship game, Thompson poured in 20 points, but it was Atkins who stepped to the line and calmly knocked down two clutch free throws as time expired, sealing a 50–49 victory over Livingston Academy. In that instant, time seemed to fold in on itself—the ball, the breath, the silence before celebration. It would be 26 years before Westview won another title, this time led by Tasha’s daughter, Jada Harrison. Thompson, now living in Texas, has returned to attend each of Westview’s three most recent championships—a reminder that basketball, like memory, has a long arc. In Class AAA, a strong rivalry had formed between district foes Lexington and Jackson Central-Merry. Lexington had reached the Glass House the year before behind Henderson County legend April Pearson, who would go on to play at Union. In 1996, Pearson returned, joined by the formidable Jessica Pritchard and steady contributors Tara Clines, Tiana Horner, and April Harrington. Despite their experience, Lexington fell in the first round to White County, 59–48. But those battles with Lexington—especially in district and region tournaments at Oman Arena—hardened Jackson Central-Merry. After a narrow two-point win over Columbia in the second round, JCM entered the championship game as heavy underdogs against powerhouse Oak Ridge. Coach Sandra “Sandy” Fitzgerald said, “Playing all year in Oman Arena really prepared us for playing at the Murphy Center, it is a similar feel.” That familiarity mattered. Led by Ginger Bryant, who averaged more than 18 points per game at the Glass House—including 24 in the opening round—JCM found its rhythm. Collin Carmichael scored 20 in the championship game, while Heather Bell, Leigh Ann Holloway, Meg Griffin, and Crystal Taylor provided steady play throughout the run. The Lady Cougars stunned Oak Ridge and captured the title. At a time when there were only three classifications, this trio of West Ten teams makes a strong case that 1996 was one of the greatest seasons for girls' basketball in our area’s history. And for those of us who are a little older now, seeing these names in print again stirs something deep and warm. The gyms may be quieter in memory, the yellow truck long gone, the CD player obsolete—but the echoes remain. Thanks, and God bless. -Eric Hampton
1996
My earliest sports memories settle somewhere in the mid-80s and early 90s, dusted with the colors of the Boston Celtics, Detroit Tigers, and Pittsburgh Steelers - affinities that may or may not have sprung from those formative years. But for me, the true cathedral of sports in that era wasn’t the NBA or the Major Leagues; it was the stretch of small-college hardwood that ran between Memphis and Nashville. Between 1985 and 1996, that corridor produced some of the greatest small-college basketball ever played. My father, who played at Freed-Hardeman, introduced me to what he always called The Holy Wars. The phrase predates even that golden decade. His own coach in the 1960s, Dick Stewart, once lamented after a loss to Bethel College, “I am the only Baptist I know who can take a bunch of Campbellites and get the h– beat out of us by a bunch of Presbyterians.” It was both a joke and a truth. In those days, most of the schools wore their denominational ties plainly, and any debate of doctrine was never as heated - or joyously fought - as the battles that unfolded on the hardwood. When the old VSAC (formed in the 1940s) dissolved in 1985, many of the Western Teams joined with a few newcomers to form the Tennessee Collegiate Athletic Conference (TCAC). And for 10 years, if basketball was your religion, these games were a kind of revival meeting. These revivals took place in the smallest of cathedrals - Baker Feildhouse, Bader Gymnasium, McQuiddy Gymnasium, McCaslin Gym, Pepper Bray Court- all gone the way of the College Basketball History books. Others like College Gym (Martin Methodist), The Fred (Union), Trojan Fieldhouse (Trevecca) still stand, aging sanctuaries that once shook with the hymns of jump shots and full-court presses that sang praises to the old TCAC. Some Saturdays, my parents would take me to one of these games. We were off, as my dad would say, “to watch the Holy Wars.” On other nights, I’d beg to stay up late to watch the PBS Station - Channel 11 in my young mind -air the games on tape delay. By the time I reached college, the era was all but over, but my first year playing at Jackson State was the last year of TCAC, which allowed me to slip into a few final contests. To this day, the Holy Wars remain a foundational piece of my basketball memory - stories and legends of almost biblical proportion to a young hoops devotee. The original TCAC started in 1985. The Charter members included: Belmont University - Non-Demoninational Bethel College - Cumberland Presbyterian Christian Brothers University - Catholic Cumberland University - Nonsectarian David Lipscomb University - Churches of Christ Freed-Hardeman University - Churches of Christ Lambuth University - United Methodist Trevecca Nazarene University - Nazarene Union University - Baptist The games were legendary, the gyms were tiny -but the coaches- they were Goliaths roaming the TCAC. Nowhere is there a bigger name in the coaching ranks than that of Don Meyer, and you can’t talk about the TCAC without starting with him. Before Coach K eventually passed him, Meyer was the winningest college basketball coach in history. In the TCAC’s inaugural season, he took David Lipscomb to a National Championship, and his teams were perennial contenders. Pat Summit, among others, credited Meyer with shaping her own coaching philosophy. And in Tennessee, he may be best remembered for his summer basketball camps-institutions really. Kids came from across the country to learn from him. By the time I reached college, half the players I met from other states had attended a Don Meyer camp. Today, if I see a coach picking up trash in a gym, I’ll ask, “Are you a Don Meyer Disciple?” They usually answer, “Yes, how did you know?” and I’ll reply, “Call it a hunch.” My favorite personal story came during my first year at Bethel, one of the last games ever in McQuiddy. I was checking in, and Don was talking into his legendary tape recorder, and I heard him say, “Number 12, shooter checking in.” For a kid who had spent his life trying to perfect shooting, it was a benediction from the high priest himself. Don was not the only coaching giant; just three miles down the road was Hall of Fame coach Rick Byrd, a legend in his own right. As Byrd paced the sidelines at Belmont, he would be a regular thorn in the side of Meyer and David Lipscomb. Together, Meyer and Byrd presided over one of the greatest games in NAIA history. February 17, 1990 - The game dubbed “The Battle of the Boulevard” pitted the #1-ranked David Lipscomb Bisons against the #9 Belmont Bruins. The demand was so great that the game had to be played at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium. It was a sellout, with hundreds of fans turned away at the door; the 15,399 fans still hold the NAIA record to this day. The “Battle of the Boulevard” (a name that stuck with the rivalry ever since that day) did not disappoint. NAIA basketball at its finest was on display that day as Lipscomb came away with a 124-105 win. The numbers: Lipscomb shot 47-for-75 (62.7%). Belmont answered with 43-for-82 (51.8%). The Bruins outrebounded the Bisons 46-30. Belmont’s All-American Joe Behling poured in 45 points; Lipscomb’s hall-of-fame Phillip Hutcheson countered with 30, Wade Tomlinson added 25, Darren Henrie dropped 21, and Marcus Bodie, better known for defense, scored 20. Greg Thurman and Scott Corley kept Belmont close with 20 and 19 points, respectively. It was as if the gym were a kiln, firing every athlete into something a little more brilliant than they were the night before. Another legend of the era was Mike Nienabor - a name revered by coaches, though often unfamiliar to casual fans. Coaching Bethel’s purple and gold, he faced disadvantages in facilities, money, and recruiting, yet somehow consistently stole wins from both Lipscomb and Belmont. He later coached at Christian Brothers - famously upsetting Memphis State - and today leads Delta State University. One of my favorite stories from the Holy Wars involves Bethel, Belmont, and a superfan you may know: Vince Gill. A good friend of mine played at Belmont when they made the jump to DI, and he always told me Vince would feed them at his house before games. Vince was good friends with Coach Byrd, and in the heyday of the TCAC, he sat courtside like Belmont’s own Spike Lee. During one heated matchup, he got involved in some back-and-forth with Bethel guard Dave Moore. As the game got more intense - along with the chatter - Moore hit his fourth 3 just before halftime, turned to Vince, and in a not-so-polite way told him to, “Write a song about that”. Might have been an expletive mixed in, too. Vince lost it - and there are various stories that no two Bethel alumni can seem to agree on, one player even claims Vince was tossed (which would be the best version to tell), but from my research, the most likely was a tech assessed to Belmont's bench courtesy of the country music legend. However, Belmont did hold on to win that game, but Bethel did upset them at Baker Fieldhouse earlier that season. The TCAC ceased operations after the 1995-96 season. Belmont became the first to jump to Division I, and Christian Brothers moved to Division II. Lambuth and Cumberland joined the Mid-South Conference. The Remaining schools formed the Trans South Conference, which shone briefly before its members scattered - Lipscomb and Birmingham Southern making the jump up, Bethel heading the KIAC. But for a decade, the TCAC was the brightest constellation in small-college basketball; packed gyms, legendary coaches, talented players, and enough theological differences to keep the rivalries simmering. The Holy Wars - those small-town, big-heart battles - made me a better fan, maybe even a better man. I’m grateful to have witnessed even a sliver of them -Eric Hampton
Holy Wars
Rodney's Cooler
Back in 1991 - an era that has since taken on the soft blur of distance - there arrived a modest basketball film starring Bo Kimble, with cameo flashes from Hakeem Olajuwon and Kendall Gill, called Heaven is a Playground. The movie itself never threatened immortality, the kind of flick you half-watch on a Saturday afternoon when no games are on, but the title stayed with me. For some of us, that phrase did not feel poetic or symbolic. It felt literal. For me, at that time in life, Heaven truly was a playground. I came of age at the far edge of Generation X, when Magic Johnson showed up at Larry Bird’s outdoor court (I have actually visited this very outdoor court) to shoot a Converse commercial, when every kid owned a VHS copy of Michael Jordan’s Playground, when shoe stores slipped AND 1 Mixtapes into your shopping bag like contraband treasure. Heaven had no roof, no walls - just chain nets, cracked asphalt, and worn-out basketballs, and we believed -without irony-that the game lived best beneath open skies. In the 1980s and ‘90s, the playground was where basketball was learned, not instructed. There were no trainers, no private workouts promising polished footwork and perfect form. You were just dropped off until you could drive, and expected to find your own way. Your teachers were grown men with forearms of iron and voices like gravel who had little patience for a young kid wanting on the court. These men would knock you on your back if you went down the lane, they would get in your ear if you didn’t defend or rebound, and they reacted to a bad shot with something close to moral outrage. Even in a small town like Scotts Hill, the park filled up on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. Lose a game, and you sat - sometimes one game, sometimes two. Justice was swift and unquestioned. That was the motivation: you taught yourself. Your mechanics might not have been textbook, but you learned to finish through contact, how to compete, or you watched from the sideline. If a new team needed one more body, you wanted to be the one they pulled from the losing side. Nobody had to teach you to play defense; it revealed itself as necessity, you figured it out because defense kept you on the court. Nobody begged you to rebound; you fought for every ball that came off the rim because effort was currency, and you wanted to stay on the court! If you were the young one, a rebound or a steal might be the only way you touched the ball. Anything - absolutely anything - to stay inside those lines. The image that anchors the entire Back in ’82 series is of the goal on the very first playground I played basketball on, at Scotts Hill Elementary School. That goal is long gone now, removed quietly, without ceremony, but it was where I got my first introduction to hoops. It was there that my imagination ran loose, where I became Larry Bird in my own mind, where kids began drawing up plays that existed nowhere but in our heads and hearts. It was where we learned to police ourselves, make our own calls, and I dare say we were better at it than most organized games played today. As I grew, Sardis, Tennessee, became the next playground destination. For that era, it had remarkably good outdoor courts. My parents would drop me off every weekend, and I’d play with whoever happened to come by. There were permanent volleyball poles inside the court, and one afternoon, during a full-court run, I collided with one and woke up staring at the sky. The rims were kind enough, but the wooden backboards were dead as stone. No matter how hard you put it on the board, the ball simply stuck and fell - home court knowledge you learned to weaponize. On Friday nights, it was mostly empty, adults had lives, and all the other kids were in town at the game room (that was a real thing in those days). I became known as that strange kid who was always carrying around a basketball, as though it were something I couldn’t put down. I wore that reputation like a badge of honor through the awkward teenage years. With a driver’s license came wider horizons. We played at Guy B. in Lexington from time to time, but nothing matched Scotts Hill City Park on summer nights. The courts look better now, but they sit quiet, rarely holding more than a handful of souls. Back then, there was often only one usable goal, but the place would still fill nightly in the summer. You had to win to play! We would start around 6:00, and folks would still be playing after 10:00. Rodney Singleton would bring that giant water cooler so everyone could fill those empty Gatorade bottles. That cooler has so many memories because it served as both a sanctuary and an exile. It was refreshing on those hot days, but you didn’t want to get stuck there. That playground holds some of my fondest basketball memories. For Gen Xers like me, this wasn’t special—it was ordinary, almost universal. When I reached college, before seasons began and after they ended, we returned to outdoor courts. Maybe they still do, but I have a hard time picturing current local college players heading out to Muse Park to hoop when their season ends, but that's exactly what we did. I remember playing at Muse, where a man clutching a brown paper bag made every call. He was just sketchy enough that no one argued. Every time I scored, he called a walk—no basket. When you learn to deal with these kinds of calls on a playground, well, a bad call from a referee doesn’t rattle you. Respect was earned there, never given. And if anyone discovered you played college ball, you became the target, and everyone at the park came at you. Muse was also the setting for one of my highlights as a player. There was a bet made, no lights, so cars lined the court to provide the setting, and it was a surreal type moment that makes it into the rotation of stories from a certain era. Not really a story for this page, but a fond memory nonetheless. Coaching eventually moved the pickup games indoors, and I became one of the old heads. I loved those games too, but the magic was different. Today, kids have constant access to the gym. They play travel ball, train year-round, and work with specialists. City parks sit mostly empty. And yet, there was something unforgettable about a time when the best high school players, old heads, forgotten talents, no talents, rising middle schoolers, and twenty-somethings still clinging to their prime all shared the same court—fighting desperately not to sit beside Rodney’s water cooler. I know the danger of age is romance. Every old man paints the past in gold. And this is not a criticism of trainers—many of them are excellent. Today’s kids can do things with a basketball I never could. But for all the ball-handling, shooting, and finishing, I still believe the greatest teachers of defense, rebounding, and pure competition were the playground and its unbreakable law: if you lose, you sit. For my fellow Gen Xers, I hope this stirred a memory or two. Head over to our page and tell us where your favorite playground hoop once stood. Eric Hampton
Cannon Whitby
Sunday, January 12, 1986, was a little over 40 years ago now. I was an eight-year-old boy already hopelessly in love with basketball. Less than a year earlier, I had been sitting on the end of the bench handing out Gatorades as my dad coached what I still believe was the best Scotts Hill boys team ever to a sub-state game. The ’86 Celtics were rolling that winter, and I was planning to watch them later that afternoon on CBS — as I did most Sundays after church. But it wasn’t Boston that made this day unforgettable. And though I had to look at the archives to confirm the exact date, the memory of that morning has never faded. We were piled into our big brown Buick, rumbling toward church, when Dad pulled into the Scotts Hill Plaza (A gas Station). He handed me 50 cents and told me to run in and grab a Jackson Sun from the newspaper machine. That’s what I called it anyway — a hulking metal box that felt almost magical to a kid like me. There were no seatbelt laws then; those were the days you rode in the back of dad’s ’65 Ford when you went to town, hair whipping in the wind like some small-town version of freedom. I slid back into the car, handed the paper to Mom, and hung over the front seat as she scanned the sports page. Then I heard her say, “Joe — he scored 70 last night!” I watched my dad closely in those days — like a hawk. When he was impressed, I was impressed. And Cannon Whitby was clearly impressive. I could hardly wait for Mom to finish reading so I could get my hands on that sports page myself. The headline began: DYER COUNTY MAKES GOOD CANNON FODDER. “The Cannon fired and fired and fired and never came close to melting.” Lines like that hooked me forever. The Sunday paper was my gateway into the wider world of basketball, and Cannon Whitby became my first player to follow, my first legend. I never saw him play in person, but through those clippings and box scores, he loomed larger than life in my imagination — a scoring comet streaking across West Tennessee. That stop at the Plaza wasn’t random. Before his 70-point night, Whitby had already posted four 50-plus performances that season. Any time Obion County played, it felt like an event — another chance to see what he might do next. And as the season unfolded, his name would eventually connect to another player I’d come to know well later in life. In 1986, Mike Rhodes of Perry County was considered Tennessee’s all-time leading scorer with 3,271 career points. (Since the 80’s, a few other older names have surfaced on the State Scoring List) After the first round of the district tournament, Cannon Whitby had tied that mark. The second round — against Humboldt at Jackson South Side — was history waiting to happen. The game was so big that people arrived as early as 2:30 in the afternoon, lining the gym; they had to be moved out of the way so South Side students could leave school at 3:00. By 5:30, the gym was standing room only. Some fans spilled into a study hall during the girls’ game, but by tip-off of the boys’ contest, more than 2,500 people were packed into every inch of that gym, craning their necks for the moment they knew was coming. It took about 19 seconds. Whitby hit an off-balance jumper, and the place erupted. Yet play wasn’t stopped — Coach Whitby wanted the game to continue, so it did, as if history itself had simply blended into the rhythm of basketball. Later that postseason, Cannon broke another of Mike Rhodes’ records, scoring 122 points in the state tournament, surpassing Mike’s 117. Years later, I got to know Mike really well during my time coaching at Perry County. We actually coached an AAU team together one year and I coached his son, Cannon. Yes, his son was named after Cannon Whitby. Mike told me he enjoyed watching Cannon Whitby play when he was breaking records, and he liked the name so much that he passed it on to his youngest son. Cannon Rhodes became a terrific player in his own right, and someday, we’ll certainly do a “Back in ’82” on Mike Rhodes, too. As for Whitby, that 1986 season remains one of the greatest in Tennessee high school history. I remember my Grandfather had a subscription to Sports Illustrated. I loved looking through them on mail day. One day, there it was. I jumped out of my chair when I saw Cannon Whitby featured in “Faces in the Crowd.” To a kid like me, seeing someone local in the biggest sports magazine in the world felt monumental. When all was said and done, Cannon Whitby cemented his place among the greatest to ever play in this state. He averaged 39.9 points per game — second in the nation by some counts — and scored 1,356 points that season alone. He finished with 3,478 career points, still fourth all-time today. He led Obion County to a state championship, pouring in 45 points in the final, and became the first Class AA Mr. Basketball in Tennessee 40 years ago. He later played at Arkansas and reached the Final Four, even if his college career didn’t quite live up to the legend of his high school years. Many people are better equipped than I to write about Cannon Whitby — those who saw him night after night from the bleachers instead of through newsprint. But I hope this stirs your own memories of a true LEGEND. For me, 1986 will always feel golden. Between Bill Walton joining the Celtics (my granddad loved the big redhead) and Cannon Whitby lighting up the Sunday paper, basketball planted itself deep in my heart. And now, all these years later, I get the joy of writing about it. — Eric Hampton
"Pancakes" Perry
Growing up as a coach’s son in the 1980s, I was privy to many basketball conversations. And prior to 1992 (which you can read about in an earlier story) and that amazing class of players, there was one name I heard local coaches declare with reverence: Pancakes Perry. I would see old men light up when they talked about him—his unguardable jump shot, his playmaking, his athletic ability. And then there was the name itself. Pancakes. It was the kind of name that caught a young boy’s attention and stayed with him. One story I heard over and over as a child was about a district tournament game in which Maury City, Pancakes’ team, lost to Adamsville in double overtime. Seldom does the star of a story come from the losing team, but in this one, it did. He was that good. Now, all these years later, that little boy—me—who grew up on those stories has attempted to start a sports page. The moment I committed to it, I knew one part of the site had to be about remembering the past, paying homage to those who came before us. It mattered to me. When thinking of a name for that section, I wanted to tip my hat to pop culture icon Uncle Rico, hence the name Back in ’82. And when I started thinking about who I would write about, Pancakes Perry was on my initial short list. At first, though, all I had were memories of other men talking about him and my dad’s version of the Adamsville game. So I started digging, and wouldn’t you know it—Edward “Pancakes” Perry starred in one of the biggest upsets in NCAA history in 1982. When I saw the date, I knew I had to do this story. I wanted to meet the man, but nobody I knew could point me in the right direction. A friend told me Pancakes was a preacher now, though he didn’t know where. Then, during a podcast with my dad, we mentioned Pancakes Perry, and a former player of Dad’s—Todd Buczynski (a fine player himself back in '79)—called me with contact information for Edward “Pancakes” Perry. I finally tracked him down, and wouldn’t you know it—he was living in Adamsville, the very place where the legendary game that sparked my interest all those years ago had taken place. We set up a lunch date, and that’s where this story really begins. I arrived early, got a table, and struck up a conversation with a gentleman who happened to be a sports fan. I told him I was meeting Pancakes Perry for an interview, and his face lit up. “Oh, Cakes—he’s my buddy. This will be a good one.” Within minutes, his table filled up. He was introducing me around, and soon I realized that at the table next to mine were Matt and Bubba Hoover’s parents—two guys who were my rivals in high school. They knew Perry, too. “He’ll give you great stories,” they said. When Edward “Pancakes” Perry arrived, and I waved him over, it was clear he knew everyone there—and they knew him. Once we settled into lunch, my first question was about that 1979 game against Adamsville, the one where legend says he just couldn’t miss. He told me, “Adamsville was very well coached. Coach Massey was coaching at the time—oh, they were very well coached. But so were we. We didn’t give up the baseline, we boxed out, we positioned, we could run our plays, and we knew we were going to be in for a fight with them.” He continued, “That night we had a real good strategy—keep the game close,” then he smiled, “and in the end, let me do my thing.” I told him I’d always heard he just didn’t miss that night. He replied, “That night I was in the zone, and I knew when I released the ball it was going in. I had that feeling. When I went on the floor, it was like another personality took over me.” I asked about the two buzzer-beaters. He said, “The first one to send it to overtime, I was falling out of bounds in the right corner. The other was a foot or two inside the half-court line. I just jumped up and launched it!” In the second overtime, Adamsville held the ball the entire period and scored at the buzzer. Coach Massey was quoted afterward: “We figured our best chance to win was to make sure Pancakes didn’t get the ball back, because if he got a shot off, it was going in.” Pancakes turned serious when recalling the end. “The reason we lost that game was a blown defensive assignment at the end, and the guy from Adamsville made the shot.” Forty-seven years later, he told me, “Most disappointing loss of my entire career—college and high school. It bothered me, it still bothers me.” I’d heard a story from a friend in Crockett County that Maury City would have won a state title, but Coach Dan Black left Perry home, so I asked Pancakes about it. He said, “No, that was my older brother William—we called him Bubba. He was good. As a matter of fact, he was my mentor. That’s who I wanted to follow. But yes, they left him at home, and that same year Happy Valley won. If my brother were there, I believe Maury City would have been state champions. It was a bad decision—by far our best chance at a championship.” Perry graduated in 1979. At that time, Crockett County had several high schools—Maury City, Friendship, Crockett Mills, Gadsden, Bells, and Alamo. Friendship would win a state title in the early ’80s, so there was excellent basketball being played. Pancakes was one of the brightest stars of that era. He talked again about being “in the zone,” something that happened often as he wrapped up a stellar prep career, averaging more than 32 points per game. I often ask today’s players how they train—shooting machines, AAU, personal trainers. It was refreshing to hear a story from an earlier time. Pancakes told me, “When I was in high school, we lived right by the elementary school, and there was a basketball court down there. On one end of the court, there was a streetlight; on the other end, it was dark. There was some light, but it was much darker.” He continued, “I remember thinking, if I can score on this dark end, I can score anywhere. Double-teamed, triple-teamed. So with that in my mind, I started playing on that other end, and by game time, it was like I became another person.” He spoke about his high school coach, Coach Funderburk—the first coach at Crockett County after consolidation. “I was on that playground or in the gym a lot of times after practice. Coach Funderburk would have to make me go home. I just practiced, practiced, practiced. I never thought practice makes perfect—I thought practice makes better. You’re never going to be perfect.” I asked about his jump shot, long rumored to be undefendable. “I had a jump shot. I had a pretty good spring—I could jump pretty good. I always thought, if I go up and they go up with me, I have to make an adjustment. I’d lean back and have that high release point. And I practiced like that. It worked. I had seven or eight games where I scored over 40, but I was always a team player, and my teammates trusted me. It was really enjoyable.” Up to that point, we’d talked about learning the game, being in the zone, and the heartbreaking loss that ended his high school career. But the legend of Pancakes Perry didn’t end there. He went on to play a key role in one of the greatest upsets in NCAA history. In 1982, Pancakes Perry was a junior at MTSU and the starting point guard. He recalled, “That particular year, we had some good guys—still in touch with them to this day. We had Chris Harris, 6’5” playing center; Jerry Beck, 6’7”; Buck Hailey, a tremendous defender; Rick Campbell, a great shooter; and I was the point guard.” It was a strong team with high expectations, but by mid-January, things weren’t clicking. “We had been going downhill a little bit. People expected more than what we were doing. We weren’t having the best season.” As he talked, you could hear how much he loved that group. He paused, looked at me, and said, “We were all very close, and we made up our minds one day that we were going to the NCAA.” They started winning late, including a crucial victory over ranked South Alabama, and qualified for the OVC Tournament—back then, only the top four teams made it. Their first opponent was Murray State. “They had a guy named Lamont Sleets—oh my gosh, he was good,” Pancakes said with a wide smile. “I shut him down. We beat them.” Then came Western Kentucky, the conference’s top team. “Mike McCormick was their center—tough as nails. We beat them, too, and won the OVC Championship.” After lunch, I looked it up—MTSU won both tournament games by two points. Then came Selection Saturday. “We go home, and that Saturday we find out who we're going to play, and when we pull up the bracket, it's MTSU V/S Kentucky. Joe B Hall had made a statement about when we play Louisville, completely skipping over us.” In those days, there were only 48 teams in the Tournament, and some teams got a bye; Louisville was one of them. Pancakes tells the story, “They had already got T-shirts printed up, Kentucky v/s Louisville. We went down there, and I tell you, Kentucky jumped out on us 10-0, aww man, they were going crazy. We went to the bench expecting our coach, Ramrod, Stan Simpson, they called him Ramrod, to give us a chewing! But that's not what he did; he sat us down, no lie, said, “Men, all I ask you to do is just score.” We went out there and scored the next six baskets and went up 12-10, never looked back.” MTSU won 60–54. One Kentucky player caught my attention—Mel Turpin. I asked, “So you played against Mel Turpin?” Pancakes laughed. “Sure did. He cussed me out that game.” We both laughed. “Upset of the century,” he said plainly—the tone of a man who lived it. We spent the next half an hour talking about life, shared our testimonies, and he told me about his call to preach the Gospel. It happened not long after the Kentucky game, that summer before the start of his senior season, and I felt compelled to include that story with all the basketball stuff—so in his own words, Edward “Pancakes” Perry call to preach. “I was saved in High School, but I was in college still when I was called to preach. July 17, 1982, The Lord had been revealing stuff to me, and he wanted me to preach, and I wasn’t like “no”, but I wanted to know why. That summer, they were building the Nissan plant in Smyrna, and our coach got us a job; my only job was to carry the water to the workers. So one night I was home, and the Lord called my name, and Mayfield (Danny Mayfield, a teammate at the time) was in the same room. He called my name. The players usually just called me "cakes"; "Pancake" was too long, but this voice called my name. I said Mayfield, what you want, he said Cakes, I didn’t call your name. Go to sleep. That bothered me, for lack of a better term. I go to work the next day, and I heard it again, and He told me he wanted me to preach. I went home that weekend to Maury City and was telling a good friend of mine, I believe the Lord is calling me to preach. He said to me, Why don’t you ask the Lord to do something to you that's unusual, that you know is him. I go back that Sunday, driving to work, and I said Lord, if this is really you, I want you to make me as thirsty as I have ever been in my life. That's what I prayed. I get to work sipping on water, nothing happens, so I thought this was nothing. That night I went to my girlfriend's to eat, and all of a sudden I got so thirsty, my throat was so dry, she got me some water, I drank juice, milk, I drank so much my stomach was starting to swell, I thought something was wrong. Mind you, I forgot what I had prayed, I got out of there, I jumped in my car, rushing home, and when I got to a light in Murfreesboro, it dawned on me what I had asked the Lord. I said to myself, Nah, this is just a coincidence and when I said that, the thirst stopped. The rest of that week, nothing happened, and I said there is nothing to this. That Saturday, I had taken a shower and sat down on the couch, then it happened again, this time I could hardly take it, I was gasping for air. I got to the sink in the kitchen, I got some water, and it dawned on me again. This time, I just said, Yes Lord, and it immediately stopped. Tears in my eyes, I go back to the couch, opened up one of those little New Testaments they give you, I just opened it up, and you know what it fell on? I have ordained you from your mother's womb. How likely is that to happen? Just opened it up.” When I arrived that day for lunch, I was excited to meet one of the legends of West Tn hoops, and he didn’t disappoint. “Cakes” is genuinely a basketball legend. By the time our lunch ended, I had come to understand why everyone there seemed to know him. He is a genuinely good person, too. In one hour, this basketball legend was no longer a stranger but felt like an old friend I had known for years. And I’m sure if our paths cross, I’ll greet him that way. More than just hoops, Edward “Pancakes” Perry is a legend - and a blessing. -Eric Hampton
OLD GYMS
I have a few Back on ’82 projects coming up that will require a bit of digging through old boxes and deeper corners of memory, so in the meantime, I thought I’d linger on one of my favorite subjects: old gyms. Back in the early 2000s—during what was somehow my sixth year of undergraduate work—I was running out of classes and found myself enrolled in a creative writing course at old Bethel College. (In hindsight, I really wish I had paid more attention.) Around that same time, my hometown of Scotts Hill, where my dad coached, was building a new school. The old gym I grew up in was headed, it seemed, out to pasture. That didn’t sit well with me. I loved that gym, and I feared it would end up as another gym I knew well. Old Sardis gym, I spent many hours playing pickup games at Sardis, and that gym had the same kind of character—the kind you don’t notice at first but miss deeply once it’s gone. I hated the thought that the gym that helped raise me might simply be abandoned. As it turned out, it became the middle school gym, but at the time, I was way in my feels. When I had to write a short essay for that class, Sardis became my inspiration. Recently, while digging through the old Hampton archives, I came across that piece and decided to share it here—something written long ago, when the echoes were closer and the memories newer. EMPTY GYMS There is a very calm, yet melancholy feel to old empty gyms. The sadness transcends the empty bleachers that were once filled. It climbs right up the walls and lingers among the banners. Each banner has a neighbor, yet they stand alone in silence. The silence is a reminder of glorious times, but few ever stop by to pay homage to the silence. If walls could talk, oh, the stories those old gym walls could tell of games that came and passed. But the walls' lips are sealed as if they were held together by the very mortar that keeps them standing, rendering them forever silent. The heart of an old gym is found in the heart of the few souls that still come by and tickle its old, worn nets. Old gyms somehow have a way of magnifying everything you do. This is the gym's way of saying thank you to the few lonely souls who still visit and give it its heartbeat. Each bounce of the ball reverberates off the aging walls, and each swish of the net echoes throughout the building. Basketball artists come to these gyms to paint beautiful pictures in their mind's eye; these old gyms are the canvas for their dreams. A deep love of the game keeps old gyms alive. When you leave, the Squeaky doors are like the gym letting out a huge sigh and a thank-you. —Eric Hampton, circa 2000 Over the years, I’ve never lost that affection for old gyms. In my first year as a high school coach, I can’t adequately describe the excitement of coaching against Randy Frazier in the old gym at Gleason—bleachers only on one side, history pressed close on the other. When I arrived at Perry County, I was grateful to coach at the middle school, a place with its own quiet personality. At Clifton, I loved hosting the Hassell Tournament, and the reason was simple: we played in the old gym, which felt like going back in time. Just last fall, my daughter Julie and I made a pilgrimage of sorts to French Lick and Springs Valley High School, touring Larry Bird’s high school gym—a sunken court, much like Gibson County High School. From there, we went on to Knightstown, where Hoosiers was filmed. The movie was initially slated for another location, but fate intervened, and it landed in a gym that mirrors the old barn at Scotts Hill. Playing one-on-one with Julie on that floor, in that Indiana gym, felt like stepping back into my own childhood. When I was young, I couldn’t wait to walk into a gym for the first time. I’ve played in just about every kind imaginable, and every one of them has mattered. I hope this takes you back to your favorite gym—old or new. Head over to our Facebook page, where we shared this piece, and tell us which one still lives with you. Here is a list of my personal West Tn. Top 10! 1. Hampton Gym, Scotts Hill —really, no other choice for me. I could write an entire Back in ‘82 just on this gym—such a special place for me. 2. Camden’s Old Gym, Camden, (The House that Greer Built), the best floor I have ever played on, and one of the few places I ever got a dunk. Any gym that helped me dunk would be high on my list. Summer pick-up games there in the late 90’s were some of the best basketball I’ve been a part of. 3. Baker Gymnasium, Bethel College - In all honesty, it was a hole. Bob Hope once asked What do ya’ll keep in that oversized garage? But for me, the memories make it one of my favorites. 4. Bader Gymnasium, Freed-Hardeman - Entire Building is now gone, but every game felt like a packed house. I miss the atmosphere it produced. 5. Sardis Gym, Sardis - A lot of good pick-up games here when the weather was too cold to play outside. This gym was the inspiration for the essay and is now just a distant memory for most, but I did love that gym. 6. Clarksburg Old Gym - Three rows of bleachers and that was it, another gym that always felt packed. 7. Clifton Old Gym - The bleachers 8 ft above the floor, the stage, the sunken locker rooms. It really had it all, including a visit from Bob Knight! 8. USJ/Old Hickory - the metal building, all I know is every time I played in that gym, I shot really well. Not really a cool gym at all, but for whatever reason, I loved playing there. 9. Summertown - I know they're not in West Tn, but the upside-down boat for a ceiling and the Scotts Hill style rails, always one of my favorite gyms to visit! 10. Linden Middle School - Another that is not really in West Tn. But some of my fondest memories are from that group of boys I coached there, so it had to be on the list! Thanks, and God bless. —Eric Hampton
There are so many people more qualified than I am to write about Don Durden, and with each of these pieces, if you know Coach Durden, I hope they stir up your own memories—the way picking up an old baseball mitt and smelling the leather takes me back to so many memories. I don’t know any other way to do this except to tell it from where I stand. I’ve only been around Coach Durden enough to gather a small handful of scenes and impressions, but they are powerful impressions and have left me with a few thoughts on this Legend. Coach Durden is best known for leading Greenfield’s boys to the 1984 state championship. For most of us, it was a Cinderella story; for Coach Durden, it seemed more like the orderly unfolding of what he already believed. Bolton was a powerhouse. Even as a young boy, I remember that team. Scotts Hill had played in a Christmas tournament with them—even without meeting on the court, my dad (who coached Scotts Hill) came home talking about Sylvester Gray and Bolton High as if they were carved out of harder wood than the rest of us. Greenfield may not have had a Gray, but they had players. In the early 2000s, I found myself in a pickup game with Jeff Crouse, and he gave me buckets, lol—remnants of that old Greenfield steel. That team was the best team, and Don knew it. By the end of the tournament the rest of the state knew as well. For those who know him, Coach Durden is far more than a single championship year. Weakley County added him to their Hall of Fame in 2023, yet I am still amazed he is not in the TSSAA Hall of Fame. Sixty plus years on a bench—sixty plus years of folding chairs, chalk dust, bus rides, and late-night lights burning above empty courts—and he still shapes Greenfield’s success. If you go digging online, the sediment of Tennessee basketball reveals his name everywhere: his 1984 boys’ championship, both girls’ state championships, the boys’ 2003 run. Every layer you scrape back seems to uncover more of Don Durden's hands playing a role in all those teams. . I first met Coach Durden through my friend Willie Trevethan. Willie and I started coaching the same year, just five miles apart. On one of our first podcasts, Willie told a story from that rookie season. “I was coaching middle school boys,” he said. “First game of summer camp. We lost, and I was mad. We were at Gibson County, so I sent them upstairs to run while I talked to another coach.” When Willie went to check on them, they were all sitting down drinking Gatorade. He was about to explode when Coach Durden stepped in: “I told them to sit down and drink a Gatorade. They don’t need to be running—you do. You lost that game.” Willie remembers, “That was how he taught, it really helped me gain some perspective as a young coach.” I’d had a few polite interactions with Don early on, but a trip to Memphis sealed him as one of my all-time favorites. Greenfield’s boys had a stellar season, and Brandon Shane was up for Mr. Basketball. That same year, I coached Merideth Richardson, who would go on to win Ms. Basketball. The Grizzlies sponsored the awards ceremony, so we all stayed at the same hotel. Tim Allen, who coached with me at Bradford and knew Don well, said, “We’re going to eat with Don and Willie.” If you follow this page, you know how much I love basketball stories. That dinner lasted three hours, and for nearly all of it, Coach Durden held court—an old storyteller in full bloom. That’s no small feat with Tim Allen at the table (who is a great story teller in his own right). I was like a kid in a candy store. I heard more great stories that night than I could ever hope to catalog. For years afterward, whenever I’d see Coach Durden, I’d say, “I have never lost a consolation game!” and we’d share a laugh from one of those tales. A couple of years later, while coaching in Perry County, the two best teams in our league both ran a 1–3–1. I’d seen Greenfield dismantle that defense earlier, so I called Willie and drove to watch a practice. I remember watching Coach Durden work—already seeming old in the way ageless people do—but he coached every second I was there. When I picture the “old ball coach,” I don’t think of Steve Spurrier; I think Don Durden, and how every time he’s in a gym he is coaching, teaching, guiding, leading…He is the old ball coach! Current Greenfield coach Tori Liggett shared this: “He is one of the wittiest people I have ever been around. One day before the state tournament, we were having a terrible practice—throwing the ball everywhere—and I was frustrated. Coach Durden stepped in and told me, ‘Just shut your eyes. You don’t like what you’re seeing—shut your eyes.’ He has a way of putting things in perspective. He sees the big picture. He’s always coaching the girls—and me.” “He’s always coaching” - That reminded me of another moment. When my daughter Julie was young, she played on a little travel team out of Greenfield. Willie coached, and practices were held there. One night, as these fifth-grade girls worked through their drills, a curious Don Durden wandered into the gym. I was excited to see him. He sat beside me, and we started catching up. But our conversation never settled. His eyes kept drifting to the court, pulled like iron filings toward a magnet. He was way too distracted to talk to me, there were kids dribbling with their heads down out there. At one point, he was mid-sentence, turned and barked at a fifth-grader who had no idea who this old man was, to get her head up while she’s dribbling. He attempted to return to our conversation, but after a minute or two, he abandoned the pretense of conversation altogether and drifted onto the floor. He had to coach! I just sat back and soaked it all in, Don tossing out one-liners, teasing the girls for being “quite the religious group—always walking around with their hands in the air.” And much like dinner in Memphis, at a fifth-grade travel ball practice that he just wandered into, Coach Durden held court! When Greenfield’s girls won their first state title, Durden—remembering the 1984 boys’ trophy - said, “That boy has wanted a girlfriend to put in the trophy case, so now he has a girlfriend.” That boy has since earned a second girlfriend, and anyone close to those championships will tell you Don Durden played a big role in all of them. My time with Coach Durden is limited, but his influence is large. When he walks into a gym, the place subtly changes—brightens, steadies, fills with the hum of someone who has spent a lifetime loving the game. I hope to see him in the TSSAA Hall of Fame soon. Whoever is in charge: one of the true basketball legends of our state is missing. —Eric Hampton
Don Durden
Sammy Fisher is, in every sense, the definition of a legend. Those who played for him, or dared compete against him, carry stories that - told today - sound almost like dispatches from some exaggerated frontier. A casual Google search sketches the outlines: basketball at Freed-Hardeman back in its Junior College days, a career polished enough to land him in their Hall of Fame; then baseball at Bethel College, where he roamed the infield like a restless spirit and became one of the greatest shortstops ever to kneel in their dirt. Another Hall of Fame induction. And then came the coaching years - Another Hall of Fame, more wins, more trophies, more mythology than any quiet paragraph on the internet can rightly hold. But even that litany—781 basketball victories, state tournament appearances too many to number, baseball accomplishments that have long since drifted beyond arithmetic— those Hall of Fame articles will tell you he was innovative, that he molded young men - all of which is true. But it fails to touch the living truth of what it felt like to know him. To play for him. To shoulder the weight of his competitive fire, a heat you could feel from across the gym. I was one of the lucky ones. That’s me in the picture beside the article—#20, hair still clinging to my head—leaning in the huddle with Coach Fisher. I had him for two seasons, and what a blessing it was to learn basketball under a man whose presence could fill a room the way weather fills a horizon. (He did once tell a kid, “I’ll cloud up and rain all over you”) I’ve lived a life of competition, sometimes too eagerly. I’ve played with All-Americans, future pros, and young men scrambling for their last rung on the ladder. I’ve coached four Miss Basketball winners, guided kids to college, and even watched one lead UNA to the national championship game. I’ve played for five Hall of Fame coaches. But in my 48 years of competing, I have never—never—met anyone as competitive as Sammy Fisher. There is Sammy, and then a wide and echoing gap behind him. I’ve met people who imagined they were close. They were not. When he first took the job at Scotts Hill, he pulled me aside, fixing me with that half-squint that meant mischief and challenge rolled into one. “I heard you could shoot a little bit, Hampton. I’ve coached four All-Staters,” he said, “and never lost a game of H-O-R-S-E. We’ll play before practice every day and see what you got.” I laughed. He didn’t. And so began my daily humbling. This short, stocky, old man—built like a fire hydrant and just as unmovable—absolutely wore me out with a grin and a running commentary. Every time I released the ball, he barked, “Get in there, ball! I need some competition!” His shot was pure (Not going to lie, I was shocked at how good this man could shoot), his chatter relentless, and his joy unmistakable. One day, I had him on the ropes, or at least that's what I thought: he was sitting at H-O-R-S, and I hadn’t taken a single letter. I felt the victory fluttering toward me. I missed and gave the hammer to Sammy. He calmly stepped just in front of the half-court circle and proceeded to taunt me as he buried eleven straight. I made six of those, which is respectable from forty feet, but he beat me again. He always did. I never beat Sammy Fisher at H-O-R-S-E, and I doubt many men ever have. His competitiveness spilled into everything—sometimes explosively, sometimes comically. In my sophomore year, we played Riverside at Scotts Hill. We were outmanned, outmatched, and overpowered, though you’d never have known it from Sammy’s point of view. He had full intentions of us winning that game - but - we lost. Outside the gym stood a ceiling-high gate meant to separate the classrooms from the crowds. As I walked out of the locker room into the hall that night, there was Sammy, clutching the metal bars like a prisoner in reverse, banging his head against them in frustration. I asked if he was okay; he growled something indecipherable—half bear, half prophet—and waved me along. It wasn’t a game we were supposed to win, but losing gnawed at him like a rat on a rope. The man HATED TO LOSE! Not only was he the greatest competitor I’ve ever known, he was one of the greatest motivators as well. Here was the secret: beyond the competitiveness was a gift for stirring the human heart. I’ve been coached by some of the finest tacticians alive, men who ran offenses like great poets arranging stanzas. Sammy wasn’t the top of that particular list. He knew the X’s and O’s, sure, but his genius was elsewhere—dealing with the Jims and Joes that he turned into warriors. He could pull something out of you that you didn’t know lived there. When he spoke before a game, he didn’t just convince you the opposing team was the enemy—he convinced you they were the embodiment of all that was evil and unholy in the world. And we? We were the defenders of decency, the last guardians of women and children, the torchbearers of everything worth saving. Losing meant letting evil win. And the thing was… he would get worked up to the point he might have believed it. Believed it so fully that we bought right in too - and when your playing for something of that much importance, you will give your all. “DIG LITTLE PIG OR STARVE! ROOT HOG OR STARVE TO DEATH!” he’d roar at me, a phrase that somehow rattled my bones and made me grin at the same time. I’ve shouted that same line to my own players. A coach’s inheritance passes on in strange, enduring ways. We used to have these sessions where he’d recount old games and bygone battles, one of my close friends used to call it, “Story Time With Sammy”, each tale ending with the same triumphant refrain: “We beat ’em!” What I wouldn’t give to sit in that circle again, letting the past wash over me in the rhythm of his voice. Some stories I can’t tell here; others wouldn’t land unless you’d lived them. If you knew him at all, I know right now, your mind is full of Sammy Stories - and I’d bet your smiling! But for the sake of stories, I will share one for the road, just a glimpse into my Coach. Years later, I was coaching girls’ basketball at Bradford. Our softball team was playing, and I got a call: “Hey, your old Coach Sammy Fisher is umpiring today.” So I jumped in my truck and drove straight over. The game was between two struggling teams, both doing their best but producing more comedy than order. Bases loaded, soft little hits dribbling into the infield, everyone advancing one base at a time like slow-moving furniture. Finally, the second baseman fielded a ball cleanly, but she froze—unsure, waiting. Sammy, positioned in the field, had reached his limit. He had seen enough. And here came that voice—the one that could part clouds. “JUST TAG HER!!! JUST TAG HER!!” I nearly fell off the bleachers laughing. I love Sammy Fisher. I’ll carry gratitude for those two seasons with him for the rest of my life. For more than twenty years of coaching, there wasn’t a single season where a little bit of Sammy didn’t walk with me into the gym. Coach Fisher—thank you. -Eric Hampton
Sammy Fisher
Back in '82, Uncle Rico had some unrealistic fantasies, but I'm here to tell you, back in '92, the ballers were for real. In all my years of watching basketball in West Tennessee, I cannot recall a season richer in basketball talent than that of 1992. West Tennessee, humble and rural, became a sudden axis of basketball brilliance. All three Mr. Basketball winners (Delk, Hamer, & Caldwell) hailed from its hardwoods; those awards plus two gold balls came home to its quiet towns. Five players signed with SEC Programs, and at least 5 more went to Division 1 programs. For that season, the small town gyms of West Tennessee felt like the center of the basketball world. It was a season of enchantment. Every night, you waited for WBBJ’s sports segment like it was a telegram from Olympus - hoping for a glimpse of what was happening in those charged, crowded gyms. And on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, the newspaper arrived like scripture, revealing who had triumphed, who had fallen. The gyms, my goodness - everywhere you went, the bleachers groaned beneath the weight of the crowds, the walls held up by standing room only. I was a freshman that year, goofy, wide-eyed, and awestruck. To borrow from Keith Jackson: Oh, Nelly! What a year it was. I remember sprinting through the Glass House at Murfreesboro chasing autographs, and somehow managing to collect the signatures of Tony Delk, Steve Hamer, and Stanley Caldwell. I carried that program home like a relic. That program has long since vanished, and it’s not so much that I’d like to have the program back, but I’d love to have that feeling back, to touch that moment again. That feeling I was holding history. To speak of 1992, you must begin with Tony Delk. He wasn’t just a player; he was a happening, a phenomenon that swept through West Tennessee like a comet. I would beg my parents to drive me to see him, and every gym he entered became an overfilled cathedral. From November 1991 until February of 1992, the state of Tennessee had never seen more fire marshals look the other way. Every game Tony played in was a fire code violation of epic proportions. Our High School Girls Coach, Tracy Chandler, saw him before I did. I remember asking, half-whispered, “How good is he?” Coach Chandler tilted his head and said, “I’m not saying he’s Michael Jordan - but I will say Michael Jordan couldn’t have done any more for Haywood than Tony Delk did last night.” When I finally saw Tony play - three times that year - he didn’t disappoint. He scored like it was breathing! It wasn't just the numbers, though they were absurd. It was how he did it: smooth and explosive at the same time, and his level of efficiency was off the charts. Even in Haywood's state tournament loss when the entire defense was focused on him, he went 15-22 from the field and registered 36 points. He won the AAA Mr. Basketball award and went on to Kentucky, where his legend only grew - National Champion, Final Four Most Outstanding Player, SEC Player of the Year, First Team All-American. Ten years in the NBA followed, eight different uniforms, and yet, for me, Tony Delk will always belong to those West Tennessee nights when every gym trembled beneath his name. In my opinion, and that’s all it is, an opinion. The all-around best team in the state was a small single-A school led by one big man. Middleton, led by their 7’1’ anchor, Steve Hamer. I saw him up close, too close, as a freshman playing in the same district. He was unguardable: soft hands, feathery touch, and on defense, he swallowed the paint whole. Middleton rode his shoulders to a gold ball, and another Mr. Basketball award came home to rural West Tn. Hamer went on to play at Tennessee, averaging 18 points in his senior year, and was drafted by the Boston Celtics before knee injuries curtailed his career. But in 1992, he was unstoppable, and he wasn’t alone - Ricky Jones (JSCC) and Datrick Cheairs carried Middleton back to the state tournament the following year, their names spoken of with deep respect in every small town gym in the area. Middleton and Hamer’s toughest competition that season may have come from their own district. Denmark West, one of the great basketball programs in West TN history, is largely unknown to younger generations. But I was there, I had a front row seat, and the battles of Middleton and Denmark are some of the greatest games in West Tennessee History. West would upset Middleton in the regular season, and when these two teams met for the fourth time in the Region Championship game, it produced a classic. Middleton would win 72-71, in a triple overtime epic - that still echoes in my memory. Fred Kinnie, who signed at Alabama before coming home to play at Jackson State, fought Hamer to a standstill. Marius Transou (JSCC), who may or may not have dunked on me in Denmark West’s final home game, was a force himself. West had others like Marcus Brooks and a young Damon Fuller, a Jackson, TN legend, who was a freshman then. After that region game, Denmark West would play in a second straight war, battling Trenton Peabody in a substate game. Peabody was led by a junior named Charles Duncan, AKA Dunking Duncan. With all the talent around, I have always felt like Duncan was the most underrated player of them all. He would lead Peabody past West in this sub-state game and the following year would be earmarked as one of the best players in the state. We played Trenton in summer camp prior to the ‘93 season, and Charles Duncan gave me buckets to the point I have an occasional flashback to this day. After High school, he would go to play at Navy, and he may be the most underrated player of that golden era. In class AA, Stanley Caldwell stole the show as he captured the Mr. Basketball award while leading the Union City Tornados to the state championship. Caldwell would sign at the University of Tennessee and be a major contributor in his sophomore and junior years before transferring to Tennessee State for his senior season. Caldwell was not alone on that Union City team. Rodney Bonds was also a stellar player who was drafted by the San Francisco Giants, and if my memory is correct, he played one year of Basketball for the Vols alongside His high school teammate, Stanley Caldwell. While Delk, Hamer, and Caldwell were winning Mr.. Basketball awards, there was another name from North Side High School in Jackson, TN. making big headlines for himself. Kirk Goehring was a 6'5” shooting guard who was a walking bucket. He made shooting look like art, but there was more to his game as he was truly a complete player. Among the leading scorers in the State, he would make the Indians a threat every time they walked on the court. Recruited by multiple big-time programs, Kirk would eventually sign with coach Dale Brown and the LSU Tigers. He would transfer to Pepperdine University and finally come home to Union University to finish his career. Across town, at Jackson Central-Merry, 6’11” Albert Bond was snatching rebounds and blocking everything in sight before heading to Tennessee State. His teammate Jerry Curry could play, too, though time has quietly folded his story into the background. Amid the star-filled cast of seniors in 1992, it's easy to miss the Jr. Class, but one Jr. could not be missed, and that was Hardin County’s scoring machine Corrie Johnson. He was a scoring machine who never needed permission to shoot. In a season where Tony was putting up insane numbers, you would look up and Corrie would be right there. His jump shot defied gravity. I have never seen another player with that much lift when shooting from the volleyball lines, and he would pull up from anywhere on the court. I can remember guarding him in a scrimmage, and he stopped on a dime from 30 feet out. I was in my stance, and his shoes were above my eyes. Just an amazing scorer who would go on to play at East Tennessee State. That Junior class also featured the aforementioned Charles Duncan, but there were so many more. The area overflowed with talent like Boliver’s Reginald Crisp, who would star at Southeast Missouri State. His teammate, Shawn Boyd, played at Lane College. Reggie Robinson from McNairy Central found his way to Arkansas-Little Rock, and Shannon Wyke, his running mate, could play with anyone. Chester County’s Albert Wilson was hanging 40 pieces on people; Big Sandy’s Keith Peach scored over 2,000 points in his career. Adamsville’s Russ Kennamore signed at North Alabama, and his teammate Seth Massey, whose jumper was a pure as church music, chose baseball. Trying to stick to the stars of ‘92, and each of these great players richly deserves their own write-up. I know I’ve missed a few. Time is merciless that way - it smooths the edges, blurs the mind's eye, and leaves only flashes of noise and color. If you remember someone I’ve forgotten from that magical season, let me know on our Facebook page. History, after all, is best told by a chorus, not a single word. The Roll Call of D1 Players (as best I recall) Tony Delk - Mr. Basketball, University of Kentucky Steve Hamer - Mr. Basketball, University of Tennessee Stanly Caldwell - Mr. Basketball, University of Tennessee Kirk Georing - LSU, Pepperdine, Union Fred Kinnie - University of Alabama, Jackson State Albert Bond - Tennessee State University Rodney Bond - Drafted by the Giants, 1 year University of Tennessee (I think) Charles Duncan - Navy Corrie Johnson - East Tennessee State University Reginald Crisp - Southeast Missouri State Reggie Robinson - Master's College, Arkansas-Little Rock -Eric Hampton
1992
Back in 82....Albert Ellison “Havelicek (John) wasn’t that good, I was better than him, Lucas (Jerry) was the problem”. Albert Ellison, looking me in the eye, deadpans this line on my first day at Frank Hughes working with him. How do you tell a story about the greatest storyteller you have ever met? The factual life of Albert Ellison is nothing short of amazing from all standpoints, but the stories from those who knew him best, combined with the stories he told about himself, make him a character from Greek mythology. I learned later on that not all the stories Albert told me were 100% true, but I have also learned that there was truth in 100% of the stories. So, with this mindset, I will attempt to share some facts and stories about one of my favorite coworkers of all time. The MAN, the MYTH, the LEGEND….Albert Ellison. Albert was born on December 7, 1937 (Larry Bird was also born on December 7, must be something about that day) on Cedar Creek in Perry County, Tennessee. When Albert was growing up, Perry County had nine different middle schools: Linden, Flatwoods, Lobelville, Pineview, Cedar Creek, Warren (Rockhouse), Brush Creek, Cypress Creek, and Beardstown. With the total population being so small, Albert was on the basketball team as early as 3rd grade. By the time he reached high school at Linden, he had played in over 100 grammar school games. In high school, he was a part of Tennessee’s greatest basketball story, leading tiny Linden to back-to-back State Championships in 1955 and 1956, before there were classifications. Linden would go on to win a third straight the following season. Former TSSAA executive director Ronnie Carter once said, “I have often said the 55-56-57 Linden story is better than Hoosiers because Linden did it three years in a row. It’s certainly the greatest story in Tennessee high school athletics.” Jackson Native Gene Pearce wrote a book entitled BOYS IN BLACK, chronicling this story, and in the book, you see a common theme from these State Tournament runs. Every coach who competed against Linden said, “Albert Ellison is the best high school player I have ever seen.” One of my favorite stories from Albert’s time at Linden was when Coach Hudson was trying to prepare the team to face a zone defense; very few people played zone defense in those days, but Treadwell did, and that was their next opponent. He had actually called Mack Chandler (our first Legend) for some advice. After practice, he still was not satisfied, and the story goes he called one of his friends/bitter rivals (as a former coach, I completely understand friend/bitter rival) Leonard Staggs at Lawrenceburg and asked him, “Leonard, if you were me, how would you play Treadwell?” Leonard, who was getting his own team ready, gave a long pause and replied, “Willie, I think if it were me, I’d give the ball to Albert.” I suppose in hindsight that was pretty good advice, as Albert went for 35 in that game and Linden went on to win their first State Championship. In 1956, Scholastic Magazine released its first All-American team, and Albert Ellison was named to this 30-man team. This team included a few names you might remember, such as Jerry West and Oscar Robertson. After high school, Albert took his talents to Western Kentucky. It was a smaller school and the perfect fit for this kid from Linden, Tn. In his senior season at Western, the Hilltoppers won the Ohio Valley Conference championship and won the Sugar Bowl tournament, then qualified for the NCAA tournament. At the time, only 32 teams were selected for the tournament, and Western beat Miami of Florida in the first round, 107-84. Albert had 15 Points and 14 Rebounds. In the sweet 16, they would match up with eventual champion Ohio State. In that game, Albert would record 17 points, the same as John Havlicek, which really gives some credit to his claim that he was better than Havlicek. Albert was named to the 5-man All-Mideast team that included Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek from Ohio State, Howard Jolliff from Ohio University, Roger Kaiser of Georgia Tech, and Ellison. I have heard many slightly different versions of what happened next, and I’m not sure that anyone can say exactly. Albert always told me the New York Knicks wanted to take him in the draft, but he told them he wasn’t interested in moving to New York, he said, “In those days, there was no money and I wasn’t going to live in New York City”. So, however it happened, Albert ended up getting married and starting his career as a basketball coach. Albert’s coaching career included stops in 4 different states, and he amassed over 700 wins as head coach. He was inducted into the TSSAA Hall of Fame in 2007 and had some very successful teams back in his hometown of Perry County. While Albert was coaching at Hardin County, my Dad, Joe Hampton, always said his 1980-81 team was one of the better teams he had seen. Albert coached his son, David Ellison, on those teams. In December of 1980, David was in a car wreck, and it slowed those teams down for a bit. Although he only missed two games (things were different in the 80’s), it was the end of the season before he started returning to form, and they ended up losing in the regional tournament. Albert finished his coaching career at Frank Hughes in Clifton, Tennessee. His last year there was my first, and I treasure the time I got to spend each day listening to those stories. Just to try and give you an idea of what it was like to talk with Albert, I will share one of the lunchroom stories he told me. If you knew him, you can see the big smile on his face, that grainy but booming voice, and that laugh while he was telling it. The story as told to me by Albert, “I was playing in an All-Star game up in Lexington, Kentucky, and was really excited, I was going to be playing for Adolph Rupp. We arrive at Lexington, and Rupp is nowhere to be seen; his assistant coaches run our first practice. Later that night, I saw him in the hotel lobby with a bourbon in one hand and his other hand around a blonde (insert Albert Laugh). The next day at the walk-through was the same thing, no Rupp, his assistants did everything. Finally, we are in the locker room the night of the game, and just before we go to warm up, the locker room doors burst open. It was Rupp, and he just looked at us all and said, “Boys, you're playing for the best --- %*&$ Coach that ever lived, don’t let me down”, then he walked out and we won by 20.” Every day that year was filled with stories like this one. Sometimes it would be others telling stories about Albert, like when he was coaching at Lewis County when the 3 Point line was added to high school basketball. They were doing a fundraiser, and a local business said they would donate an X amount for every 3-pointer Albert hit in a row. After he made his first 10 in a row, they stopped him and wouldn’t let him keep going. He told me, “They thought they were going to embarrass me, but I got’m”. I could fill pages of stories Albert told, and no one knows what is true and what is myth, but this I do know. Every single person I have ever met who played for, played with, worked with, or knew Albert in any capacity loved him. He was such a positive influence on so many lives, and his influence is still felt today in so many ways. LEGEND! -Eric Hampton
Albert Ellison
Back in 82.....Mack Chandler Mack Chandler was truly one of the greatest men I have ever known. When thinking about doing a “remembering when” kind of section for the West Tn Box Score, the first person who came to my mind was the man who was lovingly called Big Mac. For some background, I will tell you a little about this TSSAA Hall of Fame coach, but historical facts will never do this larger-than-life figure his due, so I will attempt to dig a little deeper into the man I remember from my youth after we take a look at some facts. Mack was born on January 25, 1930, and prepped at Lobelville High School in Perry County, Tennessee. He continued his basketball career at Austin Peay State University, and after college, he started his coaching career back home at Lobelville in 1951. In 1953, he moved to Scotts Hill High School, where he coached both teams. From 1957 to 1967, he was at Sardis High School and, in 1966, led the boys' team to a state tournament appearance (I know many would love for me to spend a little more time on this team, but I digress). From 1967-1981, Mack coached at Riverside High School and added baseball to his coaching duties. One of his most successful teams was the 1973 girls' team that went 32-7 and advanced to the State Tournament Semi-Finals. One of my favorite stories from that era that my dad would tell was when Mack was coaching his son Michael (who was a heckuva player by all accounts), and a reporter was doing an interview and Mack told him, “If Michael Chandler is not an All-State player, there is not a cow in Texas”. After his time at Riverside, Mack returned to Sardis as principal from 1981-1984. Outside of coaching and teaching, he always played a major role in the community. He played a pivotal role in the formation of the Dixie Majors baseball league in 1971; all the locals always told me it was a semi-pro league focused on kids 18-21. The baseball field at Sardis is named “The Mack Chandler Field,” and Sardis has a “Mack Chandler Day”. When Sardis closed its doors after 1984, Mack became the assistant principal at Scotts Hill High School until he retired in 1995. I was best friends with his Grandson, and it was during those years I got to experience “Big Mack” for myself. The Gym at Scotts Hill High School is called “Chandler Gymnasium” in honor of Mack and his Son Tracy’s contributions to the program. My first memory of Mack was in 1985 when Sardis and Scotts Hill consolidated. Both schools had good teams the year before, and my dad was the coach at Scotts Hill when they combined. It was a magical season, and I cried like a baby when we lost to Moore County in the Sub-State. However, one of the most memorable parts of the season (especially for a young boy) was the “BIG MACK ATTACK”. As the season progressed, Mack was the school's biggest cheerleader, and it was special. During time-outs, men would come out of the crowd on the court, one would hold a sign that read phone booth and our assistant principal (Mack) would go into the booth in a full suit and come out as a superhero!!!! Once the “BIG MACK ATTACK” happened and he started leading all the cheers, the crowd would be in an absolute frenzy; it really was quite the spectacle. Sitting here typing this, I can still hear that big voice, “Strawberries, raspberries, Turnips, and Squash….We are from Scotts Hill, we are by gosh!” Years later, when I was a Freshman in High School, there was a moment involving Mack that really left a lasting impression on me. One night after a road game, the team had stopped at a McDonalds in Jackson. This was pretty standard for all high schools back in the day. As 14-year-old boys sometime do I was really running my mouth, and this older fellow at a table over took offense to some of my words. Next thing I know, this dude was up in my face ready to fight. I didn’t know what was going on, and instantly, Mack Chandler was between us. As that man tried to tell his side of the story, Mack, who was called “BIG MACK” for a reason, shut him down really quickly. Although I was most likely in the wrong, Mack stepped in and the situation was over. Mack never asked me for my side of the story; I was one of his kids, and he was going to protect his kids. At the end of that whole episode, there was no doubt who the MAN was in the room, and it wasn’t me or the old dude wanting to whip me, it was Mack! The very next year our coach stepped down from his position, and Mack decided to step into the gap and coach our team. He took over in the spring of 1992 and coached us through the summer. Right before school started he had some health issues and had to step down, but I learned as much about basketball in the three months that he was my coach as I have at any other time in my 40-plus years in this game. Not only did I learn a lot, but he was so much fun to be around and always a showman. One of our first camp games, I had made a play on a fast break and at the next time out, Mack asked me, “Could you have thrown that pass behind your back?” I said, “Yes Coach”. He looked at me, smiled really big, and said, “Do it then, the fans will love it”. I knew then and there I was going to love playing for him. Just in that short time, I can still hear him —or maybe I’m hearing Jared Smith imitate him —yelling, “Elevate E-Rick” at summer camp games. He had also taken several basketballs in the gym and painted them black and gold globetrotter style for us to run out with; he always wanted to put on a show. My last memories of Mack Chandler was the work he put into what I always called “Chandler Hills Golf Club”. With a lot of help from his family, they put together a little nine-hole course out on the farm. As stated earlier, I was close friends with his grandson, so I spent a few hours golfing on this little course. Beyond all the accolades and accomplishments, the biggest thing is how many lives Mack Chandler influenced. I know I only got to be around those last 10 years of his career, but it had a tremendous impact on the rest of my life. For those who knew him, I hope this little trip down memory lane has flooded your mind with your own memories of Mack. For me, this brilliant, kind, charismatic man we all called BIG MACK will always be larger than life! -Eric Hampton