A Golden Era for Grundy Golden Wave football...

Coach Frank Spraker became the Athletic Director at Grundy High School in 1959, stepping down from the head coaching job he had held at Grundy since 1951. Dare to say that there was not a player, fan, or reporter that didn’t like this wacky wonderful man.

Coach Spraker’s best year coaching was 1954 when the Wave lost only twice. Well deserved All-Area Coach of the Year honors were bestowed upon him. I was twelve years old that year, and that was the year I became a Grundy fan for life…Spraker fan too!

{Fellow Harman boys, Paul Chambers and Kenneth Lambert, were on that ’54 team, and I did get to attend several games, catching a ride with their families.

But the one that stands out in 1954 was one I didn’t get to attend. Somehow, I had missed a ride to the game and I was so upset that I threw myself on the bed and started sobbing like I had lost my best friend…
Well, Dad listened to that for a while, before jerking me up and giving me a spanking…LOL…

Dad was a nice gentle man, but that night at least, he just didn’t think I should be so upset about missing a little old thing like a football game. That was the only spanking I ever received from my Dad., even though I deserved many more I’m certain….And he did apologize for that one a few years later.}��Remembering that Coach Spraker also coached the baseball team in the mid-50’s, and I was on his 57, 58, & 59 teams.

(For some reason, Coach Spraker gave up his coaching duties after the 1959 season, and Grundy didn’t field a baseball team in 1960 (My senior year). In 1957, I was a back-up to Gary Thompson on Grundy’s baseball team in Center Field. (Gary had made Honorable Mention All-America in football in 1957.)

When Gary and I played toss during practice and warm-ups, we always competed in catching balls behind our back…. or between our legs. Neither one of us rarely missed and it was lots of fun. I was enthralled that another boy liked to catch balls behind his back. I had learned how to do this by catching balls I threw against a big tall brick chimney at the Main Office Building of Harman Mining Company. It was just below our Harman home, and I would spend several evenings a week practicing throwing and catching.

But Gary had a natural talent to make catches look easy, especially catching balls with one hand in football. To this day, I still consider his fantastic one-hand football catches at the old Vansant Ballpark, as the most spectacular I have ever seen. But in baseball, Coach Spraker would just shake his head when he saw us catching balls like that. We knew better than to try that in a game.

Coach Spraker coached many memorable players, but perhaps none as memorable as Clyde “Nose” Keene. Nose wore #50 and excelled at Middle Linebacker. He truly had a nose for the football, either making the tackle, or being there to congratulate a fellow teammate. 
The consummate team player, Clyde was chosen Captain and MVP two years in a row: 1956 & 1957.

Just before 2-A-Days started before the 1957 season, Clyde had traveled with the Buchanan County Pony League All-Star baseball team to Salisbury, Maryland. Nose was not there for the first day of practice, prompting Coach Spraker to send a message to Nose telling him that his linebacker job was in jeopardy. Reportedly, Nose caught a bus back to Grundy, and was there for the next day’s practice…LOL

Three bus memories stand out involving Coach Spraker. 
The first involved him polishing a big red apple on a long away trip. Coach was sitting in the right front seat, and I watched him from my left front seat. By the time we arrived at our destination, that apple was shining like a Christmas ornament. Perhaps he was thinking about the game as he polished the apple, and it must have helped as we won the game.
��The second trip I remember was when Coach Spraker was driving the bus as we traveled through Richlands on an away trip. When we stopped suddenly, I sat up to see why. There was a bar swinging by the side of the road as a train slowly approached. Suddenly, Coach Spraker jerked open the bus door and said:�“OK Larry, get out there and stop that thing!” �Well, I jumped up from my front row seat to get off the bus, because Coach Spraker commanded attention….But just before I stepped off the bus, I looked over at Coach and asked:

“What thing?” 
�“That sign says ‘STOP WHEN SWINGING’, Coach Spraker laughed ….as I sheepishly walked back to my seat....
I must have had GULLIBLE written in big block letters on my forehead…LOL

Another time involved the bus that carried us from Grundy High School to the Vansant Ballpark. Coach Spraker was driving the bus back to school one evening after practice when the bus caught on fire as we rode into town. I remember that smoke was billowing out from under the hood, and into the bus…

Coach Spraker didn’t have to yell for us to get off the bus, for we went out the emergency exit and front door like a flash. Coach Spraker did manage to pull the bus off the street where he put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. It wasn’t far for us to walk over to the school (Where the Appalachian School of Law now sits.) to change clothes and pick up our books… and then walk back to town to thumb a ride back to Harman, Homecreek, or wherever…Thumbing was just about the only way for athletes to travel in the 50’s.

{Coach Karl Reedy managed to get a bus to take players home to Homecreek the next year. (1961) Homecreek was where the Ferrel boys, L.C. and Billy Joe lived.(Both Ferrel boys later made the All-Area and All-State team .)…
There were several other good players from Homecreek that most likely would not have played without a ride home.}

Coach Spraker was a big man in both word and deed. Remembering one day in practice that we were doing the two on one drill. To illustrate how it should be done (If you were the one…), he got down on all fours and squared off against two of our biggest players. He couldn’t find a helmet big enough for his head, so he said:�“Fire out and hit me on two you sissies!”
�“Hut! Hut! and two big players reluctantly fired out toward Coach Spraker…

Just like a pin ball machine, Coach Spraker sent both players sailing backwards for about five yards with two powerful flips of his forearms. We were all in awe, but try as we might, none of us could ever do that, and there wasn’t a scratch on him. He wasn’t even out of breath. It was like a walk in the park. (All the more reason not to cross him.)

Another time during 2-A-Days, we were doing belly flops. It went on and on…Running in place & then throwing ourselves on the ground at his command. After it was over, one player walked up to Coach and said:�
“C-Co-Coach, it-it-hurts when I ta-take a deep breath.”

Ever the one for witty responses, Coach Spraker quipped:
“Take two short ones son,” LOL...
�And we went on to another drill.

Remembering that after football season was over my senior year, Coach Spraker, who had just assumed the Athletic Director’s job at Grundy, came into the gym where the football players had study hall during the last period of the day. Not much studying took place as you could imagine. This particular day though, Coach Spraker was carrying about a half-dozen wrestling mats. He threw them down on the gym floor and announced to us that Grundy would be getting a wrestling program in the near future.

(Turned out it was 1963 when Grundy High School moved up the road to its present location, and Harry Smith became the first Grundy Wrestling coach, assisted by my long-time Harman friend, Ted Osborne.)

But that November day in 1959, we had great fun throwing each other around on the almost worthless mats just like we had seen on TV…until several received minor injuries. Not much cushioning at all from the mats.

We had no idea what high school wrestling would be like....

But fortunately I lived to see our son Laddy win the State Heavyweight Championship as an undefeated wrestler for the Grundy Golden Wave’s ’92 Wreckin’ Crew...

��Coach Frank Weindel Spraker played Right Tackle for the University of Virginia for one year just before WW2 started, having played high school football at Wytheville. After that year was over, he decided that his country needed his services more, so he joined the Army. Serving it well as a Staff Sergeant and Medic while serving in Italy during the North Africa campaign, serving under General George Patton....Coach Spraker was inducted into the Milligan College Hall of Fame shortly after his death in 1996.

On his return to America, he again played football, but this time it was for Milligan College in Johnson City, Tennessee on a football scholarship. At 6’3, 280 pounds, Coach was a force to be reckoned with, both in the military, and at his Right Tackle position. 
Coach Spraker later coached and taught at Milligan shortly after his graduation…. along with his wife Virginia., whom he met while teaching one year at St.Paul High School in Wise County.

After a few years at Milligan in the late 40’s, where Frank and Virginia Spraker both taught. (Coach Spraker teaching Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and the sciences, while his wife Virginia taught Typing and secretarial classes, both at Milligan, and later at Grundy High School.

The Sprakers moved to Royal City, near Grundy in 1951, where Coach Spraker was hired to be Grundy’s head football coach. Coach built a house at Royal City in 1956, and the Sprakers raised two fine sons: Frank Jr. and Bobby, and one beautiful daughter, Cynthia.

Cynthia told me that her parents were perfect examples of what love should look like, and gave them all great encouragement. (Frank Jr. was a very popular DJ at WNRG radio for several decades....So very kind and courteous.

Coach Spraker took on the Athletic Director’s job eight years later at Grundy High School in 1959. As Athletic Director, Coach Spraker worked closely with Garden and Hurley, for those schools also used Grundy’s field as their home field for several decades , even the new field on Slate Creek after Grundy Senior High opened in 1963, continuing to be used by all three schools for many more years.

Can you imagine what a job he had trying to coordinate schedules, clean out the locker rooms and mark off the field with lime. (Players had to be on constant guard to try to keep the toxic stuff out of our eyes. Some players would even try to throw some in the eyes of an opposing player on the line.)...
Not me!, but I did have to dodge it a few times...LOL

The Athletic Director’s job was hard, tedious work, for there was no Parks and Recreation Department. The Athletic Director did it all!

{Flat land was at a premium then and still is, as several fields have been carved out of hillsides and mountain tops.}

Not only football took an upswing with Coach Spraker as A.D., but also baseball, for he was responsible for organizing Little League football and baseball in Buchanan County during the fifties. Remembering that I was coaching a Buchanan County All-Star team in the 60’s when Coach Spraker called Williamsport, Pennsylvania after I had been wrongfully ejected during a game played at Wise, even getting them to say the umpire had made a mistake….

{The game was close, and I had stepped onto the field to talk to our pitcher., who was struggling. Immediately, the Umpire stepped out from behind the plate waving his arms wildly, while yelling that the game had been forfeited, due to me crossing the foul line. Well, it was probably in the tournament rules, but not in our regular season rules. 
I had made several trips to the mound that summer while coaching the Harman Tigers Little League team.}…..

So, thanks to Coach Spraker, we were allowed to return to Wise the next day to finish the game, but I had to watch the game from beyond the fence in center field. Our last batter came close to winning the game for us with a towering fly ball that came down just inside the park.… Close but no cigar!

Coach Spraker continued to be an assistant football coach until his retirement in 1983. It was his life.

Sadly, I remember attending his funeral in September of 1996 at the Methodist Church, just up the road from the Temple Motel. 
Long time Grundy Assistant Coach, and former Little All-American at Carson-Newman, Don Newberry, delivered a very touching eulogy, and I couldn’t help but think that there were hundreds of former players that would have been there if they had heard of his passing in time, but still there was a good crowd to pay respects to a Giant among men.��

Coach Spraker was responsible for recruiting the next two highly successful Grundy football coaches: Karl Reedy and Brownie Cummins.

Coach Karl Reedy was my uncle, and had several very successful coaching years under his belt before coming to Grundy in 1957, losing only five games in the five years prior to moving to Grundy,...and had back to back undefeated teams at Coeburn High School in 1949 & 50. WOW!
On his arrival at Grundy in 1956, he was named the Golf Pro at the Dismal River Country Club, becoming a teacher at Grundy High School for two years, taking time off from coaching.

Coach Spraker was so certain that Karl Reedy was a great coach, he made the following comment to anyone who would listen:
�“Karl Reedy is such a good coach that he could take His and beat Yours… or he could take Yours and beat His.” 
(Bob Williams remembers that Coach Reedy actually did this while coaching JV basketball at Grundy. True story, without mentioning names.)

Uncle Karl was a teacher in 1957, and as it happened, was close by on the morning of the ’57 Flood, standing by in the principal’s office. Bus driver John Catron had driven the Harman students to school from Harman, but had left to go to work at the Bus Garage below Grundy.

Mr. Meade, the principal, had just received word from the School Board Office that schools were going to be closing. …So, Mr. Meade asked Uncle Karl if he would drive the Harman route, since he couldn’t get in touch with the regular driver, John Catron.

Uncle Karl agreed and that was one frightening bus ride home, just looking out the windows at the raging Slate Creek…. and Levisa River, which was already threatening to enter the road in several places…

Going up Harman was worse, for Uncle Karl drove through water that was spilling out onto the road at two bridges. I found out later that he just barely made it back to Grundy. He was living at about the same place where the Grundy Fire Department now stands at the time. He said he parked the bus on the hill and then had to fight flood waters that damaged their house significantly, for water had spilled onto 460 just below the old Grundy Drive-In, and right down by their house.��...

North Grundy Supervisor Carroll Branham’s first year teaching at Grundy was 1959. I had him in a 12th Grade History class that really rocked, He told me this story involving Uncle Karl, who had just been hired as Grundy’s head football coach in 1959.

�“We were having a teacher’s meeting in the Auditorium the day before school started in September of 1959, and Principal John Meade asked if anyone had anything further to say, and Karl Reedy stood up and said:

�‘Yes sir, Mr. Meade, as you know I’ve just been hired to coach the Grundy Golden Wave football team this year. Just one thing. I don’t know who gave Grundy the name Golden Wave, but I think I would like to change it to Golden Eagle.’”�“Well, Mr. Reedy, I did,” said Mr. Meade.�Carroll said that Uncle Karl just sat right back down, and not another word was spoken. LOL

�That first year my Uncle Karl coached at Grundy was a pivotal year in my life as well. Five years after I became a Grundy fan, I was on pace to start for the Grundy Golden Wave at Right Tackle, but I knew I had to work hard over the summer. I ran everywhere I went.

I already considered myself kind of a ‘Dead Man Walking’, after surviving a fiery car crash just below Mt. Mission School in 1958. It was the night of the Grundy Jr./Sr. Prom at the Temple Motel, and seven of us had just traveled down the Long Bottom straight stretch at 120 mph! I kid you not! I wanted out of that rocket ship, actually a 1957 Pontiac Firebird. All seven teenagers were lucky, or blessed, to be alive, and some did have serious injuries...One had both legs broken, along with a broken jaw when the motor came back in his lap. After the car caught on fire, myself and a few others scooped up some sand to smother it & then worked feverishly to pull him from the car. Thinking it could explode at any second...The headline in the Blufield Daily Telegraph newspaper read:

SEVEN TEENAGERS MIRACULOUSLY ESCAPE DEATH TWICE
(From the wreck & also electrocution, for the wires were draped over the car...Brightest light I have ever seen!
(No one was drinking. It was all about speed.)

The #1 Power Pole in Grundy had stopped our wild ride. The lights were out for several hours all through the town, and for miles around. Class members at the prom had to go home, and four babies were born at the old Grundy Hospital, located on the present-day site of the Comfort-Inn, while the lights were out…
By candlelight!��

All that spring and summer I worked out with weights and ran 50 yard wind-sprints in the road at night in front of our Harman house, even running to the top of Bull Mountain and back a few times..Ok, I may have walked a little…LOL…

And since my Dad had told me a year or two before that I had a weak stomach because I threw up when we traveled curvy mountain roads to visit relatives, I did 100 sit-ups every day. By summer’s end, I could handle the curvy mountain roads, and was in the best shape of my life.

Still, I just weighed 195 my senior year. Not very big for a Right Tackle, but I was rewarded in that I played every minute and every play during that 59 season, offense, defense & special teams. I must have been doing something right.

��One other thing that stands out about that 59 season was the 2-A-Day Practices. Brownie Cummins was in his first year coaching as an Assistant Coach for our line, along with Coach Spraker. 
During a water break one hot summer day, I overheard Coach Cummins telling Coach Reedy that we were going to have the best line in the area.
�“You should have seen them Karll! I’ve never seen a line hit like that!” he sputtered.

(Those words weren’t meant for my ears, so I acted like I hadn’t heard.)�
What prompted Coach Cummins to say this no doubt was what had just happened before the rare water break.

�Coach Cummins had been on the 7-Man Blocking Sled, encouraging our starting offensive line to really show him what we could do.�....What we did was knock the sled about five yards on his command every time he said, Hut! Hut! 
With him holding on for dear life….
And almost falling off several times!!…LOL��...

Another thing we did was have night practices a few times, with the three coaches working together to make the entire Vansant field one big obstacle course, which had us crawling on all fours & popping dummies, running through tires, going sideways around obstacles, culminating in a crushing tackle of a dummy. They timed us & made it competitive, with everyone yelling like crazy.

But it really didn’t dawn on me just how involved I was in the football games in ’59, until I listened to a few of our football games being broadcast on Saturday mornings on WNRG AM. There was not an FM station then, so Friday night football games were recorded and played back over the airwaves on WNRG AM on Saturday mornings.

Jim Dellinger, who later on became the General Manager of Modern Sales & Service at Royal City, did most of the play-by-play on the radio, and it seemed that he called my name nearly every play when the Wave played defense, either for making or helping on the tackle. Evidently, my #65 jersey number must have really stood out…To hear Jim call the game was a real treat.

It seemed like Johnny Sneed and myself made every tackle…LOL��...I think he had me playing better than I did.

One other thing stands out in my memory of Jim Dellinger. We were having our usual light practice one Thursday evening at the old Vansant Ballpark, and Jim had come by to test the P.A. equipment.

Well, it so happened that as he was doing this, that we were practicing kicking punts and punt coverage. Frank Hunter, who was a little to old to play, and who was in special classes at Vansant Elementary was there. Frank could run like a scalded cat, and he stepped in to catch a punt about the time Jim was testing out the equipment.

Jim said something like this:��“Frank Hunter catches the punt for Grundy, folks, on his own 25 yard-line....
He’s bringing it back down the far side-line!
He’s past mid-field! 
He’s at the 10! 5!...
TOUCHDOWN FRANK HUNTER!
�Frank couldn’t wait to get back and run another one or two. LOL…
Jim really made Frank’s day that Thursday evening, and I’m certain he never forgot it. I haven’t.��

There are three things I can never forget about Coach Reedy. One, and definitely the biggest, was that he saved my life when he took me from his Typing Class one December day in 1959, when he discovered that my left leg was swollen to about twice its normal size fallout from the car wreck & a bruised shin in football. When we arrived at Grundy Hospital, Dr. Baxter immediately gave me several shots of penicillin to help fight the blood poisoning.... and admitted me. 
For four days as it turned out.

He later told myself and Uncle Karl that if he hadn’t of brought me to the hospital when he did, I would have had to have been dropped off at Grundy Funeral Home…Close call indeed.��

The second thing I can’t forget happened in March of 1960, three months before my graduation. Coach Reedy called me to the office one day to ask me if I would like to attend Yale University on a full football scholarship?

But then he added:�“You do have a 90 average don’t you Larry?”��
My heart sank, even though I probably would not have liked going to Yale University anyway.... because I had just calculated my average, and it was not quite 87 even…Higher math classes brought my average down. I simply did not like Algebra or Geometry, and would often be caught reading a football fiction book from the school library. I read all of them, plus all of the Hardy Boys Mysteries.

But I sure appreciated what Coach Reedy was willing to do for me.��The final thing that Uncle Karl did for me, (With Coach Spraker’s help, and perhaps Brownie Cummins as well) was that I was selected 2nd Team All-Southwest. It kind of blew me away, but then I saw where a kid from Gate City was on the First Team, and I had handled him when Grundy upset Gate City during the season, I got to thinking that maybe I did deserve to be on the All-Southwest Team…

(All Southwest included over 50 schools at the time, so to me it was quite an honor. Deserving or not, I just knew that I played every play, both in practice…and on the field, in 1959.)
��Coach Reedy coached four years at Grundy, and had an enviable 22-8 record after the 4-6 campaign in his debut at the Grundy helm. There were some huge wins!

For me, our biggest win was when we upset Gate City on their field in October of 1959…It might have been a Halloween prank of sorts, but it sure fired us up when rocks came sailing at us as we walked up a dimly lit path at half-time of that game…Coaches didn’t have to tell us to put our helmets on, as we heard a rock or two bounce off a helmet. Later, as we sat around the wall in our tiny locker room thinking about how the Devils had been rocking us on the field, and also on our way to where we now sat.

Coach Reedy finally came in and just walked around the room without saying a single word. We were expecting a fiery speech or tongue-lashing, but it never came. When he arrived back at the entry door, Coach Reedy just looked at us and slowly shook his head…For just a minute we were stunned.

Suddenly, our team Captain, Johnny Sneed, jumped to his feet with his helmet reaching for the ceiling…We quickly followed his lead as Johnny let out a yell and shouted:��
“LET”S KILL THOSE DIRTY BOOGERS!!”� 
(But it might have been another name…LOL)

Needless to say, we played like a team possessed the second half, holding the Blue Devils scoreless, while scoring three times in the 4th Quarter. Bob Hagy scoring all three touchdowns, even though Tom Holland, and L.C. Ferrel had some long runs. It was a total team effort and our blocking was as crisp as the chilly October air.��But the biggest win was considered by many to be Grundy’s 26-7 victory over Kentucky state champion Belfry on September 21st, 1961, at the old Vansant Ballpark…

According to Ervin Stiltner, who was a highly successful coal operator a decade or so later, there were miners from Buchanan County that bet their entire paycheck on the game with miners from Kentucky. Grundy had to fight through adversity that night as star quarterback Buddy Reedy had broken his arm in a game with Tazewell the previous week. Buddy was unable to play, but Larry Looney stepped up at that position, scoring one TD on a long run, as did Rob Ratliff and Bob Williams.

{Even though Buddy missed the rest of the football season, he was chosen 2nd Team All-Area for his seven touchdown passes in Grundy’s first three games. Many thought that Grundy would have gone undefeated had their star quarterback been able to play. 
Buddy did heal up in time for basketball, becoming MVP as Point Guard for a powerful Golden Wave basketball team.}

I remember that Willard Owens and myself drove 6 hours from Hiwassee Junior College in Madisonville, Tennessee, to watch the Belfry game. To our amazement, there were thousands of people at that game, and by the time we found a place to park, and had walked back to stand beside the four-deep fans standing beside 460, the game was almost over…. & the cheers from the Grundy fans was deafening.

Coach Brownie Cummins succeeded Coach Reedy in 1963, and was 23-12 & 5 in four seasons. Five ties, imagine that!

The 1963 team may have been the best Grundy team ever. Brownie thought it was the best he ever coached. The Wave was undefeated in the SWD with a 6-0 record, having also defeated powerful E.C. Glass at Lynchburg. Sadly, that game was forfeited when it was discovered that one Grundy player, who didn’t even affect the outcome, was too old. That lone loss kept the Golden Wave from being State Champions, but no one that saw them play could doubt they were the best in the state that year, and perhaps for all time.��

Brownie’s brother, Ralph Cummins, had three state championship teams while coaching at Clintwood High School. Brownie should have had one at least one, and perhaps more. He could coach I tell you!
Probably a part of the most successful brother coaching duo in Virginia. Brownie & Ralph were as good as they come.��

Shortly after Brownie and his lovely red-headed wife, Anita, arrived in Grundy, they both became teachers at Grundy High School. But almost immediately, Coach Cummins began to lobby to teach Driver’s Education classes. The request was granted around 1964, but it didn’t last long. Coach Cummins gave this account of what happened one rainy day:��

“I was sitting on the passenger side, and this young girl was driving for the first time on the highway. Well, I looked and she was intent on pulling out onto Rt. 83 off the metal bridge, which was very slick. ….

The tires were spinning a little, and then I looked and saw that a big coal truck was coming down Slate Creek. I had my foot on the brake…. and the girl had hers on the gas….�It appeared to be a recipe for disaster when our Driver’s Education car stalled right in the middle of the road……

And then I looked to my right and the coal truck was sliding sideways toward us…. When it finally came to a stop, we were so close to the truck that I couldn’t even make out what was printed on the side door…..….

Scared the bejeebers out of me. Still trembling,I went straight up to the School Board Office and resigned as a Driver’s Education teacher”….….��

Coaching football was what all three of these outstanding coaches loved to do, and their record does speak for itself…..

Skillful! Unselfish! Dedicated! Brilliant! Admired! 
(Just not enough adjectives to describe these Giants!)…

�I feel so blessed to have played for all three, and to also be a fan of their coaching…And life accomplishments! ��I know that Coach Spraker is in the Grundy Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Milligan College Hall of Fame just a few months after his death in 1996. Coaches Cummins and Reedy should be in the Grundy Hall of Fame as well….Golden Era indeed!

Not quite as long in terms of years and victories as the Greg Rowe Era, which started in 1986 and ended in 2010…24 years and 147 victories, with three Regional Championships And a very enviable 88-31 record from 1995 to 2004…But this would be worthy of another article…or book….Fantastic achievement!��

Coach Ralph Cummins, Brownies’ brother from Clintwood, is in the state of Virginia sports Hall of Fame.

Happy to report that Coach Reedy will be inducted into the Hiwassee College sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, November 11 of this year. I know he was an exceptional player and coach there. Hoping to attend, for Hiwassee is also my alma mater. Perhaps, I will hear some stories about his days there. Hope so....

They might even tell about the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not column that had this entry in a Blufield Sunday paper my mother shared with me about Uncle Karl scoring five touchdowns in the First Half of a game.... and was in street clothes on the sideline before the First Half ended..

I don’t remember if this was at Hiwassee, or Emory & Henry, for he also played there in the mid-30’s.