Appalachian History

When the NCAA Tournament tips off, you may know every team's star player and its odds to win the title. But how well do you know the mascots? Not just what the teams are called, but where those names came from? Let's take a look at some of the tourney's more unusual nicknames.

East Tennessee State Buccaneers: It wasn't until 1935 that ETSU athletic teams were referred to as the "Buccaneers;" previous teams were called "The Teachers." The school was known as the East Tennessee State Teachers College in 1925, shortened to State Teachers College, Johnson City in 1930. Coach Gene McMurray was credited with coming up with the name 'Buccaneers' in 1935.

"The Teachers sounds too innocent and academic, and they wanted more of a fighting name," says author Robert J. Higgs, professor emeritus of English from ETSU.

An English professor and coach at that time, Willis Beeler Bible, had an objection to the name. Bible believed that pirates had an unsavory reputation. The name stuck despite the disagreement.

"'Bull' Bible joked about the name buccaneers and said it sounded like a bunch of bandits," Higgs said.

The Buccaneer is a fine mascot for a coastal school, but ETSU is decidedly landlocked. What gives? A group of spelunkers found an underground river in the university area, known as Pirate Creek. The creek runs throughout subterranean tunnels in a southeasterly direction. Geologists theorize that Pirate Creek could have led to the Atlantic Ocean.

Local legend holds that Pirate's Creek was once home to pirate Jean Paul LeBucque (LeBuc), who had fled from the coast to hide his treasure. Thus, an inland school has a pirate mascot.

Wake Forest Demon Deacons: Wake's teams originally called themselves the Tigers, but that name didn't stick. People started referring to the squads as "the Baptists" due to the school's religious affiliation, and when the football team beat arch-rival Trinity (which would later become Duke) in 1923, student newspaper editor Mayon Parker dubbed them the "Demon Deacons" to honor both their Baptist affiliations and their 'devilish' play. Henry Belk, Wake Forest's news director, liked the title and used it often, so the popularity of the term grew.

The actual mascot made its first appearance in 1941. As the "Demon Deacon" terminology became more popular, Jack Baldwin (1943 Wake Forest graduate) took the first step and became the first in the long line of Deacon mascots.

"Some of my fraternity brothers and I were just sitting around one evening," Baldwin recalls, "and came to the agreement that what Wake Forest needed was someone dressed like a deacon -- top hat, tails, a black umbrella and all that. We wanted him to be more dignified than other mascots, sort of like an old Baptist Deacon would dress."

West Virginia Mountaineers: WVU's 'Daily Athenaeum' reports that individuals served as the Mountaineer as early as 1927, when Clay Crouse was chosen. However, it was not until 1934-35 when trackster Lawson Hill served that a more stable selection process was established. Starting in 1937, the Mountaineer was appointed annually by the Mountain Honorary - the school's prestigious senior honorary.

The Mountaineer mascot first appeared at WVU sporting events during the 1936-37 school year. Boyd H. "Slim" Arnold, a physical education major from Bayard in Grant County, was the first Mountaineer selected to serve three years in succession (1937-38-39) and was the longest tenured until Rock Wilson equaled it in 1993. (1991-92-93).

During Arnold's tenure, he became the first Mountaineer to wear the now traditional buckskin uniform. Minutes of Mountain meetings from the late 1930s indicate that a donor gave the Honorary several deerskins asking that a buckskin costume be made for the Mountaineer. Prior to that the Mountaineer wore overalls, a flannel shirt, coonskin cap, a sheep or bear skin type vest and carried a rifle.

The Mountaineer's costume is tailored to fit each winner, and male Mountaineers customarily grow beards during their tenure to go along with the coonskin cap and rifle.

The rifle is a true flintlock that requires the user to become schooled in the amount of powder required to fire the charge.

UT Chattanooga Mocs: The school's athletic teams are called the Mocs. Taking the name from Moccasin Bend in the Tennessee River, UTC adopted a water moccasin as its mascot in the 1920s.

Along the way the school changed the mascot to a Cherokee tribesman: Chief Chattamoc, and in the 60s & 70s a moccasin shoe served as UTC's mascot. In the late 70s the mascot returned to a Cherokee tribesman, this time Chief Mocanooga.

The Chattanooga InterTribal Association criticized UTC for using the mascot, because they believed Native Americans were portrayed in an unfavorable manner. Chief Mocanooga wore feathers and warpaint, and the association and other Native Americans said Southeastern Indians were not warriors.

The university assembled a 17-panel committee to discuss the issue and come to a decision. UTC adopted a new mascot in the '96­-'97 school year – Scrappy.

The name came from A.C. "Scrappy" Moore (a former football coach.) Scrappy is a mockingbird (Tennessee's state bird) and dresses as a railroad conductor. The school's main athletic logo features Scrappy riding a train (a reference to Chattanooga's history as a major railroad hub and to the song "Chattanooga Choo Choo".)


Sources: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23743
http://www.utc.edu/About/History.php
http://www.msnsportsnet.com/page.cfm?section=9614
http://wakeforestsports.cstv.com/genrel/100808aab.html http://www.etsujournalist.com/article/Journalism/Campus_Connections/Why_we_are_the_Buccaneers/18422



sports+in+Appalachia NCAA+championship+teams appalachian+sports appalachia +appalachian+history

Samuel 'Sad Sam' Pond Jones (1892-1966) reached the pinnacle of his major league pitching career on September 4, 1923 when he threw a no-hit, no-run game against the Philadelphia Athletics to lead the New York Yankees to their first World Series title.

"That slow ball of his simply floats up there and you swing your head off," said Hall of Famer Tris Speaker. Jones was sent from Cleveland to the Red Sox in a 1916 trade for Speaker. "Then he's got a fast one that's on top of you before you realize it. Plus, he's got as good a curve-ball as anyone in the league."

The Woodfield, OH ballplayer was one of professional baseball's top pitchers in the early 1900s. Jones had a lifetime record of 229 victories (including 36 shutouts and one no-hitter) and 216 defeats.

He started his 22 year career with the Cleveland Indians in 1914; only he and Cy Young pitched that many years consecutively in the majors. "You know, I think one reason I pitched so long is that I never wasted my arm trying to throw to first to keep runners close to the base," Jones told baseball biographer Lawrence Ritter in 1966. "There was a time there, for five years, I never once threw to first base to chase a runner back. Not once in five years. Ripley put that in 'Believe it or Not.'"

Later Jones played for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, St Louis Browns, Washington Senators, and Chicago White Sox (there were only two American League teams he didn’t play for). He posted a career high 23 victories for Boston in 1921 and won 21 for New York in 1923.

His best seasons were with the Red Sox, in 1918, when he led the league with a 16-5 record, and in 1921, when he won 23 and lost 16. He appeared in four World Series.

Sad Sam, the Cemetery Man was actually a whimsical man full of backwoods humor. Rookie sportswriter Bill McGeehan of the New York Herald-Tribune dubbed him that because, to him, Jones looked downcast on the field. "I would always wear my cap down real low over my eyes," Jones explained to author Ritter. "And the sportswriters were more used to fellows like Waite Hoyt, who'd always wear their caps way up so they wouldn't miss any pretty girls."

Jones was also called Horsewhips, because of the crack of his sharp breaking ball. Jones was born in Woodsfield, OH, which further earned him the moniker "The Squire of Woodsfield."

"Great eye," he once said of Babe Ruth. "He don't hit bad balls because he makes good ones out of everything you throw him---four inches outside the plate or in the dirt."

Jones retired in 1935 as the oldest player in that season (42). His 22 consecutive seasons pitching in one league is a major league record shared with Herb Pennock, Early Wynn, Red Ruffing and Steve Carlton.


sources: www.thebaseballpage.com/players/jonessa01.php
www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/Jones.SamuelP.Obit.html
www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=jonessa01
1918: Babe Ruth and the World Champion Boston Red Sox, by Allan Wood, iUniverse, 2000
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men who Played it, by Lawrence S. Ritter, Macmillan Co, 1966
www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Sad_Sam_Jones_1892



appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history Monroe+County+OH Samuel+Pond+Jones Woodfield+OH sports+in+appalachia

Future champion college basketball coach Sonny Smith was born November 15, 1936 in Roan Mountain, Tennessee, the son of a mill worker and a cafeteria employee at the local schools. His hometown, he said years later, wasn’t the end of the world---but that you could see it from there. He said there were so many shotgun weddings performed in Roan Mountain that the local church was dubbed "Winchester Cathedral."

Smith rose to college basketball prominence by turning around losing programs at East Tennessee State University, Auburn University, and Virginia Commonwealth University during his 22 years of coaching leadership.

Smith spent his first 11 years after graduating from Tennessee’s Milligan College playing semi-pro basketball and coaching in the high school ranks. As a high school coach in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Kentucky, Smith began to make his contacts to move into the collegiate game. The legendary Vic Bubas helped Sonny land his first collegiate assistant coaching job at William & Mary in 1969. He stayed with the Tribe for a year, moved to Pepperdine for another year, and finally in 1971 landed as assistant coach to Virginia Tech’s Don DeVoe.

Smith was DeVoe's right hand man until 1976, during which time the Hokies never had a losing record. Tech captured the NIT Championship in 1973 and earned a NCAA Tournament berth in 1976.

In 1976 Smith landed his first head coaching job at East Tennessee State, a college in dire need of a winning streak. After a 12-14 record during his inaugural season in 1976-77, Smith guided the program to an 18-9 mark, and the Buccaneers were the Ohio Valley Conference co-champions the next season. Smith won his first of four conference Coach-of-the-Year honors, while establishing himself as an upcoming young coach on the national level.

Sonny Smith is best remembered for his coaching years at Auburn University, where he was named Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year in 1984 and 1989. He was the first coach in Auburn history to have a twenty win season, and the only coach in Auburn history to date to have three consecutive twenty win seasons ('84-'86). In 1985, he coached the Auburn Tigers to their first SEC Tournament Championship in school history.

Smith was a tough disciplinarian who coached Charles Barkley, Chuck Person, and Chris Morris into NBA stars in his three decades of coaching. On January 3, 2007, he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

A basketball yarn from Sonny Smith: "There was an Kentucky fan, an Alabama fan, and a Tennessee fan that went to Saudi Arabia and got in trouble for gambling. They were arrested and each given 20 lashes as their punishment.

"Each fan was given one wish before his punishment was administered. The Kentucky fan went first. His wish that was a pillow be strapped to his back to soften the blows. After seeing how much pain the Kentucky fan endured even with the pillow, the Alabama fan’s wish was that he have two pillows strapped to his back while he was flogged.

"Finally, it was time for the Tennessee fan’s punishment. Because the person who was administering the blows had heard of the Big Orange, he granted the UT fan two wishes instead of the customary one. So, the Tennessee fan’s first wish was that he be given 200 lashes, rather than just 20.

"The Saudi was perplexed. He couldn’t figure out why someone who wish to endure such pain. He then asked,

"'What’s your second wish?' To which the Tennessee fan replied, 'Strap that Alabama fan on my back!'"


sources: www.ashof.org
www.sportsstarsusa.com/php/featuredartist.php?id=606&name=sonny+smith
community.foxsports.com/blogs/MrVolunteer/2006/02/19/SONNY_SMITH_BRUCE_PEARL_SWAP_BASKETBALL_WAR_STORIES_AT_BIG_ORANGE_TIPOFF_CLUB_IN_KNOXVILLE


Sonny+Smith Roan+Mountain+TN sports+in+Appalachia appalachia +appalachian+history