Barry CourterThe 1977 Mocs basketball team was honored on the 40th anniversary of its Division II national championship during ceremonies at the UTC-ETSU game this past weekend, so it was fun to relive that amazing year in local sports this week.
I was 14 in 1977, and my father was an executive at Volunteer State Life. The company had season tickets, which they made available to employees. I don't remember if it was a raffle type of deal or if employees simply claimed them when they were available, but several times during the season, and the previous one as well, my dad would come home with a pair of tickets.
I wouldn't know about them until after school, so he'd call and tell me to get my homework done early, which I think I actually did on those occasions because going to a Mocs game with 4,177 screaming fans was truly special.
The Mocs finished runner-up the year before winning it all, so to say it was a good time to be a Mocs basketball fan would be underselling it a great deal. Later, during my years, as a UTC student, the teams were also good and there were some fierce rivalry games with Marshall, but the team had moved up a division and games were now being played in the new and much larger Roundhouse (now McKenzie Arena). Nothing compared to going to Maclellan Gym, or Big Mac, to watch William Gordon, Darryl Yarbrough, Wayne Golden, Book McCray and Gary Stich play ball.
Gordon said before Saturday's event that the team's sixth man was the crowd at Big Mac. He is 100 percent correct. What I remember most from those games was how nice the fans that sat around us were. At almost every game, someone near us would overhear something either I or my dad would say about a player, or a play, and they'd have something to add.
"That was a big rebound by Stich," I'd say, and a fan would turn around and say, "He had 10 the other night against so-and-so."
That kind of thing made us feel like part of the whole crowd, but it was nothing compared to the noise and energy that would erupt when Gordon would make a steal or Golden would drop another beautiful shot to start a scoring run.
I've never been part of a crowd that could impact a game like those did at Big Mac during that run. My favorite memories are of standing and screaming and clapping like crazy as the Mocs would make a shot and then get a steal on an inbound pass or force a 10-second backcourt violation by playing great defense. It always seemed like the crowd earned those as much as the team did.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.