It was billed as a middle school version of a Tennessee-Georgia All-Star basketball game, representatives from seven Chattanooga-area programs facing off against young men from four Atlanta junior highs Saturday afternoon at McCallie School.
Sponsored by our town's Independent Youth Services Foundation, the event's goal is to promote better academics through sports. Or as director Herbert "Book" McCray said, "No classroom work means no basketball."
But at halftime of Georgia's win, a Tennessee player wearing No. 10 named Caleb Golden -- a player who actually lives in Texas -- won the 3-point contest showing off a sweet, familiar form.
"That was my father's number at UTC," Caleb beamed before the game began, referring to Wayne Golden. "He's a legend down here."
Despite the once-impressive Afro that's now closely cropped and filled with gray, the legend looks as if he could still add to his school-best 2,384 career points for the Mocs, his body as slim and trim as it was during his Division II playing career in the mid-1970s.
And as any University of Tennessee at Chattanooga fan old enough to remember the final days of Golden's senior season in 1976-77 can fondly tell you, the Louisville, Ky., native's golden touch helped the Mocs win the Division II national championship, which UTC coach Ron Shumate had referred to as "Rocky Top" long before most UT-Knoxville fans knew the tune existed.
Such grand work made him a Final Four all-tournament selection both that year and the previous spring, when the Mocs fell one win short, losing to Puget Sound in the title game.
But then Golden went away to play professional basketball in locales as far flung as the Netherlands and Mexico, served in the U.S. military from 1981 through 1989 and pretty much lost touch with most of his UTC teammates save McCray, with whom he's been close since the two led Louisville Shawnee High School to the 1973 Kentucky state championship.
"Book's really the teammate I stay in touch with the most," said Golden, who now lives in Austin, Texas, after years of being stationed at Fort Hood. "We talk quite a bit. But this is only the second time I've been back here since I left. I've probably forgotten as much as I remember. Everything looks great, though. We're going to drive through the campus this afternoon, let my sons see Big Mac, stuff like that."
Much as McCray pours his life into the Independent Youth Services Organization, Golden has immersed himself in Life Works, which focuses on improving the lives of at-risk youths around Austin.
"Just trying to make sure they get the help and guidance they need," he said. "Help out with their academics, their home life, keep them pointed in the right direction."
Golden was not the only visiting coach at McCallie on Saturday with past ties to UTC. Former assistant Gerald White, the ex-Auburn playing great, coached the Georgia eighth-graders.
Now living in Atlanta, he trains pro basketball players, helping with everything from their exercise routines to landing them jobs with teams overseas. However, his toughest work at the moment is trying to understand how his 10-year-old son Jared has become a Kentucky fan.
"I took him to the SEC tournament in Atlanta last year, and everywhere he looked there was UK blue," White said. "He was hooked."
White is still hooked on his time as a Mack McCarthy assistant some 20 years after it ended.
"Some of the better days I've ever had," he said with a smile. "The assistants just all got along so well. I still keep up with John Gibson, Jon Goddard, Henry Dickerson. I learned so much from Henry. I probably talk to Mack once a month. The kids we coached back then and the fans really made it special."
For those who care about the future of our community's less fortunate young people, the Independent Youth Services Organization is special, its mission to create "a college-bound mindset" both important and admirable.
But for any number of longtime Mocs supporters in the stands, it also had to be special to see Golden, as it always was for him to hear them during his playing days.
"The fans were so loud in there," he said. "They packed the place every night. They really were our sixth man. They helped us win a lot of games."
A lot can change in 38 years. The Mocs haven't played in Big Mac since 1982. Golden was on the last UTC team to call Division II home, the school moving to D-I the following year. And unfortunately for Golden, the 3-point line didn't become a permanent part of NCAA basketball until 10 years after he graduated.
But that doesn't mean he hasn't thought about what it would have been like to play with a 3-point line from high school on.
Recalling his 84-point game for Shawnee, which is still the Kentucky high school record, Golden occasionally talks to his children about what might have been.
Said 17-year-old Wayne Jr. right before Caleb took the court, "He tells us all the time if they'd had a 3-point line back then, that 84-point game would have been 100 points."
Anyone lucky enough to have watched Golden light up Big Mac would surely agree.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.