Back in the early 1970s, when Tom Losh was a young University of Tennessee at Chattanooga assistant basketball coach from Mason, Ohio, and Herbert “Book” McCray was a slightly younger Mocs player from Louisville, Ky., Losh would sometimes give McCray a ride to or from the Derby City as he drove to or from Ohio.
“We’d be in a car together sometimes for five or six hours, and basketball might never come up,” McCray recalled late this past week. “We’d talk about schoolwork, or growing into manhood, or making our parents proud. It’s been 45 years, and I still remember those drives like they were yesterday.”
Everyone who has ever cheered for the Mocs in any sport should be proud of the speeches McCray and Losh gave at separate UTC commencement exercises Friday and Saturday inside McKenzie Arena.
Speaking to those receiving graduate degrees Friday afternoon, McCray passionately implored them to “number one, leave a legacy. Number two, pay your dues.”
Addressing those receiving undergraduate degrees Saturday, Losh – who became the first member of his family to attend college when he arrived on campus with a basketball scholarship in 1967 – asked the class of 2018 to “first, surround yourself with supremely creative and happy people.”