John Shearer: Gene Etter Looks Back At Long Sports Career

When Gene Etter was a student at the University of Tennessee, he was planning on being an engineer at the recommendation of his father, E.B. “Red” Etter, the highly successful football coach at Central High and later at Baylor School.

“Red” Etter had seen the somewhat limited financial income that came from teaching and coaching, so he encouraged his son to find a more lucrative job.

Gene thought his father knew what was best for him, so he job shadowed a TVA engineer whom his father knew from church.

“I spent a day with him and it was in such an isolated office,” he recalled.

As a result, he quickly realized such work was not for him, and he eventually went on to follow his initial dream of wanting to be a coach and teacher like his father.

And it would be a career that he would find quite rewarding.

“That’s all I cared to be,” he said.

But he did go on to take an engineering approach to his coaching by meticulously focusing on the mechanics of sports and trying to bring maximum output from his teams.

Well over 50 years after realizing his career choice, the 75-year-old coached his last game May 17 when his Baylor Red Raiders’ baseball team just missed out on going to the state tournament after losing to Pope John Paul II of Hendersonville at home.

It was a team the Red Raiders had swept a few days earlier in the regular season, but Coach Etter knew the Knights were a good ballclub and beating them in a second series would not be easy.

The loss marked the completion of his 41st consecutive season coaching the Red Raiders and an earlier career teaching and coaching other sports after getting a late start due to a lengthy minor league baseball career.

While the final weekend of his coaching career did not go quite as he hoped, he is admittedly satisfied with his overall tenure that uniquely spanned multiple generations.

“You always think you can do better, but most of the time I felt like we were competitive about all the years,” he said.

Coach Etter’s teams also had a consistency that matched his even-keeled personality.  While some coaches who coach the same team for multiple decades often have a lot of up-and-down stretches, he had only two losing seasons – in 1985 and 2010 – and both of those years he finished only one game below .500.

His overall record was 864-398 for a winning percentage of nearly 70 percent. That included state championships in 2003 and 2006 and some of his best baseball coaching after most other coaches his age had long since retired. In the last five years, his teams made the state quarterfinals every year and reached the state Spring Fling three times.

“I am glad that the performance of teams in the latter years of my coaching career were comparable to that of the earlier years,” he said.

Coach Etter has managed to be in the sports spotlight in some form or another since he was a standout teenage athlete at Central High on Dodds Avenue in the 1950s. Last Thursday – before Baylor announced that Tennessee Wesleyan head coach and Virginia native Billy Berry would replace him – Coach Etter sat in his former classroom and advisee office in Room 02 of Trustee Hall and kindly reminisced. He spent nearly two hours not only recalling his 41 years as the head coach at Baylor, but also his long involvement with baseball and other sports and his time as a teacher.

A multi-sport athlete at Central, he went on to play football at Tennessee in the late 1950s and early 1960s under coach Bowden Wyatt. A small tailback, he is probably best remembered for playing a key role in the 1958 upset of Ole Miss just a week after the Vols had been humbled by the then-University of Chattanooga.

Against the Rebels, he completed a third-quarter tipped pass to himself that resulted in a Vols’ touchdown three plays later, and then he scored the deciding touchdown on a 75-yard scamper in the fourth quarter.

Although he actually signed with Tennessee to play baseball, he only participated sporadically due to spring practice, and that usually came after he would ask permission from Coach Wyatt. Coach Etter, who would regularly have to approach Coach Wyatt away from the field to ask for extra tickets for games, remembers that the Tennessee coach often had unusual way of answering a question by a player with a question.

But after Coach Etter’s football eligibility was completed, he played fulltime on the 1961 baseball team that was coached by UT football legend George Cafego and assisted by Bill Wright, who would go on to become the longtime head baseball coach.

Coach Cafego, who had finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1939, was Coach Etter’s tailback and kicking and punting position coach with the football team, but was basically only there for the baseball games, not practices.

As a result, Coach Etter worked mostly under Bill Wright, whom he remembers fondly. Coach Etter went on to bat .410 and play second base at UT that year and believes he may have led the Southeastern Conference in batting after having a great final day double-header. But because not every game was counted in the batting race that year, the honor went to someone else, he said.

But he did receive another reward. Because of his good showing that season, he had an opportunity to join the St. Cloud, Minn., Rox in 1961. The minor league team was an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

Although he did not have a favorite major league baseball player growing up, Coach Etter was quite familiar with them by playing as a youth the once-popular board game, All-Star Baseball.

And as a professional, he would get to know several future stars, too. One of his teammates at St. Cloud happened to be Lou Brock, who went on to a Hall of Fame career with the St. Louis Cardinals and was best known as a base stealer.

That was at a time when the push for greater civil rights and integration was just beginning in the South, but Coach Etter remembers no repercussions and enjoyed getting to know the star.

“I don’t recall there being a problem, probably because of the places we played were in Minnesota, North Dakota, etc.,” he said. “I became his friend. He would set goals for how many hits in 100 at-bats and also for each series we played, and he really would take it hard each time he made an out.

“A couple of years later, I ran into him in spring training and asked if he still did the goals concept, and he said no.”

The next year, 1962, Coach Etter played for the Palatka, Fla., team and remembered some accommodations had to be made for the black players since they were back in the Deep South, which was still several years away from full integration.

“The hotels we used would not allow blacks, so our manager would have to find a place in the black neighborhoods for them,” he said.

Coach Etter then played again at St. Cloud in 1963, and Wenatchee, Wash., in 1964 before getting promoted to the larger Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs.

He played for the Dallas-Fort Worth minor league team from 1965-69, except for a brief stint with the San Antonio squad in 1968. In part through his own initiation, he managed to stay with or rejoin the Dallas-Fort Worth team, despite the fact that it later switched affiliations to being with Houston and later Baltimore.

One of his teammates with the Dallas-Fort Worth team was Don Larsen, who had pitched the memorable perfect game for the New York Yankees in the 1956 World Series.

The closest Coach Etter ever made it to the majors was attending a Class AAA spring training one year, he said.

He was initially a second baseman in his minor league career but eventually played some outfield and even third base after he admittedly developed a little bit of a mental block about throwing the ball from second base.

With his bat, he was quite productive, as he had a .278 average and eight home runs over nine seasons.

During his time in Dallas-Fort Worth, he was voted a fan favorite. He also remembers that one family in Texas took him under his wing, and another person definitely took a special interest in him.

He said he was sitting on the steps of the dugout after batting practice one day at the Dallas field in Arlington, and the team’s general manager, future American League official Dick Butler, approached him. Noticeably looking a little uncomfortable, Mr. Butler told Coach Etter that a woman sitting up in the stands said she wanted to meet Gene.

Coach Etter took a look at her, said he would be glad to meet her, and did after the game.

The woman would turn out to be his future wife, Eddie, who actually lived in nearby Dallas but was a fan of the team and would later often travel to Arlington and they would have dinner after games.

At Coach Etter’s suggestion, they were married in 1966 at the stadium. Eddie’s father was ill at the time and unable to attend, so Mr. Butler stood in for him.

The 10,000-seat Turnpike Stadium where they were married had opened in 1965 and was later expanded and became the home of the Texas Rangers. It was demolished after Globe Life Park opened nearby in 1994, although some of its bleachers, the foul poles and home plate were moved to the new facility.

About midway through his pro baseball career, Coach Etter began picturing himself in a new place, too, as least regarding his interest in eventually working on the other side of the white lines.

During the falls after baseball season would be over and he would be back in Chattanooga, he would break down film on football opponents for his father at night, and leave notes for him to see the next morning when he woke up.

Enjoying that, he began helping out some at Central where his father still was, even helping coach a wrestling team.

About this same time, Gene’s younger brother, Bob, was a placekicker at Georgia and would eventually kick for the Atlanta Falcons and in the World Football League.

In 1967, he began serving as the football coach and teacher at the new J.B. Brown Junior High off Highway 58, which in later years has become known as Brown Middle School.

“I really liked coaching football,” he said.

During this time, he would have to leave school before it was over to go to spring training. But in 1968, he decided he would drop out of baseball and just stay at J.B. Brown Junior High.

However, the principal let him know someone else had been hired to coach football for the following fall, so Coach Etter decided to stay in baseball for the 1968 season. But that would open up an opportunity at a school with which he had not previously been associated – Baylor.

“I made a call to (then head coach) Jim Worthington,” he recalled. “I asked him if he could take me on. He knew of me.”

He ended up teaching algebra and helping with the junior high teams, saying he initially wanted more of an experience being a lower-level head coach than a varsity assistant.

Coach Worthington, whom Coach Etter liked, ended up leaving Baylor after the 1969 football season, and Coach Etter was approached by a parent wondering if his father, Red, would be interested in coaching at Baylor.

“I told him I would check,” Gene recalled.

It turned out that Red Etter was not as excited about being at Central now that the school had moved out to Highway 58, so he gladly told him he was interested. He went to Baylor before the 1970 season and ended up enjoying much success there, with Gene becoming a longtime assistant as the defensive coordinator.

For a period, Gene Etter thought his future was as a head football coach, and he briefly considered becoming the coach at Tyner in the 1970s.

Coach Gene Etter also coached ninth-grade basketball, with star Jimmy Braddock as one of his players, and assisted former standout Baylor athlete David Longley with the Baylor varsity baseball team. But in 1974, Coach Longley, needing to find a better-paying job after a child had some health issues, left to enter the business world and eventually became a financial adviser.

Gene was hired as the head coach beginning with the 1975 season, and that would become the place where he left his most lasting mark in sports.

“That worked out well for both of us. I got to be the baseball coach for 41 years and he became a millionaire,” Coach Etter said with a grin.

During his first season, he wore jersey No. 24, not the No. 1 for which he would be known in later years.

During his time as coach and as a math and later a computer teacher, Coach Etter became known for his quick and dry wit, and his ability to analyze and break down everything, whether it was a sports game, a magic trick he was watching on videotape or even a card game.

But it was in baseball where his talents manifested themselves so well. Before the switch to Division II beginning in the 1998 season, Baylor under Coach Etter won region titles in 1975, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995 and 1996 playing against both private and public schools.

During that time, the Red Raiders also reached the state tournament in 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1996.

After the switch to Division II, they played in the state tournament in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2014. As mentioned, they also won the state in 2003 and 2006, and were state runners-up in 2002 and 2008.

Winning his first state championship in 2003 after being runner-up the year before was especially sweet for him.

“It was wonderful and a huge relief for me as we had been knocking on the door several times,” he said. The Red Raiders lost the opening game of the eight-team tournament, but beat perennial obstacle Christian Brothers High School twice before beating Webb School of Knoxville in the final game.

He also said the 2006 win was special because Christian Brothers that year was nationally ranked going into the tournament.

“We had never had that before,” he said. “They were No. 12 (in the nation), but in the state tournament we beat them twice.”

He also takes pride in the individual development of his players. He said that an average of about three players a season either signed with a college to play baseball or were drafted to play professional baseball.

Among his star players over the years were Greg Smith, Archie Smith, Alan Carmichael, Wes Hodges and Tyler Massey, among many others. Hodges and Massey have been on major league spring training rosters, but to date none of his former players has appeared in a big league regular season game, he said.

He has also seen some spectacularly singular feats. Lee Dyer, who played on his early teams with future Georgia Bulldogs infielder Tony Ridge and is now an NFL official, hit grand slams in consecutive games, Coach Etter recalled.

Coach Etter said he initially thought football coaching involved much more strategy than baseball, but as the years have passed, he has realized how to apply more strategy to baseball.

“It dawned on me that pitching is where the main strategy would come in,” he said.

He also began watching and analyzing instructional videos, as well as giving individual lessons, and learned a player’s style can definitely be improved.

“I got into studying mechanics,” he said. “Until that time I didn’t like changing somebody’s swing. But if 80 percent of the major league players were doing it one way, we tried to get them to do that.”

One aspect about Coach Etter that did not change over the years was his record of never getting tossed out of a game for arguing with an umpire. He said he came close once during his early years when he was playing a game at the old Rossville High School field. The Rossville centerfielder caught a fly ball in an area where the fence was open, and the player appeared to be outside the fence, but the umpires called it an out.

“I kept going back to each umpire, and one finally said they would have to throw me out if I continued,” he recalled with a smile.

As a result, he backed down, but he later heard that the centerfielder thought the hit was a home run.

Because his wife, Eddie, is continuing to work at Baylor year-round in the athletic office as she has for a number of years, and he is normally off during the summer, retirement so far does not feel that much different. But he said it likely will beginning this fall.

He has no solid retirement plans other than to spend more time with their children and grandchildren. Son Todd Etter, an early and longtime executive with the Motley Fool financial services company, lives in the Washington, D.C., area, while their daughter, Honey Hopkins, lives in the Nashville area. Each has two children.

When he does return to Baylor, it will still feel like home, and not just because he spent so much time at Wyatt McMahan Field. Thanks to Baylor, his No. 1 has been retired, and a metal sign now hangs in the outfield to recognize the honor.

School officials also announced that the whole complex of fields down by the river will be named for him as well.

“Either one of those things is beyond what I really deserve, but I appreciate it,” he said. “They are special.”

Click here to hear the interview.

Jcshearer2@comcast.net