Randy Smith
It's been 51 years since I played my first snap of organized football. I was 13 years old and entering the eighth grade at Madison Junior High School. We had more than 50 boys on the roster for our seventh and eighth grade team, and just one coach. I always held Coach Jimmy Graves in high regard because he very seldom had anyone to help him with drills or any other part of the game, yet we won a few games and he rode herd over five units. I started out on the third team defense and quickly climbed to the second squad until I broke my wrist in a "fumble drill".
I only played two more seasons after that first year, and spent more time on the sidelines due to injuries than I ever did on the field.
You had to be tough to play football back then however. We would practice in the August heat for two hours or more, with no water breaks. None. If we asked for water, we were sometimes forced to run an extra lap or drill or two. We were always given salt tablets before practice which made the thirst even worse. ( I never really figured out the principle behind salt tablets) Yet to my knowledge I never remember anyone passing out during practice.When it got really, really hot I can remember a few of my teammates searching out the nearest mud hole to quench their thirst.
We had a drill called "Rose Alley". This was where everyone on the team would line up in twos, leaving a couple of feet between the lines. One player would then run down the middle of the aisle taking hits from guys on each side of the line. This was bad enough when you took shots to the face with a face guard on your helmet. The first few weeks of practice my helmet did not have a face mask and by the time I had journeyed through the mid-way point of the "alley" my face was bloodied and when I reached the end of the line, I was mad enough to fight. Why did I not have a face mask you ask? Because in the beginning of pre-season drills, equipment was handed out in alphabetical order. By the time Coach Graves reached the S's all the good helmets were gone. There were more than a few of us using helmets with no facial protection in the beginning.
I know you might find this hard to believe but I walked to and from school a lot. My house was about a mile and a half from Madison High School and I walked practically every day for years. On the way home I would stop in the "Food Town" grocery and buy a quart of orange drink. I would down it in less than two minutes but it took care of me until I got home, where I drank another quart of ice water. We survived because we stayed hydrated. In 1964, we also didn't have air conditioning, so in the really hot months, if we needed to get cool, we sprayed ourselves with the water hose and sat under a shade tree. We stayed outside until ten or eleven o'clock and when we came inside it was still warmer in the house than it was in the yard. We didn't have video games or television to watch, (only soap operas and game shows) so if we needed to cool off we went outside. Can you imagine telling your kids today to "go outside and cool off?
We weren't necessarily tougher than players today, but our bodies were more naturally conditioned to face the hot weather. When I think about the salt tablets and no water breaks during practice I still cringe and wonder how we ever survived. Believe it or not, I would love to go back and practice another time or two with Coach Graves; but only if we had plenty of salt tablets to go around and a face mask on my helmet.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.
His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.
He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.
In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.