Randy Smith
Several people down through the years have told me, "You should write a book." They were focusing on my career as a sports broadcaster and all the interesting people I've met and interviewed. Well, I finally wrote a book but it had nothing at all to do with me. It took seven years to write "Seasons of Change," a book about my Uncle's girls basketball team in middle Tennessee in the 1960s. Now why would anyone have an interest in reading about girls basketball in Tennessee almost 50 years ago? Well, the actual story is better than Hoosiers; I only hope I've done a good job in telling it.
The Waverly Tigerettes were the first integrated team to ever play for a state championship in Tennessee.
Waverly was coached by my Uncle Gene Trotter who was my hero when I was a kid and still is to this day. He had a player named Sally Smith who was absolutely the best female basketball player I ever saw, and I've seen Chamique Holdsclaw, Candace Parker and all the greats play. Sally was ahead of her time. She shot a jump shot like the boys did before girls ever thought about it. She averaged 46 points per game as a senior when she led Waverly to a perfect 33-0 season and a state championship. In just three seasons she scored just under 4,000 points and would likely have had 5,000 or more but she was an all mid-state guard for Waverly as a freshman. Keep in mind this was the 1960s when girls in Tennessee played six on six half court basketball and guards couldn't score. Also this was before the three point shot and looking at shooting charts from back then, Sally would have easily averaged almost sixty points per game.
That's interesting enough, but the real story is what Sally and her teammates went through just to be able to play basketball. Being cursed, spit upon and being banned from certain venues was part of everyday life for African-American athletes in the 1960s. First, Sally had to win over her teammates and classmates at Waverly, then the battle involved fans, opponents and even officials. Signs in the stands saying, "Nigger go home" were a regular occurrence. But Sally handled things as well as anyone could have. She just smiled and kept her focus through her career which didn't end in high school. She would go on to become the first African-American woman to ever be named a college basketball All-American, when she played at Nashville Business College. This was long before the NCAA opened it's doors for women to play basketball.
This story is special to me because I witnessed a lot of it first-hand. I was a high school junior when Waverly won the state title in 1968. I watched Sally play as a guard in her freshman season when I was an eighth grader and followed the team closely. Heck, I even kept a scrapbook. The book is simply done and a very quick read, and yes I have plenty of pictures.
I began this labor of love in 2009 and I got the idea for writing a book when they named the gymnasium at Waverly after my Uncle Gene in 2008. Sally was there that night, driving up from her job as a school administrator in Florida. You may ask, "Why did it take so long to write?" Well I had never written a book before and it took a long time to find a publisher who believed in it. Seven years on an event that took place almost 50 years ago......it is a great story and I have books to sell; books that I can also sign for you. I really don't care how many books I sell; I just want the true story told. I also want publicity for Sally, her teammates and their coach, even if it is fifty years late.
---
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.
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 30 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 five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.