by John Shearer
posted October 2, 2009
) The late Tom Smoot in his Baylor football uniform. |
“I can remember waking up in bed afraid to try to move my limbs,” he said this week. “Everybody was terrified.”
Bob Neyland, the son of then-University of Tennessee football coach Gen. Robert Neyland and another boarding student from Knoxville at the then-military and all-male prep school, has similarly terrifying memories.
In fact, he had been in a car with another Knoxville classmate and football teammate, Tom Smoot, a short time before Smoot came down with polio-related symptoms and later died.
“Naturally I was kind of worried there for awhile,” the current Nashville resident said.
This weekend, these two and approximately two dozen of their classmates are gathering in Chattanooga for their 60th reunion. Besides remembering the good and fun times as classmates do, they will also continue nurturing their unique bond.
“It just developed a camaraderie among the class, and it has hung on for the last 60 years,” said Mr. Denton.
The class has also realized that, even though polio took a life, it never took the group’s will and spirit.
“We bonded because we shared something very important to us in the crisis of polio,” said Dr. Larry Bauman, an Atlanta area United Methodist minister and another classmate.
Although polio was eradicated in the United States after Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine in 1955, recent fears over the H1N1 flu virus have made the concerns of the Baylor students at the time easier to comprehend.
The Baylor crisis had struck the football team members, and theories have speculated that they may have contracted the spreadable disease by eating ice out of the same bucket at a practice or a game.
Besides Smoot, three other students – Pat Brooks, Hugh Chapman, and Jack Wright -- suffered some form of paralysis. Mr. Brooks is the only one of the three still living and is unable to attend the reunion, although he has sent a touching letter that Mr. Denton is to read to the gathering.
Three other classmates -- Bauman, Phil Kistler, and future millionaire Coca-Cola bottler Frank Harrison, who was remembered as a regular guy by his Baylor classmates -- had mild symptoms.
The school was also forced to close its doors for several weeks and cancel the football season after one game, realizing it had a far greater opponent with which to deal.
As the crisis finally passed and students returned to school, headmaster Herb Barks Sr., football coach Humpy Heywood and other staff members and school officials drew praise not only for their adept handling of the tense situation, but also for their compassion.
However, they and all the students had a heavy heart over the death of Smoot, who had been transferred to a Knoxville hospital near his family’s home before he died. His best friend at Baylor had been future Chattanooga automobile dealer John Hicks.
Smoot’s story was especially disheartening because he was the class president and the football captain, who would likely have played major college football.
“You don’t find many people who excelled the way he did in both areas,” said Mr. Neyland, adding that Smoot was the strongest player on the team and seemed the least likely to succumb to a disease like polio.
Mr. Denton agreed. “He was a natural leader,” he said. “And talk about being tough on a football field. When he hit you, it hurt.”
Smoot’s younger brother, Al Smoot, who graduated from Baylor in 1955 and planned to travel to the reunion from his home in Minnesota, would often only get to see his brother during school breaks. However, he cherished the times he did see him.
“Tom was always my mentor,” he said. “Tom was sort of the star of the family.”
As the years have passed, the Baylor Class of 1949 has continued to come to terms with the tragedy of long ago in a collective sort of way.
“The bonding that took place in our class was not because we loved each other so much, but that we shared a common grief and love for Tom Smoot,” said Dr. Bauman.
Besides the collective bond, Mr. Denton said he also takes solace nowadays in the fact that a cure for the horrible and crippling disease of polio was eventually found.
"When I think about Baylor, I think about how lucky I was to see my two kids take the sugar cubes and know that they would never have to face what I and the others went through,” he said with emotion.
 Photo by John ShearerPete Denton and his wife, Bobbie. |
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