It was with sadness that I

received the news that the 2003 season would be the last for the football

team of East Tennessee State University. With the final game mere weeks

away, the curtain is falling on 83 years of Buccaneer gridiron glory.

Well, maybe there wasn't always a great deal of glory but there was loads

of history and tradition.

The first season for the football

team of then-East Tennessee State College in Johnson City, Tenn., was

1920. According to the alumni magazine, ETSU Today, the Bucs lost their

first two games to Carson-Newman College and Milligan College by a combined

score of 85-0. The team won their next three games to finish 3-2, although,

since the wins were over local high schools (Greeneville, Washington College

Academy, and Johnson City), the sports world didn't exactly stand up and

take notice. Still, it was a beginning.

In 1938, the school won its

first football championship by finishing 6-2 in the Smoky Mountain Conference.

The victories came over Carson-Newman College, Milligan College, Union

College, Cumberland College, Tusculum College, and Maryville College.

The losses came at the hands of Eastern Kentucky and King College.

During the 1960s, the team

won two more championships. In 1962, ETSU won the Ohio Valley Championship

and, in 1969, repeated the feat. The team saw it's best season ever in

1969 by going 10-0-1 and earning a trip to the Grantland Rice Bowl in

Baton Rouge, La. The Bucs won the bowl game over Louisiana Tech and their

storied quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, who would go on to the National Football

League and earn four Super Bowl Rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not

bad for a team that got its first three victories over local high schools!

The Buccaneers then had a string

of eight straight losing seasons before going 7-4 in 1979. In 1987, the

Bucs took a 4-4 record into the game against heavily favored North Carolina

State. In perhaps the most notable victory in the history of the school,

ETSU beat the Wolfpack 29-14. On Nov. 30, 1996, the Bucs achieved ten

victories for the second time in the team's history and also won its first

playoff victory by defeating Villanova. In 2000, ETSU defeated Furman,

ranked 6th in the nation and, in 2001, the Bucs downed Number 1-ranked

Georgia Southern for the first and only victory over a Number 1-ranked

team in the history of the school.

Yet, ETSU's football team has

always been overshadowed by its neighbor 90 miles to the southwest, the

University of Tennessee Volunteers. Even in Johnson City, there are probably

more UT fans than ETSU fans. And the UT program is a moneymaker while

ETSU's football program has been losing over a million dollars a year.

In the end, it wasn't about history, or tradition, or even wins and losses

and the dream of championships. In the end it all came down to money.

East Tennessee State is my

alma mater but I have to confess that, even while I was on campus, I only

went to a few football games. After the Marine Corps, I talked to one

of the coaches about becoming a walk-on but, in the end, that decision

was about money, too. I had a wife and son to house, clothe, and feed

and that, along with the course load, didn't leave room for history, tradition,

or even the dream of being a part of the football history of a mid-size

college.

But there were hundreds and

hundreds of young men who, year after year for over 80 seasons, would

put on the cleats, wear the blue and gold, and compete in the heat, in

the rain, and in the snow for hard fought victories or suffer bitter losses

on their own small field of dreams nestled away in the hills of eastern

Tennessee. Most would never see an NFL contract-- and nationally televised

games, a weekly expectation for teams like the University of Tennessee,

would forever remain an elusive fantasy. But it was college football and

its best, devoid of scandal and untainted by the greed of millions of

dollars and endorsements. For over 80 years, ETSU's Buccaneers played

for one reason-the love of the game. It's a shame that next year and for

the years after that the 13,000 seats in ETSU's domed stadium will be

empty and silent.

Maybe it's true that all good

things do come to an end, but one doesn't have to like it.

[David Epps is rector of Christ

the King Charismatic Episcopal Church, which meets at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Sundays on Ga. Highway 34 between Peachtree City and Newnan. He may be

contacted at [email protected] or at www.CTKCEC.org. Some of the

material in this article was obtained from the Fall 2003 issue of ETSU

Today.]