The 1970’s were a really good time to be an ETSU Lion. The Football team won a conference and national title in 1972 and posted a successful decade record, Men’s Basketball won 5 conference titles and went to the NAIA tournament 4 times, Track continued it’s dominance, and Women’s sports were starting to grab a…
Some of you might remember a few diatribes ago I went a bit of a controlled rant where I basically said that the music played before and during the games was tawdry, disgusting, awful, tasteless, classless, and just flat out unfriendly to the human ear. In the aftermath of that, I had a lot of…
After a challenging first four years at East Texas State University, Jim Gudger had gotten the Lions back to where they had been in the previous decades. He had them winning conference championships, making the NAIA postseason, making deep runs, and winning the conference tournament championships. He had the program among the elite in the…
I did not live through the 1970’s, but ask anyone who was there, times changed, and the ways of doing thing had changed. One thing had not changed, and that was Jim Gudger’s powerful East Texas State Men’s Basketball team. 1975 had been gotten the Lions a conference title, but not a chance to get…
Chances are you are you wearing something that is the product of a crop that millions of Americans in the South and the United States have picked, harvested, and planted for over 300 years. Cotton. Many songs have been written about it, especially if it was by a person who picked cotton as a kid.…
Basketball changes, that is just the nature of the game. Even if the game itself does not change, because after all, the whole point is to put a leather ball in a round hoop and do it more times than the other team, things still change, and in the 1974-1975 season, things were changing more…
It is hard to believe that East Texas A&M University has completed it’s transition to being a full fledged of NCAA Division I’s athletic establishment. Last night on The Call The Roll Podcast I discussed Men’s Basketball and scheduling big names came up during the podcast. It also got me thinking that now that our…
When Norman Pilgrim left Commerce after a decade at the helm with two LSC titles and two NAIA appearances, one of Pilgrim’s players, Phil Andrews took over for one season and the results was a 9-18 season. It was a time for the ET athletic department to look for a coach who was seasoned and…
Back in 2016, something happened that really showed me some of us Lions have a lot to learn when it comes to “fansmanship.” After a 5-0 start, the Lions faced the always tough Bill Maskill coached Midwestern State Mustangs. It was a game in Commerce on a beautiful fall evening and it was another big…
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