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 part of the ET student experience. By the end of the decade, the Lions had won 5 national titles in 4 team sports, and despite the success of the other sports, tennis was the name of the game during that time, starting with the 1972 season.
Redlands College of California had won 6 straight team national titles in Men’s tennis and the Lions had finished as national runners up in 1963 and 1965, but 1972 would be the end of that at the hands of the Lions. On June 9, 1972, the Lions tennis team won its first national tennis championship in program history. Dr. Bill Crabtree, Lion Hall of Fame and LSC Hall of Honor coach along with standout players Harry Fritz led the Lions throughout the season to the Lone Star Conference championship. Fritz won the National Singles Championship in straight sets and joined teammate Bob Hochstadter to win the National Doubles Championship. The Lions finished the national tournament with 37 points, winning by two points over Redlands.
In the Lone Star Conference championship tournament, the Lions fielded both participants in the final match of the Singles Tournament and also both teams that competed for the Doubles Championship. Fritz and Hochstadter would go on to win First Team All-America honors and both also earned First Team All-Conference honors. Teammates John Blackmon and John McGee won Second Team All-LSC honors.
6 years later and during his 19th and final season as head coach, Coach Crabtree and the 1978 ETSU tennis team won the fifth national title in university history and the second in program history along with its 12th Lone Star Conference championship in 15 years.
Led by First Team All-Americans Bruce Gibson, Jeff Gibson and Steve Starleaf, the Lions won the LSC Championship over Stephen F. Austin. Bruce and Jeff Gibson defeated Angelo State in the LSC Doubles Championship and Jeff Gibson also won the singles title. The Gibson brothers both were named First Team All-LSC.
The Lions headed to nationals and beat Atlantic Christian by three points to earn their second national title under Crabtree. No. 1 Seed Bruce and Jeff Gibson outlasted No. 3 seed John Mattke and Paul Holback of Gustavus Adolphus, coming from behind to win in three sets to claim the doubles championship.
It would be the final national championship the Lions would win in a team sport until the 2017 football team got the athletic program back to it’s winning ways, with both Men’s and Women’s tennis teams folding in the 1990’s, aside from the increase in cost of playing as a member of the NCAA Division II after leaving the NAIA in 1982. One day, hopefully there will be enough money in the war chest to bring these programs back and hang banners on a top notch tennis facility, but until then, it is up those of us who bleed blue and gold to remember to tell the tales of the great East Texas State Tennis teams of yesteryear.
East Texas State Men’s Tennis-
Lone Star Conference Champions-1933, 1941, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1987
National Runners Up-1963, 1965
NAIA National Champions-1972, 1978
The Lion Wire 
Brian,
In the previous “The Lion Wire”, I enjoyed reading your excellent historical reporting on the University athletic teams. Always crisp and relevant. One minor point that was mentioned. The Music Department ascended to a Music School, not a college as reported. Still, a significant achievement and one that you take pride in noting as all alumni should.
I hope that you had an opportunity to read the news article concerning the recent acquisition of an 1897 degree from the University. Ms. Kristin Segar of the Marketing Communications Office at the University wrote a wonderful, informative article about the acquisition of this historic artifact and what it means to the University.
On a separate note, I noticed recently on Google News, several articles that appeared in the “North Texas Daily”, the student newspaper for the University of North Texas. The articles themselves were of modest interest though it was interesting to me to see that North Texas still publishes both a digital and weekly student administered University newspaper. “The North Texas Daily” was first published in 1916. Sadly, the former student administered weekly campus newspaper, “The East Texan”, began publication in 1915, a year prior to “The North Texas Daily” and ceased operation several years ago. “The East Texan” was one of the oldest campus newspapers in the State and beyond and like so many other aspects of the University’s vaunted historical legacy, no longer is in operation.
The responsible person or people who made the decision to cease operation of “The East Texan” are probably no longer on campus, but the affects of their decision continues to reverberate throughout the University as a major source to project University news items that is no longer available. That is bad enough on its face, but that no one on campus has even thought of the myriad reasons why resumption of “The East Texan” could constitute a meaningful and vibrant source of information concerning the University and, in turn, contribute to institutional identity and presence to those on campus and beyond baffles me. Whatever reasons that were given for cessation of “The East Texan” several years ago should be reassessed in current terms. East Texas A&M University continues to suffer with an identity problem, in part, because of periodic name changes and poor projection of the University brand. My modest efforts to promote the University are often greeted by disdain or being simply ignored. But those efforts are merely one person’s attempt to elevate their collegiate alma mater and nothing more. I declined “Alumni Ambassador” recognition because current University leadership would have presented the certificate to me. A small gesture to be sure, but one that did impact personally on me and one that few other alumni would have done under similar circumstances.
The University’s recent advancement to R2 status in the Carnegie research ranking scale was positive news to be sure. What is the problem? When TAMUC was advanced to R2 status six years ago along with Baylor, SMU, UTD, Texas Tech, UTA and other schools, all founded AFTER East Texas A&M University, they all moved to R1 status in the interim while ETAMU regressed back to R3 (that is no longer a research categorical ranking). So, the fanfare about ETAMU advancing to Carnegie R2 status, while a positive development, is hardly as significant as University leadership would like for us to believe particularly when we were already there six years ago. The game bird research facility is probably central to the University’s return to R2 status and whether we will remain at that level or regress once again remains to be seen. Advancement to R1 status requires, among other things, an annual research budget of 5 million or more. That will be a bridge too far for ETAMU with current leadership. But somehow many similarly situation institutions are now R!, all of which were founded AFTER ETAMU. That should tell someone something.
Best,
Ted
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