Today it was announced that the late Mike Leach, the former head football coach at Texas Tech, Washington State, and Mississippi State, an innovator in college football and character persona number one in college football, would now be eligible to be in the College Football Hall of Fame. As someone who still is in absolute…
Bob Rogers first season in Commerce saw the Lions go the furthest they ever had as the reached the NAIA Final four, the first of 3 appearances in school history. After countless conference titles and NAIA tournament appearances, it was as ever a time to make another run at a national championship. It would hard…
In the early 1950’s Lion Basketball hit a bit of a rut. Milburn Smith, who would coach arguably the greatest Lion Football team ever in 1952, coached the Lion Basketball team to a 13-9 record in 1950, before taking over a Lion football program that would be dominant from 1951-1953 and then Jack Woodruff came…
When the news broke that the Texas A&M University system was going to finally approve the construction of a new events center that would host our Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams, along with the Volleyball program among other things, I was excited like to much of Lion nation. I also had some ideas that I…
Ask anyone who knows anything about what East Texas State College was like in the 1950’s and many will call it “The Golden Fifties.” In addition to becoming a full fledged State College and making a name for itself as an emerging regional educational power, but would end up being a major collegiate power in…
Year 3 for Darrell Tully’s East Texas State squad was roughly what one would have expected. He had a winning record, contention for conference championships, and in the hunt for the NAIA postseason. It would be his final season before heading south to the Houston area where he would become one of the most notable…
I will never forget my first on campus visit to what was then Texas A&M-Commerce. Spring of 2005. I took my first walk around campus and on the old quad where the Rayburn Student Center used to be, scribbled in chalk there was written RUSH PIKE 2005 or Rush EX and then two large letters…
After 9 seasons and 105 wins, East Texas State basketball coach Dennis Vinzant decided to leave Commerce and hand the reigns over to his trusty assistant Darrell Tully. Tully was not just some assistant coach, he was an all time Lion great way before he took the head basketball coaching job. From 1935-1939, Tully was…
Dennis Vinzant’s East Texas State Teachers College Lions were starting making going to Kansas City a habit at the end of the year, and for the 1942 Lions, it was a start of some adversity that would lay the groundwork for the great teams to come in an era with so much uncertainty. After making…
I have been meaning to write about this for a long, long, time. I love music. I love raw, rockin’, upbeat, tempo driven music. My musical tastes can vary, but I won’t get into what they are because this DI diatribe really isn’t about a need to know about what I like and what I…
Dennis Vinzant’s name is not usually mentioned in the names of the great Lion Basketball coaches, but for the pre World War II era and the college students that made up the greatest generation, it was Vinzant that steadied so much of the athletic department at East Texas State Teacher’s College during that time frame.…
In these chronicles, or tales, or whatever you wish to call them, some of them are longer than others and back in 1936, close to 90 years ago, it is a given that basketball was much different today than it is now. The game has evolved (and for the worst in the past decade if…
It has been so hard to believe that 365 days ago today, Lion Nation lost a fan, a former player, a student of sports and sports writing, and a Lion of Old ET to the core. Others lost a husband, a loving father, and I lost my best friend. Russell McLean’s passing this time last…
J.V. Sikes is a coaching legend in the annals of East Texas State Lion history. A northeast Texas native from Leonard, Sikes was a 3 sport letterman at Texas A&M University before he got into coaching. In 1929, Sikes left Southeast Texas and came north to coach the freshman at East Texas State Teachers College…
Mark Twain once said about the game of golf, that “Golf is a good walk that is spoiled.” I know that first hand. I have been learning how to play the game for the past 5 years and I slowly but surely am getting better, but I hate the slowly part. That being said, being…
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