The History of this History

How it came to be...

I've always loved history. Primarily sports history, but all history. I love learning how things were in the past. Life was much harder and so much of what we take for granted today didn't exist then. My love of history, sports, and numbers is prevalent throughout this project. For me, it's the perfect mix.

I've searched for a reason to write a book for a long time. I never felt like I had anything to say that was unique. However, as the concept of this book developed in my mind, and the information came to me so factual and provable, I am convinced that this is my 'big project' and will be information that will last forever because I have documented it on paper. It's the facts, sourced and solid.

However, I'm not ready to publish the book yet so I'm starting with this website. Enjoy this information while it is free. I will post at least once a week beginning March 1, 2025, my 66th birthday.

As the play-by-play voice of the Tullahoma Wildcats, I have intently watched some 400 games during the past 40 years, which is about 40% of every THS football game ever played. In the past few months, I received previously dormant THS football information, originally compiled by my cousin, the late Tommy Allen. Because he was meticulous and because he sourced every score he had, I began to backtrack and discovered his information was factual and reliable.

I'm not aware of any other collection of Tullahoma football information that anyone has that compares with what I have gathered. If you know someone, let me know. Otherwise, this information should be considered factual and truthful, as well as the official history of Tullahoma football.

I had Tommy Allen as a Geography teacher at East Junior High School in the early 1970s. Although the class was called geography, it was more like a history class. I loved it, and he and I talked often after class about random topics, including a lot of sports.

In 1985, after beginning my broadcast career in 1984, Tommy invited me to his house to see his collection of Tullahoma football memorabilia. He had a lot and I was impressed. He said he hoped to write a book someday.

He never wrote that book and passed away in 2011. He gave his information to Pat Welsh, who told me about it. That was the first time I thought, "If Tommy had what I remember, I would love to see it."

However, life continued and I never got the information from Pat. When Tullahoma won the state championship in 2021, I knew I had a bestseller on my hands if I could only get all the facts. You can't write a complete history of a subject unless you have all the facts and can trust those facts without reservation.

But Covid was still happening and I had basketball and baseball games to broadcast, so I kept putting off getting the information from Pat until 2024, when I learned that John Olive had found a document that listed all of Tullahoma's football scores from 1922-1974.

That was the information I wanted, and I thank Coach Olive for giving it to me without reservation. However, the information had inaccuracies, which made it unreliable and questionable. As it turns out, it had many, many mistakes.

That led me back to Pat, and Tommy's information. When I went to pick it up, Pat showed me a notebook where Tommy had documented every season. I saw the sources (newspapers, annuals, game programs, etc.) and knew I had hit paydirt. His collection is spectacular and includes not only detailed documentation of THS, but also the football history of Tullahoma Middle School, Coffee County, and Moore County.

I have spent and continue to spend significant time collecting this information and molding it into an interesting and informative narrative. I hope you enjoy it.

1936 Tullahoma Wildcats

Head Coach: G. Lloyd Seay

Record: 8-0-2

Captains: Edward Holder/William Cope

Central Tennessee Conference Champions

1936 brought new beginnings to Wildcat football. Coming off a one-win season, L.C. Perry resigned as head coach, and G. Lloyd Seay, who had coached the basketball team the year before, took over the football program. All Seay did in his first season was lead Tullahoma to an unbeaten season and the school's first Central Tennessee Conference (CTC) championship.

The conference was formed after the 1933 season and included Tullahoma, Shelbyville, Manchester, Winchester, Chapel Hill, Wartrace, Lynchburg, and Decherd. The Wildcats added non-conference Lebanon, South Pittsburg, Murfreesboro, and Sewanee Military Academy.

Head Coach G. Lloyd Seay

The season opened with six straight shutouts, including 0-0 ties with Shelbyville and Murfreesboro and a 59-0 trouncing of Wartrace.

Tullahoma's defense was spectacular, one of the best in school history. The only blemishes allowed were a 25-6 win over Winchester, a 7-6 win over Lynchburg (THS only played the Blue Raiders five times after this, with the final two margins being 72-2 and 75-6), and an 8-7 win over Manchester.

Allowing only 19 points (1.9 points per game) in 10 games, statistically the 1936 defense is the best in THS history.

Seay compiled a 39-12-3 record in his first stint as head coach (1936-1940) and a 40-21-6 record in his second stint (1944-1949). His overall record of 79-33-9 is No. 2 in wins behind John Olive and No. 2 in winning percentage (66%) behind George 'Red' Swing.

Tom Brixey & Red Arnold

Two of the Wildcats' finest players from the 1930s went on to fame elsewhere. Tom Brixey starred at UT and became a war hero, while Red Arnold was a Little All-American at Middle Tennessee State College.

Escaped Prisoners

While going about your daily life in 1942, you might have been on the lookout for these escaped German prisoners of war. Thank goodness they were captured in a barn near Bowling Green.

Camp Forrest Football

Wildcat football wasn't the only game in town in 1942. A group of Camp Forrest soldiers traveled to Neyland Stadium and lost to the UT Freshmen 51-0. Thus far, there is no other recording of Camp Forrest playing football.

A Break in the Pot

When you ask people why Tullahoma and Coffee County didn't play the 'Coffee Pot' game in 1943 and 1944, they tend to believe it had something to do with the war effort. Lots of folks have told me that. It did not.

The Coffee Pot was not played those two years because in 1942, during a 6-6 tie that broke Tullahoma's six-game winning streak, there were multiple altercations between fans of the two squads. Tensions were high before, during, and after the game.

Officials from both cities met following the contest, with Manchester refusing to play, even though it was a conference game. Considering the tremendous success the Wildcats had during the early 40s, it was no surprise that our neighbors to the north thought it best not to play each other for the next couple of years.

From 1940-42 the Wildcats won 30 games, lost three, and tied 2, including three Central Tennessee Conference titles. The 'Cats averaged 22 points a game while giving up only four per game defensively.

Adding the six-game winning streak that Tullahoma ended the 1939 season with and the 10 straight victories that opened the 1944 season, the Cats won 45 of 50 games with 29 shutouts and five consecutive CTC championships.

The Central Tennessee Conference is formed

The Central Tennessee Conference was born on October 3, 1935, at a meeting in Tullahoma. Membership included Chapel Hill, Decherd, Lynchburg, Manchester, Shelbyville, Tullahoma, Wartrace, and Winchester.

The officers were R.N. Chenault of Tullahoma, president; R.E. Bruner of Decherd, secretary-treasurer; and Foster Rhoton of Winchester, vice president.

Since it was already October, they voted to award Shelbyville the 1935 baseball trophy and made plans to award the football champion, which turned out to be Manchester. They agreed to meet in November to arrange basketball schedules.

That is where the structure of high school sports as we know it started in southern middle Tennessee. I’m sure there were months of discussions before that first official meeting, determining who to invite and how to schedule.

Perhaps they considered and may have invited Fayetteville (who would join soon), Lewisburg, McMinnville, and Murfreesboro if they were not already in another conference, but I don’t know that for a fact. However, since Tullahoma played them almost every year, I imagine other conference members played them consistently. For whatever reason, they didn’t make the cut.

The newly created CTC featured Tullahoma for its lifetime (about 40 years). Unless otherwise noted, it included Manchester, Shelbyville, and Winchester for those 40 years. We will document as Chapel Hill, Decherd, Lynchburg, and Wartrace fade out of the conference and others join.

In addition to football, boys and girls basketball, baseball, and softball, the conference decided to have competitions in reading and ‘declamation’, then award a conference champion at the end of the academic year based on a points system.

It lasted until the 70s when the TSSAA took over with its playoff system. Tullahoma won more CTC football championships than any other school.

While all that was happening, in 1935, the Tullahoma Wildcats were winless and hardly competitive on the football field.

The end of the 1935 season brought a close to the first ‘era’ of Wildcat football, and although the Cats had posted winning seasons in three of their first four seasons, overall, the first 14 years were a struggle.

However, the struggle led to incredible success. Tullahoma won seven consecutive CTC titles and didn't have a losing season for the next dozen years.

2005 Cats Upset Beech

Coming off of losing seasons in 2003 and 2004, the 2005 Tullahoma Wildcats turned winning close games into an art form in the first half of the season, winning four out of their first five by a total of nine points.

The Cats opened beating Franklin Co. 24-21, then Hillsboro 21-20 and Coffee Co. 16-14.

Game four featured the most rushing yards ever gained on a Tullahoma Wildcat football field as Maplewood's Terrence Holt rushed for 382 yards in a 25-14 Panther win. At the time, Holt's yardage was the second-most in TSSAA history, but since then, Holt has been wiped off the leaderboard by multiple 400+ yard games and two 500+ yard rushing games.

Tullahoma recovered by edging Warren Co. 20-17, then pounded Shelbyville 34-3 and edged Lawrence Co. 7-0. The Cats fell to Whites Creek before beating Stratford and Hickman Co. to end the regular season 8-2 and the No. 4 seed in Region 5-4A.

The Wildcats boarded the buses and went to Sumner County to play Beech, also 8-2 and the No. 1 seed from region 6-4A. In the first half, Tullahoma missed two short field goals, but halfway through the third quarter, Cass Barnes connected with Bobby Dowdell for a 22-yard TD following a 66-yard run by Ryan Bean. After forcing a Beech fumble, Barnes connected with Cameron Greenway from 31 yards away for the final score.

Tullahoma finished the season 9-3 after falling to Whites Creek 28-7 in Nashville in round two.

The first school in Tullahoma opened in 1853 and was taught by the mother of James Aydelott, one of Tullahoma’s founding fathers. In 1867, after the Civil War, the Masonic Lodge opened the Masonic Institute. However, both schools burned (everything was made of wood).

In 1872, the Methodist Church founded Tullahoma College. It continued until 1886, when the first municipal school opened on South Jackson Street with 350 students and six teachers.

The city began building Jesse Mae Aydelott College in 1892 on East Lincoln Street with money donated by its citizens. The beautiful structure was operated by the Woolwine School of Nashville. Then Francis W. Lee operated it for one year, followed by H. Sheffrey Roller, Joseph T. Farris, and W.H. Pritchett (1899-1900).

In 1904, Martin College for Girls, under the leadership of Dr. B.F. Haynes, moved its operation to Tullahoma after its building burned in Pulaski. In 1906, the school on East Lincoln became the University of Middle Tennessee under Dr. Enoch Fritter. In 1911, W.S. Fitzgerald and W.L. Clarke bought the school, and Fitzgerald & Clarke began.

Around 2:30 pm on March 22, a fire began in the southeast corner of the kitchen. A defective flute is believed to be the cause. A stiff wind fanned the flames into a roaring furnace, and within an hour, the magnificent three-story building was in ruins. The military barracks had burned the year earlier, so all that was left was the gymnasium and a small cottage in the back. Students completed the school year in the gymnasium.

When F&C burned in early 1922, the City of Tullahoma had a decision to make. With the value of high school education increasing due to the industrial revolution, and the appetite for high school football rising after the success of F&C, city leaders decided to build a new high school on the old F&C site.

1972 Melvin Woodard

After leading the Wildcats in rushing during the 1972 season, including a 188-yard performance against Riverdale in the season opening 14-7 win, Melvin Woodard, a quick-twitch junior, carried the ball 37 times for 244 yards in a 14-14 tie with Fayetteville on October 30 in Lincoln County.

The game was played in a steady rain in front of an estimated crowd of only 250 fans. As is still true today, penalties were frequent and untimely against the Cats in Fayetteville. In this game, a 70-yard touchdown pass from Ricky Cheshire to Ricky Pless was called back for a clipping penalty. Pless scored the first Wildcat touchdown, but the PAT was no good.

Trailing 14-6 with 1:28 left to play, Cheshire connected with future Tennessee Volunteer Jimmy Duvall for the final Tullahoma score. Woodard scored the game-tying two-point conversion. Woodard led Tullahoma in rushing in 1972 with 764 yards.

1928 Tullahoma Wildcats

Head Coach: Earl Shanks

Record: 3-5-0

Captain: H. Clay Evans

THS 13 Wartrace 0

THS 30 Bridgeport, AL 0

THS 13 Tracey City 0

THS 0 Lynchburg 6

THS 0 Murfreesboro 33

THS 0 Chapel Hill 19

THS 0 Manchester 19
THS 6 Shelbyville 7

It is easy to imagine the excitement that the entire city had about the new high school. Located on the East side of town, it was only a few blocks from the railroad tracks that divide Tullahoma, and we can safely assume that almost every student either walked to school or rode their bicycle. There was no pickup line, rather likely some mothers who met their students and walked them home.

Mothers didn’t work much in 1928. That wouldn’t explode until WW2. Because South Jackson School was considered the middle of town, getting to the new school from the west and south ends of town was a significant haul. There were no sidewalks and very few houses, and remember Tullahoma was known as ‘Mud City’ during the Civil War, so it’s likely the walk or ride to school was not easy, especially in bad weather.

Tullahoma was a water resort city in the 1920s, People came from all over the world to use our natural spring water as a medical or relaxation tool. Multiple facilities housed visitors and featured spring water baths. It was what Tullahoma was known for in 1928. The same water that sprouted Jack Daniels and George Dickel brought tourists to Tullahoma.

On the gridiron, the Wildcats welcomed their fourth head coach in seven years. The first two were winners. The third was a disaster. In the fall of ’28, the new students were introduced to Earl Shanks. Earl either disliked Tullahoma or was run out of town after a losing year. Although his team started well, it finished the season looking much like an Earnest Setliff squad.

After outscoring the first three opponents 56-0, the Wildcats were outscored 84-6 over the final five contests. A lot more work had to be done for the ‘Cats to regain their winning ways, which must have seemed a long time ago to fans in 1928.

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