‘A vigorous competitor, strong on sniffing out a good story and then getting it’
By Tom Mattingly
In the days Knoxville had two newspapers, the morning Knoxville Journal and the afternoon Knoxville News-Sentinel, each paper covered the sporting scene locally, regionally, and nationally with a spirited, but friendly, rivalry.
Ed Harris worked with the Journal on a part-time basis while attending Knoxville High School. He was on the police beat before shifting to sports. He spent two years at the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and in Chattanooga before becoming news editor at the Journal.
He became sports editor in 1939 and kept that position until 1969 around a stint in the Army after Pearl Harbor. Harris then became executive sports editor, a position he held until he retired May 31, 1974.
“He was a down-to-earth-type guy who would have been a plus for any newspaper,” long-time colleague Ben Byrd said.
Harris was inducted into the Tennessee Sportswriters Hall of Fame July 9, 2013, at Cumberland College in Lebanon.
Ed wrote his “Top of the Morning” column two or three times per week for 35 years. He covered the University of Tennessee football program and enjoyed a fine relationship with head coach Bob Neyland.
“In our business, Ed has always been a vigorous competitor, strong on sniffing out a good story and then getting it,” wrote the News-Sentinel’s Tom Siler on June 3, 1974, just after Harris had retired. “Ed can look back on more than four decades of fruitful labor in this vineyard.”
One of Ed’s significant career accomplishments was publishing a book titled “Golden Memories of Ed Harris: 50 Years in Big Orange Country” (1972). It was a compendium of articles Harris had assembled over the years, complete with pictures and text covering his time at the Journal.
There are more vignettes than time and space will allow, but one story stood out from the rest. Harris chronicled a seminal moment of Bill Battle’s first season as University of Tennessee head football coach, the 11-1 squad that finished No. 4 in the nation and won its final 10 games. It was the first of many challenges Battle would face.
After head coach Doug Dickey had left for Florida in early January 1970, Battle took the reins of the Vol program at age 28, taking over an unranked team, despite being the defending SEC champion.
Steve Kiner and Jack “Hacksaw” Reynolds, both All-American selections, Kiner in 1968-69 and Reynolds (1969) were gone to the professional ranks. Three starters were missing in the secondary. A host of sophomores—Conrad Graham, David Allen, John Wagster, Bill Emendorfer, Jamie Rotells, Sonny Leach, Tom Johnson, Tim Townes, Frank Howell, Gaylon Hill, and Jimmy Young—were slated for significant varsity service.
A number of knee injuries caused great concern over the summer and into fall drills.
“I’ll never forget the Friday before my first game as head coach,” Battle told Harris. “We were facing SMU and its great forward passer Chuck Hixson. We had a brief afternoon practice.”
Then came a real surprise, one Battle probably hadn’t anticipated.
“While I was talking with my coaches, I heard laughter on the field, looked up, and saw the linemen engaging in a bit of left-handed touch football. The remainder of the team was a cheering section.
“ I thought right then these guys certainly were not thinking about SMU and Chuck Hixson and certainly would not be playing touch football the following Friday at Birmingham against Auburn.”
Tennessee defeated SMU, 28-3. The nest week brought the always-pivotal late September clash with the Tigers.
“The following Friday we thought about Auburn in the afternoon, that night, and all the next morning, and we lost. The following Friday we returned to left-handed touch football.”
This Vol squad overcame all the obstacles to become one of fans’ all-time favorites.
Following the loss to Auburn (36-23), the Vols knocked off Army (48-3), Georgia Tech (17-6), Alabama (24-0) Florida (38-7), Wake Forest (41-7), South Carolina (20-18), Kentucky (45-0), Vanderbilt (24-6), and Air Force (34-13) on New Year’s Day in the Sugar Bowl at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.
The Alabama and Florida weekends were as exciting as any in Vol history, as Battle and the Vols were taking on Bear Bryant, his Alabama head coach, and Dickey, his predecessor at Tennessee.
They reentered the AP poll on Oct. 10 after a win over Army and steadily marched onward and upward to a final No. 4 rank after the win over Air Force.
“That was an exceptional squad,” said Battle. “It had a oneness I never saw before. They believed in each other. They lived and ate together. They had great leadership in their captains and seniors.” Those captains were defensive back Tim Priest of Huntingdon and alternate captains offensive lineman Chip Kell of Decatur, Ga., and defensive lineman James Woody of Columbia.
Those post-practice left-handed touch football games may have been a “little thing” to many minds, nothing to be concerned about, but they made a difference in the success the team enjoyed.
“I do know,” said Battle, “that they finished even all season in touch football, and that they played Super-Bowl left-handed touch football on the eve of our Sugar Bowl game.”
For Vol fans, this book offers a number of stories that define Ed’s career covering the wide world of sports, Big Orange style. It’s been more than 50 years, but the stories are still enjoyable. The memories they elicit are truly “Golden.”
