Longtime voice of the Tigers, Jack Eaton, dies
The extra week was definitely worth the wait for the St. Agnes girls and St. Benedict boys bowling teams.
St. Agnes won the Division 2 girls championship on Jan. 30, defeating St. Benedict 15. 5-11. 5, and came a week after competition was postponed due to wintry weather in the Nashville area. It is the first title since 201 3 for the Stars and was the fifth time in six years those two teams have met in the final match.
The team dedicated the victory to former coach Caroline Adcock, who died of cancer over the summer.
Caroline Conrad, who also won the state individual bowling title, and runner-up Grace Becker were both superb, winni ng a l l t hree of t heir head-to -head matches and averaging 163.7 and 158, respectively.
“It was freakishly close all the way,” said coach Bill Oyler. “We talked all week about just settling in and (knowing) that it would take a total team effort.”
St. Agnes’ bowling title is the fourth in school history.
Despite t he loss , St. Benedict’s girls extended an impressive streak, reaching the final for the 14th consecutive year. It’s the second-longest streak in the state — in any sport — trailing only Chattanooga Baylor’s girls golf team.
St. Benedict captured the boys state championship, defeati ng Chattanooga McCallie 16 -11 in the final at Smyrna Bowling Center. It’s the first state championship since 2013 for the Eagles.
BROTHERS TAKE THIRD IN WRESTLING
Ch r i s t i a n B r o t h e r s High School wrestling coach Chris Lewis had one eye fixed on the future after watching his team take third place at the TSSA A Division 2 state duals tourna ment Saturday in Franklin.
“It’s a big deal; it was nice,” he said. “We were d i s appoi nte d b e c au s e we had a chance against (Chattanooga) Baylor (in Friday’s winners bracket semifinals) but we lost a couple and then things just snowballed.
“But we rebou nded well, and I think we can use this as a springboard for t he next couple of years.”
After the loss to Baylor dropped the Brothers into the consolation bracket, they responded with a 64-9 victory over Franklin Road Academy before edging Chattanooga McCallie 33-30 in the thirdplace match.
“We had some guys step up,” said Lewis. “Montana Doty wrestled well and Keegan Jones got a big pin for us at 182 against McCallie. Andrew Sweatt wrestled well at 182 and 195 for us.
“And then of course our regulars: Trevor (Brown), Tanner (Tidswell), Drew (Nicholson) and Tommy (Brackett).”
Jack Eaton, longtime sports director and sports anchor at WMC-TV Channel 5 and play-by-play announcer for what was then Memphis State University basketball and football for many years, died Wednesday. He was 86.
Mr. Eaton was known for his unabashed partisanship for the Tigers, his unabashed hatred of Louisville and his exclamations of “Great Scott” and “Great Caesar’s Ghost” during Tiger broadcasts. He handled Tiger basketball play-by-play from 1959 to ’87 and football play-byplay from 1964 to ’86.
“I told Jack in recent years there are thousands of Tigers fans who are Tigers fans because of him,” said Harold Graeter, associate executive director of the AutoZone Liberty Bowl and a former Channel 5 sports director. “He would want to dismiss that, but it was true because of the enthusiasm he brought to Tiger athletics.”
Mr. Eaton was courtside during the program’s memorable run to the 1973 NCA A c h a mpion sh ip game, where the Tigers lost in the finals to a Bill Walton-led UCLA team coached by John Wooden. And he was in the press box for several historic Tiger football games, including the program’s first win over Ole Miss (27-17) in 1967 and an upset of seventh-ranked Auburn in 1975.
Before becoming the Tigers’ play-by-play announcer, he handled the same duties for Ole Miss.
Mr. Eaton, born in Warren, Pennsylvania, had been in poor health for the past two years, but attended a WMC television station reunion in October. He served as the station’s sports director from 1956 until his retirement in 1991.
“He really did enjoy his work at WMC,” said station news anchor Joe Birch, who worked with Mr. Eaton from 1978 to ’91. “He was just a blast to be around.”
Birch said as he and the WMC staff were searching the archives for video clips to honor Mr. Eaton’s memory on Wednesday’s newscasts, they found themselves laughing and smiling at his larger-thanlife persona and his engaging personality.
“It was as if he knew we’d one day need some material for his ride up to heaven,” Birch said.
During his career, Mr. Eaton was known for his short, sometimes touching, often corny, poems that he read on the air. His love for poetry led to the publication of 100 of his poems in a 2008 book titled “Great Scott, I Rhyme a Lot.”
“He could be informative and entertaining; it was a special talent he had on TV and radio,” Graeter said. “He taught me to take your job seriously, but not yourself.
Mr. Eaton began his broadcasting ca reer in 1954 in Columbus, Georgia, and moved to Memphis in 1956. He served as sports director and anchor at Channel 5 until 1991.
“Jack’s on-air presence ... gave me the idea you could be yourself and have a good time with it,” said Jarvis Greer, Channel 5’s longtime sports director who trained under Mr. Eaton.
As a Tiger broadcaster, Mr. Eaton dispensed nicknames that stuck with the athletes for the remainder of their lives, from Ronnie “Big Cat” Robinson to “The Little General” (Andre Turner) in basketball, to “Lucky Lloyd” Patterson in football.
Matt Dillon, an analyst on Tiger basketball games, worked the road games with Mr. Eaton during his final season as the Tigers’ announcer.
“I was doing the Channel 10 (replay telecasts) for home games and he asked me to do the road games with him,” Dillon said. “It was one of my biggest thrills. He was a person I grew up listening to and now I was working with him.”