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Nat'l champs: TN Sports Hall of Fame to honor '58 ORHS football team

earl nall and jerry harris
·4 min read

The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame announced Friday that the 1958 Oak Ridge High School football team will be honored with the David Williams Historical Achievement award at its annual induction ceremony in Nashville on July 22. The 1958 team will be the first Tennessee high school football team to be honored for an historical achievement.

ORHS Athletic Director and Former Head Football Coach Joe Gaddis, from left, former TSSAA Director of Technology and TSSAA Hall of Famer Earl Nall, 1958 player Skippy Brinkman, 1958 player Larry Richards, 1958 player Woody Barwick, ORHS Executive Principal Drayton Hawkins, and 1959 graduate and writer Jerry Harris.
ORHS Athletic Director and Former Head Football Coach Joe Gaddis, from left, former TSSAA Director of Technology and TSSAA Hall of Famer Earl Nall, 1958 player Skippy Brinkman, 1958 player Larry Richards, 1958 player Woody Barwick, ORHS Executive Principal Drayton Hawkins, and 1959 graduate and writer Jerry Harris.

The selection of the Oak Ridge team for the David Williams Historical Achievement Award is of further significance since there is only one honoree selected in this category each year. Oak Ridge was in competition with every team, coach, and individual from every era with a Tennessee connection who has ever accomplished anything of historical significance.  This includes anyone or any team at the high school, college, amateur and professional levels of every sport. There are literally thousands of possible - and deserving - candidates each year competing to be the single person or team chosen.

Photos of the 1958 Oak RidgeHigh School Wildcats, which had 47 players. Seven seniors won major college football scholarships to what is now Division 1 schools and six seniors signed with Southeastern Conference universities.
Photos of the 1958 Oak RidgeHigh School Wildcats, which had 47 players. Seven seniors won major college football scholarships to what is now Division 1 schools and six seniors signed with Southeastern Conference universities.

The honoree award comes 65 years after the team was the first Tennessee high school football team to be selected as national champions. The team led the state in offense and defense and had 16 players play college football, seven of which played Southeastern Conference teams.

Attending the announcement were ORHS Athletic Director Joe Gaddis, Assistant Athletic Director Allen Etheridge,  ORHS Principal Drayton Hawkins and head football coach Derek Rang. Representing the 1958 team was Woody Barwick, Larry Richards, and Skippy Brinkman. Earl Nall and Jerry Harris, who researched and submitted the application, were in attendance, as well.

Jackie Pope averaged 17 yards a carry as a running back for the 1958 Oak Ridge High School Wildcats.
Jackie Pope averaged 17 yards a carry as a running back for the 1958 Oak Ridge High School Wildcats.

In the fall of 1958, the football team was the talk of Tennessee and thrusted Tennessee high school football into the same spotlight as Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Florida as hotbeds for high school football. Now, 65 years later that team is still gathering recognition.

On April 14, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame announced the 1958 ORHS football team as the honoree for the 2023 David Williams Historical Achievement Award. Oak Ridge will be the first team at the high school level to receive this honor.

The team’s accomplishments will be recognized at the Hall of Fame’s annual recognition banquet in Nashville on July 22.

The 1958 Oak Ridge season may be the most noteworthy of any of the more than 27,000 seasons played by Tennessee high school football teams in the last 100 years. Additionally, their season ending game with Chattanooga Central high school may have been the biggest pro-filled game ever of the 125,000 high school games played in Tennessee over the past 100 years.

The team led the state in offense and defense, had a running back that averaged 17.2 yards per carry, and was No. 1 in all mathematical ratings systems and voting polls – most by a large margin. One of their games was featured on the main sports page of the state”s leading newspapers, The Tennessean in Nashville, which usually had a supplementary section for high school sports. The Oak Ridge game was the lead story on the main sports page, instead of the Vanderbilt football game happening on the same day. One Nashville sports writer wrote that “Oak Ridge is possibly the best team in the history of Tennessee high school football."

Paul Huray was a tailback on the 1958 team. He became an advisor for two U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Paul Huray was a tailback on the 1958 team. He became an advisor for two U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The final game of the 1958 season matched Oak Ridge against another Tennessee powerhouse — Chattanooga Central.  The game in Oak Ridge drew an attendance of 14,000, was televised (delayed), a number of radio stations across the state dropped coverage of their local teams and carried the game, seven Southeastern Conference coaches were in attendance, including a first year coach at Alabama — Paul “Bear” Bryant who drove up from Atlanta for the game.

University of Alabama Coach Bear Bryant , wearing his famous hat, in the Blankenship Field bleachers during the 1958 games in which Oak Ridge defeated Chattanooga Central 14-6, winning the state championship.
University of Alabama Coach Bear Bryant , wearing his famous hat, in the Blankenship Field bleachers during the 1958 games in which Oak Ridge defeated Chattanooga Central 14-6, winning the state championship.

Highlighting the excellence of the 1958 Oak Ridge Wildcat team, a phenomenal 11 seniors on the team (1958-1959 school year) received college football scholarships. Seven of the scholarships were to major programs at what is now NCAA Division I universities. Six were at Southeastern Conference schools at a time when the conference only had 10 teams.

The on-field momentous achievements of that 1958 team was just the start for the post-high school, far-reaching achievements by members of that team. Multiple career achievements in civil, mechanical , electrical, chemical and nuclear engineering, government, education, medicine, architecture, transportation,  psychology, retail, aviation, professorship, religion, law enforcement, and military flourished for members of that team.  One team member became  chairman of the White House Office of Science and Technology committee whose work led to the development and implementation of what is now commonly referred to as the internet.

The application for the Hall of Fame was submitted by Earl Nall. He is the former technology director for the TSSAA (Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association) and a 1962 ORHS graduate. He was greatly helped by Jerry Harris, a 1959 ORHS graduate, who contributed with encouragement, research, and networking with his former classmates that were members of the 1958 team.

This story, first posted to the ORHS athletics website, was written by Earl Nall and Jerry Harris and provided to The Oak Ridger by Allen Etheridge, ORHS athletic director.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Nat'l champs: TN Sports Hall of Fame to honor '58 ORHS football team