How Marky Billson Brought Back ETSU Football
The media shapes the public mindset. At least when it wants to.
Recently, a member of the ETSU Sports Information Department asked me about how I felt now that ETSU football was restored and winning.
For the first time ever the Buccaneers’ football team has won the Southern Conference. A victory against Samford this Sunday will earn ETSU the title outright with a trip to the FCS playoffs guaranteed; a loss will still give ETSU a share of the title but the playoff berth would go to either Furman or Wofford.
I’ve long removed myself from taking great satisfaction on the athletic accomplishments of others. It’s part of the sports media business. One becomes less of a rooter and more of a reporter, as well as a matter of professional ethics.
But 15 years ago, when ETSU dropped football, and the rest of the media had very little to say about it, I called the Bucs out on it.
The East Tennessee fan base being what it is, this was perceived as being “against ETSU.” There is a disturbing local mindset that whatever the home team does must be supported unconditionally.
I felt the community as a whole is benefited from having ETSU football, regardless of their success or lack thereof on the field.
It’s an event. It provides some local players with a high level of opportunity to play college football and brings some from out of town in to town, perhaps to settle.
ETSU football also puts the one sports entity that can put Johnson City on the map, ETSU basketball, in a better conference for more recognition.
But with the SoCon title in hand, I’d like to make it public record what I’ve done to restore ETSU football.
As Dizzy Dean said, “it ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”
On the pre-Facebook and Twitter versions of social media, message boards, I was the first to suggest David Mullins was the sort of athletic director hire made to kill a football program on the now-defunct soconhoops.com.
ETSU’s previous AD hires had come from football and had left soon afterwards. Mullins’ appointment was obviously a hire made from within to insure longevity, and also one with a background in non-revenue sports.
When former men’s basketball coach Ed DeChellis left for Penn State, I wrote a column in Sports Talk, a bi-weekly local sports newspaper originally founded by Chip Kessler, asking if ETSU told us all they knew concerning his departure. After Kelly Hodge of the Johnson City Press quoted DeChellis saying the Nittany Lions hadn’t contacted concerning their head men’s basketball coaching vacancy in a Tuesday edition, and five ensuing days of runaround from the athletic department, ETSU President Paul Stanton confirmed to the Centre Daily Times on Saturday night DeChellis had interviewed.
The column won awards from the Tennessee Sportswriters Association. It exposed an environment of secrecy and even touched upon the possibility of football being dropped, which it was a few weeks later.
From there, I was very active in the media to bring football back. A series of articles in Sports Talk with the three former athletic directors of ETSU commenting on their experiences.
At the time Frank Pergolizzi was restoring football to Southeast Louisiana and insisted he didn’t want to talk about the ETSU situation. With the quotes talking about the different culture of Louisiana and Tennessee, not to mention “the president has to seal the deal,” he wound up saying more than either Keener Fry or Todd Stansbury.
Not getting it, my constant criticism of football being dropped led to the unethical decision of the then-ETSU administration to deny me a credential to cover ETSU’s last football game prior to the hiatus. Though I was living out of the area at the time, I wanted to return to Johnson City, on my own dime, to cover the game for Sports Talk due to the game’s historic nature.
How disappointing my fellow media brethren did not call out ETSU for this decision, as I had called out DeChellis for the way he left ETSU.
Which wasn’t easy for me. I had a great relationship with DeChellis and even prided myself on being the first member of the media to tell the public DeChellis was a quality coach on the WEMB airwaves during his first season as Bucs head coach and public sentiment viewed him as an outsider.
But a journalist must put his feelings aside to report the truth.
From there, yes, I was on the scene, even though initially I was living out of the area. But when I returned in 2006, I continued to report on stories concerning reviving ETSU football during a stint as a news reporter at a rival radio station, as well as tricitiessports.com, which then had a newspaper Sports Talk begat, and the Elizabethton Star.
What I found so disappointing was how Wes Holtzclaw at the Star shelved these stories. For instance, a column on Paul Stanton, suggesting only that maybe the area’s sports fans might not have the same opinion that those internally inside the university did.
Too negative. Publishers are big Stanton supporters. Can’t have that.
When Wilsie Bishop stated at a public forum student activities fees would increase regardless of whether the football program was reinstated prior to a 2007 student vote on the matter, I was there. I gave the story to everyone I could.
It was ignored, save for Holtzclaw putting it not in the Star, but his blog.
The vote failed.
Still, I didn’t give up. I continued to post on social media to a wide audience that honestly would probably have rather I just state how wonderful the Buccaneers were doing in everything.
Which was what Mullins wanted to believe. He told everyone 2007 was the greatest year in the history of the athletic program when there was no football and the basketball team failed to make the NCAA Tournament.
And playing the role of their shills, nobody else in the media challenged him on the statement.
It shouldn’t have been surprising. When legendary football coach John Robert Bell died, the neither the ETSU media relations department nor the local print media bothered to quote, say, former Alabama head football coach and NFL center Bill Curry, one of Bell’s proteges, who spoke at his funeral.
Instead they ran self-serving quotes from Mullins, which I responded to in multiple letters to the editor here:
I wrote this piece, which not only made the cover of the print edition of tricitiessports.com but also received perhaps more feedback than the website ever received to keep the prospect of ETSU football revival alive when for all intents and purposes it would have been easy to give up on the prospect following the failed student vote of 2007.
I became active in the Buccaneer Football Foundation and Friends. When I wasn’t in the area, like Vincent X. Flaherty traveling the country to promote Los Angeles as a baseball town, I took Greyhound buses to Johnson City to attend them.
It created a culture in which ETSU football was not forgotten. In fact, it may have grown in stature following its departure (witness Matt Gallagher trying to sell ESPN Gameday on the Buccaneers 80-year football history which is, truthfully, not much).
By the time I wrote this piece, receiving thousands of reads, it became obvious something had to change in a market that doesn’t necessarily like change.
What role does the media have in restoring a football program? Lots.
I’ve been praised by people like former ETSU receiver John Rauch and strength coach Lee Morrow for my efforts. So I’d like to think I had a similar influence reviving football at ETSU that Flaherty had in bringing baseball to Los Angeles.
Even when I had to fight to get the prospect of ETSU football revival the attention so many others, in the media and in the community, did not want it to receive.
Marky Billson’s You Tube channel can be found here. Subscribe to it today!
