As the Tennessee student-athletes prepare for their own demonstration to commemorate the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington this Saturday, members of the football team received timely inspiration to add to their charge against racism on Tuesday.
The Vols opened an afternoon of preseason practice with legendary guest and VFL Lester McClain. McClain was the first Black student-athlete at Tennessee, playing varsity football from 1968-70. With McClain’s first catch, he broke the previously segregated line of scrimmage on Rocky Top and much of the South.
UT football players and staff listened intently as McClain, an Antioch, Tennessee, native recalled moments like skipping school in ninth grade to join civil rights protests in Downtown Nashville and also more sobering ones like when one of his UT teammates told him that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated – the same year McClain would go on to make his first of many appearances as a Vol.
“The things that (King) had spoke of, I bought into,” responded McClain to a question from junior DB Alontae Taylor about the impact of MLK’s I Have a Dream speech had. “We’d go downtown to protest, sit-ins, march and demonstrate because we thought that would give us an opportunity to have a better life.”
McClain’s principles and steadfastness continued as he took a chance in Knoxville as the lone Black player on the team in 1967. Despite the social and political unrest throughout the country as the Civil Rights Movement colored American life, McClain felt no added pressure despite living out a historical moment.
“I took it in stride,” said the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame and University of Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame member. “That was the situation I had chosen. I knew there would be some difficulty, but I knew if I did it and did it well, then life would change, but not just for me, for a lot of other people with opportunities to come along.
“I was very fortunate because I wasn’t expected to do anything. There was not a lot of expectation. Messing it up would be giving up.”
McClain’s on-field contributions included catching 70 passes for 1,003 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also rushed 30 times for 123 yards and two touchdowns, and returned eight kickoffs for 168 yards. McClain was selected by the Chicago Bears in the 1971 NFL Draft, but would be cut prior to the season.
His accomplishments inspired others and paved the way for Black athletes at Tennessee, including the first black starting quarterback in the SEC, Condredge Holloway.
McClain also opened opportunities for Tuesday’s moderator, Vols associate head coach Tee Martin, who led the Vols to their 1998 championship and became the first Black quarterback in the SEC to win a national title.
The moment was not lost on Martin, now in his second year as a coach back on Rocky Top.
“We want to say thank you for everything that you did to open up doors,” Martin said as the group stood and applauded McClain. “It’s the reason we have a team room that looks like this, while we have opportunities for people that look like us.”
“I have so much respect for him, what he did and lived through as a teenager,” Martin added after the session.
After the applause and before the empowering moment was over, McClain gave a few final thoughts. He quoted legendary coach Doug Dickey reciting the axiom, “luck is when preparation meets opportunity” before humorously commending the team for its “lucky” 2020 TaxSlayer Gator Bowl comeback win.
McClain praised the direction of the historic program under head coach Jeremy Pruitt and charged the players to continue on despite difficult circumstances.
“Don’t ever hold back on giving it a little more each day,” McClain said. “You see the results of what’s going on. No matter how hard it is. Your attitude and effort make a difference in the world.”
-UT Athletics
