Anger. Frustration. Sadness.
Tailgaters at Saturday’s final Buccaneer football game felt a mixture of all these feelings along with an overwhelming sense of loss. The reality of the end had hit home.
“It’s a travesty,” said Chuck Hyder, former ETSU football player and father of defensive lineman Chad Hyder. “It breaks my heart.”
The tailgaters did what they normally do: eat, laugh and anticipate a good game. But the atmosphere was different Saturday. The underlying feeling of hopelessness and change stifled the fun.
“It’s so sad,” said junior Whitney Pendergraft. “I’m in Kappa Delta and without Homecoming, it’s not going to be the same.”
While ETSU President Paul Stanton has stated that most of the reaction he has received has been supportive and understanding, fans seemed anything but supportive of the decision Saturday.
“It was one of those gut kicks,” said Darlene Gustaitis Cheadel, mother of offensive lineman Adam Gustaitis. “Adam is from California, and all he wanted to do was play football at ETSU and go to medical school here. He had his dream just taken away from him.”
Cheadel and her husband drove 14 hours from Oklahoma to support Adam.
But they were not the only ones who drove from miles away to show support for the Bucs during the final game.
Rhett Landram, a 2002 graduate of ETSU, drove 700 miles from Florida to watch the game, as he has for every game since he graduated. He also played for three years and said he remembered the support he got from students and the community.
“I would walk around campus and someone would say ‘Good game,'” Landram said. “That was what mattered. That was what meant something. Fellow students really supported you.”
The tailgaters agreed that the administration was mostly at fault, followed closely by the people of East Tennessee.
“The administration is the biggest at fault, and we as East Tennesseans haven’t stood up and said ‘Hey, we want to have a team here,'” Hyder said. “It’s the people of East Tennessee I say shame on. They let this happen by not talking to the legislature.”
Cheadel also heaped the blame on the administration for having a “lack of vision.”
“Had there been a professional administration, this wouldn’t have happened,” she said. “There is a lack of respect for tradition. There is 80 years of tradition here and you don’t just take that away.”
Landram feels like something else should have been done to preserve the program, and because of the decision, won’t come back to Johnson City or give money to the school.
“My degree doesn’t mean much now and I won’t be giving anything to the school unless the administration changes,” he said.

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