When the Bucs welcome the Austin Peay Governors to town for a Bracket Buster Saturday game this week, they will be renewing a rivalry that ended back in the days of leisure suits, eight-tracks and a guy they called “Fly.”
ETSU and Austin Peay were both members of the Ohio Valley Conference until the Bucs left for the SoCon in 1978, and the cross-state rivals locked horns many times over those years. The Bucs were led by players like Harley Swift, Mike Kretzer and Morris Tampa in those days.
For Austin Peay, basketball in Clarksville, Tenn., didn’t truly begin until “Fly” landed in town in the fall of 1972. James “Fly” Williams was arguably the greatest basketball player to ever come out of New York City. He was famous for showing up to playground games in Brooklyn wearing his white fur coat.
In a word, “Fly” Williams was flamboyant. He was also talented, misunderstood and larger-than-life. “I was a pioneer,” Fly said in an Austin Peay in an alumni magazine interview in 1998. “I was born too early.”
When Fly landed in the sleepy town of Clarksville, it was sheer pandemonium. “When I first went there, they had my name in the sky in smoke from jets,” Williams said.
Fans would line up five hours before games at the Governors gym, known as “The Little Red Barn,” just to watch him play.
“He packed arenas,” said Leonard Hamilton, the coach who brought Williams to Austin-Peay. “He scored 51 points twice as a freshman. He’s by far the best basketball player I’ve recruited.”
Williams averaged 29.4 points a game as a freshman in 1973. He carried Austin Peay on his shoulders all the way to a NCAA Tournament birth that year, but more importantly, he gave birth to “the chant.” It was soon found on T-shirts, billboards and bumper stickers all over Clarksville. “Fly is open, let’s go Peay.”
He stayed one more year in Clarksville before leaving early to play professionally.
In his 54 games as a Governor, he scored 1,541 points, an average of 28.5 points per game. Even though his stay was brief, he instantly provided credibility and excitement for the Austin Peay basketball program, and he also gave them “the chant” that lives on to this day.
While the Bracket Buster Saturday event is designed to help teams enhance their NCAA tournament resumes, the Bucs and the Governors both come into the game desperately looking for momentum going into their respective conference tournaments. ETSU is 8-16 and Austin Peay is 9-15, but both teams still feel like they have something to play for.
It may take a super human effort for either of these teams to make the NCAA Tournament, but stranger things have happened.

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