On Nov. 13, 1920, East Tennessee State Normal School played their first football game, a 55-0 loss to local rival Carson-Newman.
This game would be the start of an 83-year program that saw some highs and many lows before the University’s decision to shut down the football program in 2003, marking the end of ETSU football — or so we thought.
The year was 2003, and the Bucs were several years removed from an incredible 1996-97 football season that many hoped was the turning of a new stone for a program that hadn’t seen much success. However, just seven years later, that 10-3 season was but a distant memory as East Tennessee State University made the decision to end its football program.
ETSU’s president at the time, Dr. Paul Stanton, would cite financial shortfalls as the deciding factor in shutting down the 83-year-old program. The aging Mini Dome turf that was due for replacement and the looming exit of Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s funding were a few of the reasons given to shut down the already struggling program.
Former East Tennessean writer and current assistant professor at Guilford Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, Dr. Seth Bartee remembers first hearing the news that ETSU was losing its football program.
“There was sort of the outcry, ‘we are losing football,’ but it always felt on campus like we were a basketball school anyway, with the success under Les Robinson at the time,” said Bartee.
Bartee recalled how the East Tennessean staff approached the news and planned for the following fall semester without football.
“There was sadness, but we just hadn’t seen a decent victory in decades,” Bartee mentioned. “This did kick the leg out from under us [East Tennessean], trying to figure out what we were going to do in the fall. Not that other sports weren’t important, but that did put more pressure on basketball, both men and women.”
The final season of football coverage holds a special place for Bartee as he and a photographer loaded up and followed the team to each road game in that 2003 season.
“I remember we said ‘We’re gonna go out on a road trip to cover this final season,’ in his old beat-up car while listening to old 90s rap, driving to Elon, driving to Boone, going all over the southeast to cover the final year of ETSU football,” shared Bartee.
While it was certainly an unpopular move at the time, Bartee thinks hindsight is 20/20.
“Paul Stanton probably did a great favor for the program by getting rid of it, because that drove up the support of the program once it was gone,” Bartee concluded.
And just like that, for 12 years, ETSU football was gone.
Then, in 2013, current ESTU president Dr. Brian Noland made an announcement that many had been hoping for: football would be returning to the school in 2015.
The program was on its way back, along with the Marching Bucs, led by current ETSU athletic director Dr. Richard Sander and former University of Tennessee head coach, Phillip Fulmer, who served as an advisor to Dr. Sander during the rebuilding of the program.
“I thought it was wonderful that it was coming back. I was glad to see it return,” Bartee said of hearing the news that Bucs football was coming back to Johnson City a decade ago.
Without a field of their own for the first two seasons, ETSU would share a home field with Science Hill High School (Johnson City, Tenn.) for the 2015 and 2016 seasons at Kermit Tipton Stadium.
The Bucs’ first game would not go as many would’ve hoped, launching with a 56-16 loss to Kennesaw State that would set the Bucs up for a 2-9 season to mark their return to the gridiron.
In 2017, construction completed on ETSU football’s permanent home located on campus, William B. Greene Jr. Stadium. The $26.6 million dollar facility seats over 7,000 and offers standing room to over 3,000 more spectators. Those numbers have been surpassed many times in recent years due to student support of the program.
Going into the 2018 season, the Bucs had a new head coach at the helm: Randy Sanders.
Coach Sanders would become the eighteenth head coach in the programs history, and in his short tenure at ETSU, he would become one of the most successful coaches in ETSU history.
It was the 2021-22 season that ignited the program and saw the Bucs reach the quarterfinals of the FCS Playoffs, where the Bucs fell to the No. 2 seed and eventual champion North Dakota State in a 27-3 heartbreaker.
The Bucs set a program record with 11 wins and only two losses that season, including the iconic fourth-quarter comeback win vs Kennesaw State in the second round of the FCS Playoffs. The Bucs trailed the Owls 31-17 with only 1:28 remaining before two quick scores boosted the Bucs over Kennesaw State 32-31. An electric student section celebrated the victory by emptying the stands and rushing the field in what will forever be one of the most iconic moments in ETSU football history.
Current students and alumni alike all feel a sense of involvement with the program now that it is back, and no longer take it for granted.
“I am very happy to see the support that the program receives today,” Bartee said of the support of the football team in its return to campus.
The former East Tennessean writer adds, “I think football belongs at ETSU.”
For more information on ETSU football, visit ETSUBucs.com/football.
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