How Coach Chuck Rohe and My Many Vol Teammates Helped Shape the Course of My Life

By Gerry Eddlemon

I was not a walk-on, I was a limp-on, for Coach Rohe’s Vols track and cross-country teams.  Having sustained a life-long injury goofing off on the high hurdles after a tough series of 440 intervals in winter of my senior year at Oak Ridge High School, I despaired of ever achieving real success in my favorite event, the 880 “dash” as it was known some 60 years ago, or any other event for that matter.  Just a week ago, my 60-yr-old old injury nagged at me a bit as I raced in the 12 Hours of Sebring (FL) ultramarathon bike race (in my age class I was first . . . and last ;-)

My best high school 880 time was only a 2:01 split on our 2-mile relay team (~2:02 in a solo 880 before my injury) at the TN state championships, but maybe not too shabby considering my only training most of winter and all of spring was literally the District, Regional, and State Championship 2-mile relays (as a substitute for running, I did thousands of sit-ups, pull-ups, and push-ups). Of course I paid dearly for racing with no training runs at all by aggravating the injury to my groin so much I couldn’t even drive a car and could walk only with considerable difficulty.

As a freshman at UT I was placed in a special physical-ed class for the disabled, but quickly tired of that.  So despite my injury, and not too sure I even had a chance, I limped into Coach’s office in the winter quarter of 1965 and asked to at least attempt to run for the Vols.  And by golly was I ever thrilled to learn he had actually heard of me, and he graciously allowed me to join the teams despite my injury. Because of my speed-limiting injury, I was moved up to the mile, 2-mile, 10K, and cross-country.  I can hardly describe how proud I was to be a part of a team coached by Rohe and full of such remarkable elite young athletes and gentlemen.

Still, even though I worked my derriere off, my injury, exercised-induced asthma, and probably just a plain lack of the kind of talent and constitution demanded at an elite level, kept me firmly at the “also-ran” level. Even so, Coach never gave up on me, and under his teaching and encouragement, and that of my teammates, I further developed the mental toughness that Coach Ben Martin first planted in me in high school.  I finally had a bit of a “break-through” in 1966 when an orthopedist prescribed a then new anti-inflammatory that moderated the symptoms of my injury and I made the trip with Coach and the XC team to Lawrence Kansas for the NCAA National XC Championship.  I finished third on our team, and, ahem, . . .something like 151st overall :-(  Still Coach thought I did well enough to award me a letter and ring, and that’s one of the proudest moments of my life.  And I still wear that letter sweater at least once to every one of our track and field team reunions – and regardless of the weather!

During that brief period of relatively good health I was also blessed to win the “1000-mile” trophy (included all miles of running each fall season), and just as an experiment after our annual late summer XC camp at Elkmont, speed-hiked the 31 miles of the AT trail in the Smokies NP from Davenport Gap to New Found Gap in 7 Hrs, 20 min (~15,000 feet of climbing).  The following Monday, the Knoxville News-Sentinel (or Journal?) ran a big story with photos about two men on horseback that rode the same 31 miles of the AT that same weekend in 9 hours and change.  Even though our paths never crossed, I guess you could say I raced two men on horseback and whipped their horses’ asses, kind of like our Richmond Flowers did against a horse in the 100 meters.  Later on I twice broke the record for speed-hiking the full 70-mile length of the AT in the Smokies; the second time (age 39) becoming the first to do it in less than 24 hours (23:38:07). None of this would likely have ever happened without the coaching of Coach Rohe and the inspiration I gleaned from my teammates over the years.

Now a very special and unforgettable part of my career as a Vol was my unexpected role in the integration of UT and SEC athletics.  As you all know, Coach Rohe was a real force in the integration of athletics at UT and in the SEC. One day Coach stopped me in the hallway of the fourth floor of old Gibbs Hall to ask if I would be OK having a black roommate.  I replied it was OK with this southern boy if it was OK with him, and thus I became the roommate of quite possibly the first black athlete to actually participate in a varsity event in the SEC (footballer Lester McLain received all the credit for this, but I believe future All-American Audry Hardy ran in a meet shortly before the football season started).

I thought we got along great, and I hope Audry thought so too, although he never did fix me up with one of his many good-looking girls he often spoke of (I was terribly shy around girls, and he probably thought a white boy dating a black girl was especially dangerous in those days – and he was almost certainly right!).  I also learned after innocently using the exclamatory “boy” (but not as an address) that ”boy” carried an especially demeaning connotation for black Americans.  But rest assured that Audry set me straight on that score ;-)  The only other awkward moment I recall happened one day as I returned from class. Audry was setting at his desk staring at the newspaper and I asked “What’s up Audry?”  No reply, no acknowledgement of my presence.  I asked again, and again, no response.  Then, without a word he slowly turned to me and held up the newspaper headlined:  Martin Luther King Assassinated.  Obviously I felt pretty small and could only utter something like “I’m so sorry.”  But I’m happy to say that our friendship never seemed to waver and I’ll always be proud to have known him as a teammate and a friend.

A bit later I found myself again in the forefront of racial integration of athletics in the South thanks again to Coach Rohe.  We were at the Florida Relays in Tallahassee, and I got a taste of what it must have been like for black folks to be in a venue with almost all white folks.  What happened was this – Coach Rohe found out that the all black Rattler Relays hosted by Florida A&M were taking place at the same time as the Florida Relays just across town.  Of course we had a ton of good milers, so Coach thought it would be a nice gesture to offer to send a few volunteer milers to the Rattler Relays.  They said yes indeed.  So now we got to be introduced to loud cheers and to race the mile before a huge all-black crowd for the first and only time in my life.  And as I remember, I came in second, which is about the best I ever did in track as a Vol track man. I felt a special glow and feeling of thankfulness for the gracious and friendly treatment we received from our hosts and audience.  It was truly one of the highlights of my career as a Vol trackman and I’ll never forget it.

Thanks to the education and inspiration gleaned during my time with Coach and my outstanding teammates, and the fact that I had much unfinished business as an athlete in part due to my injuries and illnesses, I went on to other athletic endeavors in later years, including the speed-hiking records mentioned above, and numerous records and championships in ultramarathon cycling including the overall World Cup winner at the tender young age of 65, regardless of age or category.

I was not the fastest ultracyclist out there  – there were plenty much younger and more gifted cyclists competing –  but I had a secret weapon given me by Coach and my teammates decades earlier . . . I never quit. I never quit no matter how hard it was or how much pain I had to endure, I finished every race from six hours to 800 miles in a season that lasts from February to December. In the last race of the season in New Zealand, The Lake Taupo 1280 Km, I developed paralysis in my left arm from what turned out to be a pinched nerve in my neck – 800 miles in a crouched aero position on rough roads can do that – and I rode the last 300 miles with only one functioning arm, including multiple climbs of the long, steep and murderous Hatape Hill. That earned me the final points needed to win the overall World Cup of UltraCycling. Note: two years ago I was third overall in the World Cup, beaten only by elite cyclists from Monaco and Slovenia. But then it was also a Covid year and a weaker field then usual.

Coach Rohe and my many teammates own a piece of every one of those race wins, 135 World UltraCycling Association records (the most in ulltracycling by the way), and three Smoky Mountain hiking records, for at some point I felt their presence in every one of them.  Thank you Coach, and thank you to all my teammates, not just my fellow distance runners, but all who my teammates who ran, or threw, or jumped and from whom I took much inspiration.

A final note to Coach: please remember up there in Heaven to at least ask the Good Lord before rearranging furniture, power lines, clouds, gardens, landscapes, modifying angel wings for better speed, and so forth.