As a senior at racially segregated Hall High School in Alcoa, Tennessee, Tommy Woods had been recruited by colleges across the country, but the school just a few miles from home that he most wanted to attend – the University of Tennessee in Knoxville – was not among them.
In 1963, neither UT nor any other Southeastern Conference school had ever signed a Black player to a scholarship; nor would any do so until three years later, when Vanderbilt’s Perry Wallace would become the first Black basketball player in the SEC.
Tommy eventually narrowed his choice to two schools: Texas Western University in El Paso and East Tennessee State University (ETSU). He chose the latter because the Johnson City campus was only a two-hour drive from Alcoa, and he wanted his parents to be able to see him play.
The prospect of serving as a racial trailblazer as the first Black scholarship athlete at ETSU never entered his decision.
“I just wanted to play basketball and get an education,” he recalled.
During the fall semester, Woods was the only Black student in his classes and was socially and racially isolated across most of the campus. White students moved to different seats in classrooms and different tables in the cafeteria to avoid sitting near him.
As he took the court for that first game on December 5th, Tommy Woods was about to face something even uglier.
The Turmoil in America in 1963
1963 was a tumultuous year in America.
The Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, sparking demonstrations and sometimes violent responses. In June, voting rights activist and civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated by a white supremacist in the driveway of Evers’s Jackson, Mississippi home. On August 28th, tens of thousands gathered in the “March on Washington,” where they heard Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. On September 15th, amid organized civil rights actions in Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four Black schoolgirls. Two months later, on November 22nd, America was shaken by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.
By December 1963, the country was reeling, but not everyone was too exhausted to hate.
That climate was also manifested in Tennessee.
As Tommy Woods and his freshman teammates took the court, taunts rained down from the Buccaneers’ student section whenever he touched the ball.
He recalls the racist insults: “Hey, N*****!” “Where’s your tail?” “Go back to Africa!” “You monkey!”
The abuse heightened when the game began, as students threw paper cups, popcorn, ice, and other debris at Woods as he ran down the court.
Somehow, amid this hostility and near-chaos, Tommy Woods played a remarkable game. He gave those in attendance their first glimpse of what they would see regularly throughout his four years at ETSU – a consistently excellent and even exhilarating performance.
Woods went 6-for-6 from the field, scoring 12 points and grabbing 23 rebounds in a 94-79 victory over Virginia Tech. The following day’s Johnson City Press Chronicle reported on the sterling outing by Woods, highlighting his “tremendous performance on the boards,” but failed to mention either the game’s historical significance or the ugly racial taunting by home fans.
The verbal abuse from the Buccaneers’ student section, and racist heckling at road games, continued throughout Tommy’s freshman season and well into his sophomore year.
Through it all, one small group of white students became his allies – his basketball teammates.
Living together in a rented house from the first day of school, they quickly came to know and respect Tommy Woods as a person and a player, and they bonded as a unit through conversations, card games, late-night snack sessions, and practical jokes.
In the months that followed, the bond between Woods and his teammates grew stronger.
After one freshman road game, the team was being seated at a rural roadside restaurant when Tommy was informed that only whites could eat inside. As he returned to one of the team’s two station wagons, his white teammates remained seated inside, apparently waiting to be served. When their food arrived, they rose in unison, dumped their plates on the tables, and walked out. The following December, as the ETSU varsity team was checking into a downtown hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, the manager informed Coach Madison Brooks that Tommy could not stay there.
So the entire team reboarded the bus for a drive across town and checked in to the “Black hotel.”
“Before I came to ETSU, I had never been around a lot of white people,” said Woods. “It was people like my teammates who caused me not to start hating white folks, especially after the way many fans treated me early on. My teammates were like brothers to me.”
“Brothers” is also the word that most often surfaces as former teammates describe their enduring connections with Tommy.
A Career Cemented in History
In his sophomore season, Woods compiled a record unparalleled in ETSU’s basketball history.
He led the team in scoring and topped the Ohio Valley Conference in rebounding, averaging 19.6 per game (still a school record). In the season’s final game, a victory over Middle Tennessee State University, he scored 29 points and hauled in 38 rebounds.
Since that season, no NCAA DI player has ever again grabbed 38 rebounds in one game.
Over his three-year varsity career, Tommy Woods cemented his place as one of the greatest players in ETSU history.
On February 27th, 1967, Woods ended his ETSU playing career on the same court where it had begun so painfully in December 1963. On this evening, the atmosphere was very different. When the starting lineups were introduced, Tommy, then a team captain, received a lengthy standing ovation. After he fouled out late in the game, the resumption of the contest was delayed while the fans again erupted.
The next day, the Johnson City Press Chronicle relayed the emotional moment.
“The ovation continued for a solid three minutes – and probably would have gone on longer had not Woods finally stood and waved to the crowd….It was a tribute to Woods both as a player and as a person.”
Tommy appreciated the applause but it could not completely heal the hurt and disappointment from those early painful months.
“I was bitter at the time and I will never forget the way the fans treated me that first year, but I refused to carry hatred and bitterness with me,” he said.
He never sought the mantle of racial justice trailblazer but in 1963 he was the man for the hour at ETSU.
Tommy Woods deserves to be celebrated for breaking the intercollegiate sports color barrier in his state and his induction into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2021 was long overdue.
By performing at a spectacular level on the basketball court while facing down unvarnished racial bigotry, he carried on the legacy of Jackie Robinson as one of sports’ great racial trailblazers.
