Eury Looks Back on Football Days at Tennessee High

BRISTOL, Va. – Jeff Eury still remembered the words, recalling verbatim the first line of an old newspaper article.

“Ole ‘Quick Feet’ has danced his way into the Tennessee High record book,” Eury began. Modesty and memory prevented him from venturing any further, however, and he chuckled.

The article Eury was divining recounted Tennessee High’s first football game of the 1977 season and, in particular, his own heroics in the Vikings’ 34-30 victory over Chattanooga Kirkman.

Before the game, as the Kirkman players loosened up near midfield, they asked some of the Vikings to point out No. 5, the running back they’d seen on Tennessee High’s 8-millimeter game films.

Eury, then a junior, was up in the stands, relaxing before the game. He was small – 5-foot-11, 155 pounds – but he was easy to pick out because of his blossoming afro. The Kirkman players soon spotted him.

A mystified Eury watched as the whole Kirkman team, it appeared, began to laugh. He could hear their cackles all the way up the Stone Castle’s metal bleachers.

Eury would have the last laugh that night. Eury, or “Ole Quick Feet,” gained 225 total yards. He scored four touchdowns, earning a place in the Tennessee High record book. It was a payback worth savoring.

“I was so [angry]. Some of them were falling on the ground laughing,” Eury recalled. “But I burned their a--es. I burned their a--es.”

The burner
If he was anything, Eury was a burner.

As the starting running back for the 1977 and ’78 Tennessee High football teams, Eury was a Tony Dorsett-like speedster who won almost every local award a Northeast Tennessee athlete could garner.

He was, perhaps, even more impressive in track. He set four school records, including a 49.3-second run in the 400 that still stands 30 years later.

“He was a skinny 150 pounds, maybe 155,” former Tennessee High coach Bill Bingham said. “He could run. Very quick. Very fast. Of course, naturally, because of his small stature, he wasn’t real powerful runner. But he was tough.”

Eury played college football before life led him away from his hometown.

Beyond the Tri-Cities, his high school heroics didn’t mean nearly as much. He put on a few pounds. He visited stadiums larger than the Stone Castle. All the recruiting letters he received in high school were just scraps of paper. It was as if “Ole Quick Feet” never existed.

“You start getting into the big cities, where [NCAA] Div. 1 players are recruited,” Eury said. “There’s no one there to remind you.”

So Eury forgot.

A Viking
The Tennessee High football teams for which Eury starred were shadows of their predecessors from the dynasty of the early 1970s. The Vikings won back-to-back state titles in 1971-72, including a national championship in 1972.

That success afforded subsequent teams such as Eury’s certain luxuries, like bacon-wrapped filet mignon before games. To go along with such indulgences, however, were immense loads of pressure.

“You had a lot of expectations to be successful,” said Mark Simcox, quarterback of the 1978 Tennessee High team. “All of those guys in the early ’70s ... we were in elementary school. They were our heroes.”

Eury grew up on the other side of the border, however. His older brother, Thomas, was a star for Virginia High. Eury was 12 when he began to attend Tennessee schools.

“I used to hate Tennessee, I did,” Eury said. “I used to listen to [Virginia High] on the radio. I never dreamed I’d be a Viking.”

But a Viking he was.

Eury was never the star at Tennessee High. That status belonged to Derrick Hord, who would go on to play basketball at the University of Kentucky.

He was, however, elected first-team All-Big 7 and Upper East Tennessee after his junior season. Defenses routinely stacked the line against him.

Eury’s scrawny size made it tough for him to power through a defensive overload. Still, with his speed, he was always capable of breaking open a game.

A typical Eury play occurred during a matchup with Big 7 rival Erwin. Stuck in a 3-and-20 situation at the Vikings’ 35-yard line, coaches called for a draw to Eury – what the players described as a give-up play.

“We said, ‘Heck with it. We’re going to call it anyway,’” Bingham said. “We call it, and Jeff runs 65 yards for a touchdown right up the middle.

“He was the kind of running back that once he broke the line or got into the secondary, there wasn’t too many who could catch him.”

Following his senior season, Eury got recruiting letters from Appalachian State, Furman, Carson-Newman, Virginia Tech and Memphis State.

He took a recruiting visit to Memphis.

“It was the first time in my life I had ever flown,” Eury said. “It was mind-boggling.”

The outside world
Eury chose the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and quickly learned the reality of college athletics.

“College is like an all-star team made up of the best players around the country,” Eury said. “[Plus] it was like boot camp, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never heard so much hollering.”

But with some added muscle – he was up to almost 200 pounds – Eury became the starter for the UTC freshman team. In a junior-varsity matchup with the Tennessee Military Institute, Eury ran for more than 100 yards.

After the season, Eury joined the UTC indoor track and field team. The Moccasins’ first meet was at East Tennessee State’s Memorial Center – a homecoming for Eury.

Having not run track in more than a year, Eury wasn’t expecting much as his 400-meter dash heat was introduced.

Suddenly, however, a huge spotlight locked Eury in its gaze. The announcer at the meet made sure everyone knew he was from the Tri-Cities.

“I was so embarrassed,” Eury said. “But I was off – I was ahead for the first 300 meters, and then that old bear jumped on my back. I finished about two hours later.”

After a coaching change, Eury left UTC. He spent a year at home, before returning to school at Carson-Newman.

As a walk-on, Eury worked his way to third-string running back. His junior year, Eury actually wound up carrying the ball, but he was injured when the Eagles defeated Saginaw Valley in the NAIA national championship game.

He switched to safety during his senior season, but again missed out on Carson-Newman’s title defense when he was kicked off the team for fighting.

“I wish it would’ve been an injury that put me out, but it wasn’t,” Eury said. “But I graduated.”

After graduation, Eury kicked around from city to city, climbing up the ladder as a graphic designer. He was lucky enough to work with Macintosh computers during the 1980s, and he lived in such cities as Washington, Bethesda, Md., and Knoxville. By 2000, he was a web designer in Louisville.

But then came 9/11, and soon after the company for which Eury worked downsized him. In 2002, after his father died, Eury’s family asked him to come home. In 2004, he did.

Mr. Destiny
A funny thing happened after Eury came back. He’d go over to the Stone Castle on Friday nights, and people would stop him. Old opponents, old teammates, people with kids now playing for Sullivan East and Sullivan Central – all swore they knew him.

“They’d bring up plays that I don’t remember,” Eury said. “Since I’ve been back in Bristol, that’s where the love is at.

“I’ve never seen a stadium like the Stone Castle. There might be bigger ones, but there’s nothing like it. It’s beautiful. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Today, Eury works in the creative services department at the Bristol Herald Courier, a little more than a mile from the great stone theater where he used to star.

In four years at the newspaper, Eury has earned several awards for his design work, including a Pinnacle Award from the Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association for his “101
Things to Do: A Guide to Day Trips in Southwest Virginia, Northeast Tennessee, Western North Carolina and Eastern Kentucky.”

Today marks the Tennessee High class of ’79’s 30-year reunion.

Eury, however, never wonders what might have been.

“You remember Mr. Destiny?” Eury asked, referencing a 1990 comedy starring Jim Belushi. “If he’d of hit that home run, things would’ve been different. With me, I was very fortunate in my career.”

Just what, then, would Jeff Eury like to hear tonight when his former classmates get together?

“I’d like to hear after 30 years that Jeff’s still the same. I do still watch cartoons,” Eury joked. “I know people change because of their struggles. But I would like to be the same.”