Allow us a smile or two whenever they mention that Tennessee-Virginia Tech game at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.
Football games at race tracks? Been there, done that.
Even Paul Finebaum has talked about Bethune-Cookman playing some home games at Daytona International Speedway. Wow. What's really impressive is that Paul Finebaum actually acknowledged football games outside of the Southeastern Conference. Next thing you know , there'll be a lot of hype about former Heisman trophy winners from the SEC trying to play baseball. Oh, really? Never mind.
Come on. Bethune-Cookman's located in Daytona Beach, the home of THE greatest speedway in the world. Bristol's a great short track and everything, but this is the site of THE greatest race in the world. We're partial.
Since we value our relationship with the wonderful folks at the Speedway, we'll glaze over that long solved sandspur problem because the renovated place looks great, and we'll resist the temptation to say that the scores in our four victories there were low because the players wore restrictor plates instead of shoulder pads. It was just one of them deals, fellas. Felt bad for the boys back in the shop.
The first game at the 2.5 mile trioval took place in 1974 when the Wildcats hosted, of course, Florida A&M. The rivalry was outgrowing the respective stadiums, so FAMU was dealing with Florida State to play at Doak Campbell while the late Tank Johnson was talking with the France family to play at the Speedway.
That game saw the Wildcats down the Rattlers 6-0 in front of 32,000 fans, marking the first time in series history Bethune-Cookman downed the Rattlers two years in a row. It also planted the seed in Johnson's mind that taking the series to a neutral site could produce benefits. Four years later, the Florida Classic started up in Tampa.
The next season, Bethune-Cookman kicked off the year against Mississippi Valley State. Again, the Wildcats won a low-scoring affair (21-6) that included the debut of a quarterback turned punter from Mainland High School by the name of Lynn Thompson, who just happens to be our Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics. He got his name in something called the newspaper the next day, with the writer saying his 40 yard average on six kicks gave the Wildcats "their most effective punting game in recent seasons."
"I was at the Florida A&M game and could not believe that it was happening but it did happen, Thompson recalled. Tank Johnson was one of the most creative thinkers and promoters ever. His vision and more importantly his connections not only opened up the speedway to us for football but later he did the same thing in Nassau, Bahamas [B-CU played in the Bahamas in 1991 and 2000, long before the creation of the Bahamas Bowl].
"My very first college game in the speedway was on the huge patch of grass in front of Victory Lane," Thompson continued. "Even today the folks at Daytona refer to it as the football field. I was thrilled to be playing in an international landmark."
The Wildcats played a couple more games at the Speedway before finally settling back fully into the old Memorial Stadium behind what is now Daytona State College. When that tired facility gave up the ghost in 1988, Bethune-Cookman settled into the current Municipal Stadium. Recent renovations to "The Cage" have made it one of the best stadiums of its size in the Southeast, so we're good, but if some one can come up with "one of them deals"…
Good luck to the Vols, the Hokies and all the folks at Bristol this weekend.
