1920 team sets hardwood tone for decades to come

Timing really is everything.

Since the inception of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association’s state tournament for boys basketball, which began in 1921, Columbia Central has made 16 appearances and advanced to four championship games without winning a title.

In 1920, though, the Lions completed a 10-1 season by defeating Lynchburg in a matchup designated by a Nashville newspaper as a state championship game.

Information on the title team was recently unearthed by Central alumni Ken Bohrman and Charles Troope, in an effort to update the school’s website.

“We’ve been going down to (Maury County Archives) off and on,” Bohrman said. “We located the first team in 1909, but we thought it’d be a lot of work to start with 1909 and bring it forward. So we started with the state tournament teams and thought we’d fill in the blanks, so people could see the success from the beginning to the present.”

Among Central’s nine regular-season wins during that 1920 season under coach Monte McDaniels was a 23-18 victory over Hume-Fogg, generally accepted at the time as the best team in the state, which prompted the newspaper to put out the challenge. Lynchburg took the invitation, and on March 15, 1920 — a little over 100 years ago — the Lions roared to a 73-11 decision — marking a season high for points scored.

The team’s only loss was a 37-24 defeat at the hands of visiting Morgan Prep out of Petersburg on Jan. 31. The Lions avenged that decision nearly a month later, knocking off Morgan Prep 28-20 on Feb. 27.

The Hume-Fogg win, in Central’s first outing following its lone loss, was delayed by more than three hours as the Blue Knights experienced travel difficulties — missing the final southbound train from Nashville, then sustaining two tire punctures and two blowouts while making the trek by automobile. The Feb. 6 game did not conclude until after 12 midnight.

Columbia’s schedule that year also included a 46-27 victory over the Vanderbilt freshman team, and a 40-6 decision in the regular-season finale against Mt. Pleasant. The team scored 39 or more points on at least six occasions (no score was available for the Jan. 19 win over Branham & Hughes Military Academy).

Team members included Ewell Gregg, Cecil Harris, Lawson Holt, George Maxwell, Hazel Park, Herbert Reed, Manuel Seagraves and Edward Smith. Max Hardison served as assistant to McDaniels.

That 1920 team was a precursor to Columbia Central teams that made appearances in each of the first three TSSAA state tournaments — teams that included 2018 Central athletic hall of fame inductee Everett Derryberry, who graduated in 1924.

“Central was very successful in boys and girls basketball in the 1920s,” said Lee Clayborne, who spent 17 seasons as the Lions boys basketball coach over a 44-year career at the school, capped by his induction into both the TSSAA and the Central athletic halls of fame.

The Lions fell to Chattanooga Central in the opening round of the ’21 TSSAA state tournament, which was won by Hume-Fogg. A year later, Columbia Central lost to Hume-Fogg in the opening round, and lost in its 1923 tourney opener to Memphis Central.

After returning to the state tournament in 1927 and losing in the second round to eventual titlist Nashville Catholic, Columbia Central did not qualify for the next 10 years — advancing to the finals in 1937 before losing to Bristol. The team then suffered a 32-year tournament drought that ended with a berth in the 1969 field.

From ’69 until 2010, the Lions reached the state tourney 11 times (’69, ’73, ’81, ’86, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’98, ’99, 2003 and 2010), with runner-up finishes in 1992, 1993 and 1999 in addition to 1937.