Our Concerts 1969-1973--Volume IV

It is September, 1973, the begining of our senior year on campus and the featured concert at Dudley Stadium on Saturday night, September 2 (Labor Day weekend) is the J. Geils Band.

I didn't go to the this concert and after doing some research on this group, I've seen them referred to several times as "one of the best party bands every assembled."

Founded in 1967 as "Snoopy And The Sopwith Camels" (I kid you not), the band was organized by singer and guitarist John Geils while he was attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Originally, it was an acoustic blues trio, but then the group added additional instrumentation (an electric guitar, bass and drums) to become the J. Geils Blues Band.

The Blues part of the name was later dropped and the group had some success in the 1970s with such hits as "First I Look At The Purse", then "Ain't Nothing But A Houseparty" (1973) and "Musta Got Lost"
(1974).

During this period, the group became influential for its blues rock sound before moving more towards pop in the 1980s. In fact, the Band became a favorite of MTV in its early days, especially with its mega-hit "Centerfold"....



One last reference (not verified on Wikipedia) about this group. The Allman Brothers Band (a group that played a lot of dates at Vandy parties in their early days) reportedly said the J. Geils Band was one of its favorites, pretty high praise in its day, I'd say.

So who has some memories or thoughts to share about going to see the J. Geils Band at Vanderbilt? If you do, click on the comments link below and tell us about it.

The Price Is Right!

While the news was not so good from the gridiron this weekend (MSU 17-Vandy 14), Black & Gold fans can be excited about the continued progress of one of its former baseball standouts.

In the American League Championship Series, Tampa Bay left handed pitcher David Price came on in relief in the top of 11th inning Saturday night (October 11) against the defending World Champion Boston Red Sox.

Price came in with a man on first and one out. He walked the first batter he faced, but then stuck out the next man, and got a ground ball force out to get escape from of the jam.

His Tampa Bay Ray teammates responded with a run in the bottom of the inning to win the game 9-8 and square the best-of-seven series with the Red Sox at one game apiece as the two teams head to Boston for Game 3.

What a way for Price to win his first game in the Majors!

The ALCS win for Price is another major highlight of a season that has seen the rookie pitch on just about every level of baseball beginning with spring training and the instructional league, (where he recovered from a minor arm injury). Then it was on to Class A ball and then to the Double AAA and AAA leagues, where his pitching was so outstanding he was named Minor League Player of the Year.

Price's work also earned him a mid-September call-up to the big league club where he made his pro debut pitching 5+ innings of solid relief in Yankee Stadium. Price also later got his first start in the big leagues, registering a no decision in a game the Rays later won, and in which Price went nearly 5 innings before giving up a hit.

His performance earned him a spot on the post-season roster, which is fairly unusual since normally a player has to be with the major league team at the end of August to qualify.

His appearance in the ACLS Saturday night was his second of the series, having pitched a third of an inning in Game I in the ninth inning of a 2-0 Rays loss.

Price was the Number # 1 overall pick in the MLB draft in 2006 and everything he's done this season is showing that the Rays made the right decision because the Price is right!

But, facing the Red Sox in this season, is driving my wife, Betty Lee Love Nolan (another member of the Class of 1973) a bit crazy. As much as she wants David Price to succeed, she is a die-hard Red Soz fan of many years. Tough choices so sure, but how great it is to see a Vanderbilt player doing so well one of the greatest showcases in Major League Baseball.

Getting Ready for Our Vandy Reunion and Motown

We are just two weeks from Reunion!

That includes Friday afternoon, October 24, a session on "The History of Motown" by Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor David Wiliiams, who grew up in Detroit in the same neighborhood where Motown Records was located.

The Motown History session will be held from 4:00 to 5:30 PM in the Board of Trust Room at the Student Life Center just across from Memorial Gym on 25th Avenue South. There is no cost to attend and the event is open to everyone.

So what better way to get ready for the big event? How about a medley of hits from the Supremes courtesy of YouTube?

Enjoy....




Looking back at that medley of hit songs could those ladies sing....and dress? And while we're at, how about another Motown super group, The Four Tops and "Baby, I Need Your Loving"....



See you October 24-25 in Nashville!

The Vietnam War---Volume III

In the years following the Cambodia incursion and the turmoil following the incidents at Kent State and Jackson University in the spring of 1970, campus protests against the War in Vietnam begin to wane a bit in both frequency and intensity.

A draft lottery system was fully implemented, and as more and more of the fighting was turned over to the South Vietnamese (Vietnamization), American troop levels were decreased in the country.

President Nixon's effort to reach detente with the Soviet Union and his visit to open up China also reduced global tensions.It all helped long-stalled negotiations in Paris, led by Henry Kissinger, to finally begin to make progress.

A renewed, fierce bombing campaign against the major cities of North Vietnam in late 1972 also helped move the process along, and slowly brought about a ceasefire which was agreed to by all parties (the U.S., South Vietnam, North Vietnam, the Viet Cong) and implemented on Saturday, January 27, 1973.

Courtesy of the Vanderbilt TV News Archives, here's how the news of the effective end of the War in Vietnam was reported on NBC NIGHTLY NEWS a few days before on January 24, 1970. The anchorman is Garrett Utley...



On the Vanderbilt campus, the implementation of the ceasefire was celebrated with a 15-minute medley of songs played by the chimes at Kirkland Hall. The music began exactly at 6:00 PM that Saturday evening, January 27, the exact moment the ceasefire went into effect.

According to a front page article in THE HUSTLER(Tuesday,January 30,1973) reported by Rosalyn Harty, "Saturday's serenade--Bells for a Peace Treaty, they called it--(actually) originated from the keyboard of a carillon in Neely Auditorium. The music, (played) by assistant editor of publications Nancy Fielder, was transmitted from the instrument to the four speakers atop the (Kirkland) tower."

THE HUSTLER article went on to report that the program of music included a medley of peace songs and was the idea of the Secretary of the University, Dr. Robert McGaw. The article says "the program was centered around a theme from an English mass--Joseph Purcell's "O Let the Merry Bells Ring Round",(which) Fielder threaded ...through a variety of melodies, patriotic, religious, pop and classical, including such diverse pieces as the Beatles' "Give Peace a Chance" and the folk song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."

Speaking of coming home, one of the first elements of the ceasefire that was implemented was the release of American Prisoners of War (although even today some dispute that all were released).

Again, thanks to the Vanderbilt TV News Archives, here is how the dramatic story of the release of first group of POWs was reported by ABC News on February 12, 1973 with anchorman Harry Reasoner and reporter Lem Tucker....



What are your memories of this time in January and February of 1973, this was just when we were starting our last semester on campus? Does anyone remember the bell concert from the Kirkland chimes on the day the ceasefire went into effect? What about the release of the POWS? Did you have one of those wristbands so many folks wore in those days to show your support for those who were captured or listed as missing in action? As always, please leave your thoughts and memories by clicking on the link below.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the ceasefire accord never amounted to much, as the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese continued to push their aggression (and with the Americans gone) the South Vietnamese capitol of Saigon fell in the spring of 1975, bringing the final end to the War in Vietnam.

The Impact Symposium & The March Against Repression

Chicago 7 Attorney William Kunstler

When controversial anti-war attorney William Kunstler was invited speak on campus as a part of the annual Impact Symposium in the spring of our freshman year (1970), all hell broke loose.

At that time, Kunstler was clearly one of the most controversial figures in a deeply divided America. He had just finished defending the Chicago 7, a group of radical leaders involved in the protests and demonstrations surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

As a result of that trial, all but one of the defendants was convicted on charges of crossing state lines to incite a riot (convictions later thrown out on appeal).

The Chicago 7 trial had been a sensational one, with the defendants creating a new commotion or scene in the courtroom almost every day. The fact that Vanderbilt would invite the Chicago 7 attorney to speak on campus was just too much for Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington. He denounced the University and Chancellor Alexander Heard day after day in the weeks leading up to the event.

The city's afternoon newspaper, THE NASHVILLE BANNER, also picked up the criticism, with a lot of it coming from BANNER Publisher, Jimmy Stahlman, who was a Vanderbilt graduate and a longtime member of the VU Board of Trust.

In those days, the Impact Symposium was one of the big events on campus every year. Beginning as a student-led effort in 1964, the program had brought such speakers as Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and others to campus. Vanderbilt had also previously gotten into controversy when Black Power leader Stokley Carmichael spoken to VU students in the late '60s.

But each time, Chancellor Heard was resolute, and he spoke out strongly to defend the right and the role of the University to be a place for an open discussion and debate of the issues and of ideas, even controversial ones.

And so it was a rather tension-charged atmosphere when Kunstler arrived to speak in Memorial Gym. The other speaker sharing the podium that evening was noted conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick (later famous for his weekly Point-Counterpoint debates with Nicholas Van Hoffman and then Shanna Alexander on the 60 MINUTES television show, which was also so well satirized by SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE with Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtin).

As a radio reporter from WRVU, I remember getting the opportunity to cover the Kunstler speech at IMPACT. It was quite exciting as I remember it, with both men giving excellent and thought-provoking speeches. Other than that, the evening passed without much incident, thankfully.

I also remember when Kunstler came back to Vanderbilt to speak in Underwood Auditorium a few years later in the mid-1970s. As a new reporter at Channel 5, I was assigned to cover his appearance.

I can't remember the topic of his speech. But what did make news that evening, was that while he speaking, someone came from the wings off stage and hit Kunstler with a pie on top of his head (pieing someone was a popular, if brief-lived, prank on many college campuses during that period).

Because we were covering the speech with our new electronic cameras, Channel 5 was able to capture video of the pieing as it happened (the other stations, shooting on film, did not). That kind of video today would be all over YouTube and everywhere. For me, after it was shown on the 10 PM News that night, it went off into obscurity, although it was featured in a promotional video the station produced to tout the advantages of its electronic news gathering capabilities.

In retrospect, I can't help wondering if Governor Ellington and Publisher Stahlman (both already dead and gone by that time) weren't somewhere chuckling about it all.


Jerry Rubin of the Chicago 7

One of Kunstler's Chicago 7 clients, Jerry Rubin was also in Nashville that same weekend of the IMPACT symposium. Rubin was truly a student radical, as you can see from this YouTube video featuring an interview he did with a very youthful looking, Phil Donahue back in April, 1970. The video is entitled "Yippies for Nixon" and to say the least Rubin was quite a tough interview, even for someone as skilled as Donahue....



True to form, when he arrived in Nashville, Rubin, the founder of the Yippies, led a protest demonstration and march from Centennial Park to the State Capitol downtown. It was called "The March Against Repression."

Steve Womack and I covered the march for WRVU (I think Jack Walton was with us, as well). And yes, we sold some comments from Rubin's typically fiery speech to ABC Radio News in New York. Hey, we never missed a chance to make a buck, although I think we donated most of the money to the station to help buy equipment and supplies.

What I do clearly remember is how, like Phil Donahue, I dressed rather inappropriately for that march. I had to come to Centennial Park straight from Mass that morning, so I arrived in a suit and tie! I can only imagine how all the marchers there must have thought I was some kind of cop or a narc.

And I can only imagine what the narcs and police surveillance people must have thought. I am also sure somewhere in all the secret photos they took of all of us who were there that day, my picture will show I was the only one who wore a coat and tie that day.

Rising Up

Tight End Brandon Barden catches the winning touchdown pass against Auburn
Photo Courtesy of John Russell, Vanderbilt University

ESPN and GameDay are gone.

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have departed after bringing national and world-wide attention to Nashville by staging their second presidential debate at Belmont University.

But the excitement continues to build in Nashville as the undefeated Vanderbilt football team (5-0, 3-0 in the SEC)departs later this week for Starkville, Mississippi for a conference game which, if Vanderbilt wins, will make the school bowl-eligible and ensure a non-losing season for the Commodores for the first time since 1982.

Community excitement is so high, Vanderbilt has arranged for the game to televised on pay-for-view cable throughout the state of Tennessee on both the Comcast and Charter systems. And while the NCAA requires the game be blacked out in the state of Mississippi, elsewhere across the country, the game can be seen as a part of ESPN's GameDay viewing package, and you can find other cable providers picking up the game by going to the CSS web site.

The pay-for-view cost is $29.95 with kickoff set for 1:30 PM CDT.

So if you want to get fired up about Vandy football and get ready for our 35th Class Reunion and Homecoming game against Duke on Saturday, October 25, here's a great way to do it.


Players celebrate the 14-13 victory over Auburn
Photo courtesy of John Russell, Vanderbilt University

When you're ranked 13th in the nation, and you're off to the best start (5-0) since the middle of World War II (1943), there's a lot to feel good about. But it should be pointed out Vandy has not defeated the Bulldogs at State since our 1971 team pulled off a 49-19 shocker.

Vanderbilt does however continues to receive outstanding performances from its players. For the second time this season, junior linebacker Patrick Benoist has been named SEC Defensive Player of the Week. Against Auburn, Benoist recorded a team-high 13 tackles, two for losses, plus a quarterback sack and a pass deflection. Meantime, junior punter Brett Upson was honored as SEC Special Teams Player of the Week. Upson averaged 39.1 yards on eight punts, including four of them downed inside the Auburn 20.

SEC teams do still seem to be having problems believing Vanderbilt is good enough to beat them straight up. Auburn has now fired its first-year, offensive coordinator after the Vandy game, which seemed to be the last straw for him, after struggling all season to install a new offense for the Tigers.

But maybe we will have a secret weapon against the Maroons of Mississippi State, if someone can resurrect an air horn, similar to the one Steve Womack and Gary Cutler took down to Starkville back when we were in school to help Vandy win a big NCAA regional baseball game down at State. You can read all about it in Steve's comments to my football blog posting from last Sunday (October 5).
Anything we can do to counter-act those horrible cow bells the State fans always bring to their home games. :)

Go Vandy!

Vietnam--Volume II

Rand Terrace Speak-Out

Throughout the years we were at Vanderbilt, from time to time there were Speak-Outs held on Rand Terrace. Many times the topic of intense discussion was the War in Vietnam, with strong opinions being expressed by both those who opposed the war and those who supported President Nixon and his policies.

These forums were a matter of ongoing interest both on and off campus, as you can see from the signs and the crowd of students present in the photo above, as well as the local media coverage represented by the TV news film camera and the WMAK Radio tape recorder you can see in the picture.

The War took a major turn in early May of 1970 when President Nixon announced an invasion of Cambodia as a way to eliminate sanctuary areas where Viet Cong and North Vietnam fighters had bases located, and where they could flee to safety after attacking American forces inside South Vietnam.

The Cambodian "incursion" as it was called by the Nixon administration outraged those who opposed the war and no doubt concerned many on campus about the possibility of the conflict permanently widening and the military draft (which had just been changed to a lottery system) being extended and enlarged again.

Protests sprung up all over the country. Unfortunately,some led to violence and tragedy with students shot and killed by National Guard troops at both Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State University in Mississippi.

The unrest also led President Nixon to ask Vanderbilt Chancellor Alexander Heard to get involved and become his special assistant for campus affairs for a two month period. Below is a photo from the assembly held in Neely Auditorium on May 8, 1970, announcing his appointment, with the Chancellor addressing both members of the faculty and students that day...


Chancellor Heard speaks in Neely Auditorium

Working at WRVU, which was located upstairs in Neely Auditorium, Steve Womack and I (along with our fellow WRVU News Council members, Jack Walton and Don Powell, Class of 1972), took advantage of the opportunity to tape the Chancellor's remarks, then sell them to ABC Radio News in New York. It was a real big deal for us at the time, although as I recall, I don't think we got paid more than $25 or $50 for what we did.

Meantime, courtesy of the Vanderbilt TV News Archives, here's how the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and White House correspondent Dan Rather reported the news about Heard's appointment and the ongoing student protests, which after Kent State and Jackson State had spread to Washington....



The national student strike that Dan Rather mentions in his report, did not got very far at Vanderbilt, although the faculty at Peabody voted to close that school for several days in protest of the Cambodian invasion and the students being shot.

Back at Vanderbilt, there was an anti- war protest organized to coincide with the annual Naval ROTC spring review on Alumni (then called Neely) Lawn. But with some brawny football players standing by and recruited to keep the two sides apart, not much happened.




Not surprisingly, on a national level, the anger over what happened especially at Kent State, made its way onto the airwaves with songs like OHIO by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young....



If you have any thoughts or memories of this turbulent time, please feel free to share them by clicking on the comments link below.

Coming Next: William Kunstler, Jerry Rubin and the Nashville March Against Repression.