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BLUE RAIDER HALL OF FAME
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    • Dr. E. K. Patty

    Inducted: 1977
    Sports: Football, Golf Coach

    A tight end from Chattanooga City High School, E.K. Patty was a standout football player in 1937 and a member of MT's earliest golf team. He returned to coach at MT in 1946 after service in World War II. Patty wore several coaching hats simultaneously, heading up the golf and basketball programs while also being an assistant football coach.

    Patty's forte was golf. During his 35 years of coaching the sport, his teams won 85 individual and team championships, including 10 OVC titles and six VSAC crowns. In dual matches, they posted 85-8-1, including 57 consecutive dual matches. Other achievements of his players included a national championship team, two national individual low medalists and six All-Americans.

    In 1965, he was voted National Coach of the Year in the College division and was named OVC Coach of the Year six times. He was posthumously named to the National Golf Coaches Hall of Fame in 1986.

    Class of 2012

    Mike Caldwell
    Football

    Diane Cummings Turnham
    Athletic Administration

    Harry Gupton
    Basketball, Baseball

    Tawanya Mucker Wilson
    Basketball

    Jayhawk Owens
    Baseball

    History of the Hall of Fame

    In the early spring of 1975, a pair of long-time supporters of Middle Tennessee State University's athletic program decided that the University should honor its greatest athletes. Homer Pittard, alumni director, and Gene Sloan, public relations director, came up with the idea and asked sports information director Jim Freeman to join them in setting up an athletic hall of fame.

    After getting approval for the Hall of Fame from President M. G. Scarlett, the trio began laying the groundwork to select the first inductees. Others, including Bob Womack and Joe Nunley, were also involved.

    "We decided not to have categories but to put all candidates in one group," said Freeman. "We also decided against inducting a large group to start with and felt that three per year was the ideal number. That way, everyone got a good share of the spotlight."

    The nominating and voting for the first several years was done by members of the old "T" Club, now reorganized and called the Varsity Club. Nominations were solicited, and the the list of candidates was mailed to the voters. They selected Horace Jones, Charles "Bubber" Murphy and Teddy Morris as the initial inductees in 1976.

    The Blue Raider Hall of Fame was originally housed in the old Blue Raider Room under the west side of the football stadium. It had to be torn down when then stadium was expanded in 1998. After several years without a home, the Hall of Fame moved into the new Rose and Emmett Kennon Sports Hall of Fame building in 2004.