The Black Tigers

Like any other football team, Tennessee State's Tigers love to score touchdowns. But they are rather ambivalent about kicking field goals and extra points during home games. Reason: the high cost of leather. Every ball lost in the stands costs the small, predominantly black college $26.95 that it can ill afford. Near the end of a recent annihilation of Florida A. & M. (45-0), a student aide on the Tennessee State football staff looked at the mounting margin and worried: "I hope we have enough balls left."

Somehow Tennessee State has managed to find enough footballs the past ten seasons to become a formidable small-college football power. Since John Merritt and his entire coaching staff moved from Jackson State a decade ago, the Tigers have won 90 games and lost only 13. Going into last weekend with the nation's longest winning streak (14 games), they seemed headed for a perfect season and a chance to win their first small-college national title.

Poor Plant. Even Grambling, long time leader of black college football, has fallen behind Tennessee State. This year's score: the Tigers 19, Grambling 13. In ten years, the National Football League has drafted 98 Tigers. The twelve Tigers playing in the N.F.L. to day outnumber alumni from the University of Tennessee and equal the total from U.C.L.A. Tennessee State has produced such current pro stars as the Atlanta Falcons' all-pro defensive end Claude Humphrey and the Kansas City Chiefs' star defensive back Jim Marsalis. Pro teams can thank Grambling for 13 players, including the likes of Buck Buchanan (Chiefs' defensive tackle). Woody Peoples (49ers' guard) and Billy Newsome (Saints' defensive end).

Such a consistent winning record would be an achievement for any large university; for Tennessee State, it is nothing short of remarkable. Just 5,000 students (600 of them white) attend T.S.U.'s red brick campus on the banks of the Cumberland River in Nashville. The football budget is only $268,003, compared with almost $1.4 million for the University of Tennessee. The physical facilities would give nightmares to Bear Bryant or Woody Hayes: a stadium that seats barely 16,000, a dusty dirt practice field, unpretentious locker rooms and modest office space for a coaching staff of seven.

The plant is so poor that the coaches discourage visits from prospective recruits. "We'll let 'em see our nice, pretty brochures," Merritt explains. "We can't even afford to call prospective players long-distance every evening to tell 'em nighty-night, and we don't have the affluent alumni to do the little extras in recruiting that a lot of colleges have." Big under-the-table incentives are unheard of.

Tea Days. Yet year after year, despite the competition from bigger, richer, more glamorous schools, Merritt manages to field a fearsome team. Why? One reason is that many young black athletes, particularly from the South, feel more comfortable playing for a black coach at a black school than they would if they went north or west. Most of the Tennessee State players come from poor families, and to them, football is a way out of poverty. Merritt's record and the proven interest of professional scouts are powerful incentives. Says Raymond Bryant, a tough linebacker: "Coach Merritt kept saying he couldn't afford any cars or lots of spending money for his players, but he would guarantee me one thing: at State I would be a winner."

Merritt likes his raw material big. Seventeen of this year's T.S.U. players weigh in at 235 lbs. or better. Then Merritt works off the flab. "If a player wears bigger than a 34 pants size, he has to buy 'em himself," says the coach, who covers his own generous frame with flashy shirts and colorful wide ties. Overweight players are also required to follow a ritual called "tea day," consuming nothing but tea two days a week. Barking orders through a cloud of cigar smoke, Merritt teaches pro-style football --tough defense coupled with a grind-it-out, ball-control offense that features short passes.

The fusion of naturally talented manpower with Merritt's coaching has produced a characteristic flock of Tiger stars this year. Of Bryant (6 ft. 3 in., 236 Ibs.), Merritt says: "He'll hit you just coming out of the huddle." Edward ("Too-Tall") Jones, a 6-ft. 9-in., 268-lb. defensive tackle, is a likely first-round draft choice for the pros. "Jones will go hard at you every play," Merritt says, "like he's killing snakes." Wide Receiver John Holland, according to the coach, is "quick as a hiccup."

Winning has become such a habit that the university's president, Andrew Torrence, worries the school is becoming known solely as a football factory. "Very few people take the time to become acquainted with our other successes," says Torrence. He speaks from experience. The game against Florida A. & M. had to be played at nearby Vanderbilt because Tennessee State's tiny stands could not contain the 27,000 fans who showed up.

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