By Steve Williams
Austin-East’s 1986 football team established itself as one of the most remarkable high school teams in East Tennessee history under the leadership of Head Coach Sam Anderson. The Roadrunners completed a perfect 15-0 season, capturing the TSSAA Class AA state championship.
Throughout the regular season, A-E demonstrated dominance on both sides of the ball, scoring 375 points while allowing only 49 points against its first 10 opponents.
Maryville was the last challenger before the state playoffs kicked off, and Austin-East blasted the Red Rebels 33-8 in a battle of unbeatens for the District 3-AA title on Oct. 31.
A victory-hungry LeRoy Thompson, one of the best players in the nation, left that game with this to say: “We’ve got five more in the playoffs. Anything less than five more wins is a losing season.”
A-E looked like a state champion to Maryville Coach Don Story.
“They’re a great team and have more physical ability than any team we’ve ever played,” said Story, who had been coaching at Maryville for 18 years. “They’re just overloaded with it.”
In ten regular season games, Thompson rushed for 1,253 yards, scored 24 touchdowns and was the Knoxville Football League scoring champion with 146 points. He also had been a productive receiver and punt returner plus ranked among the state’s top defensive backs.
Austin-East continued with an impressive postseason run with victories over Anderson County, Seymour, Marion County, and Maryville before holding off Brentwood 28-20 in the finals at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville on Dec. 7.
The Roadrunners’ achievement was particularly significant because, at the time, Tennessee high schools competed in only three classifications, with public and private schools facing one another in the postseason.
The title game went down to the wire, and senior Morico Hall, a 6-4, 235-pound defensive end, made the winning play on fourth-and-goal with the ball at the 2-yard line. A lunging Hall tripped up the Eagles’ end zone-bound quarterback, John Snow, with a shoestring tackle at the 6. The change of possession left only 23 seconds for QB Mossy Taylor to run out the clock.
In the post-game celebration, senior tackle Charles Brown, who went out with a broken leg at the end of the first quarter, was presented the Game Ball. Coach Anderson felt Brown was deserving and said, “Charles typifies the character of this team.”
Thompson earned the Class 2A Mr. Football award that year and later played at Penn State before advancing to the NFL. In his super prep career at Austin-East, he rushed for 5,565 yards and scored 84 touchdowns.
Other notable players included Von Reeves, who went on to play tight end at the University of Tennessee, and Joey Smith, who played at the University of Louisville and spent six years in the NFL with the New York Giants.
Smith also was “Mr. Austin-East” his senior year. He was proud of the school’s sports trophies, but added: “I stress more academics over football because I need something to fall back on.”
Joey played running back, safety and kick returner in high school, defensive back and return specialist at Louisville and the same in the NFL.
“What people don’t realize is that he averaged 10-plus yards per carry for A-E,” said Anderson.
