Tennessee football fan has the ultimate archive, dating to 1938

Several times a year, Knoxville resident Michael Harper stops by the News Sentinel building and picks up a printed copy of the sports pages with the writeup of the recent Tennessee football game.

In a sports collector’s equivalent of some of the Big Orange passing-and-receiving combinations of old, he then passes it along to friend Allen Spain of Franklin, Tennessee, to add to his collection.

Spain has copies of newspaper stories about every Vol football game dating back to 1938.

He also has films of every television broadcast of a UT football game from the Orange Bowl after the 1967 season through 1980 and has even provided copies of those to the UT athletics department.

“It’s just a real passion,” Spain said with a laugh as he talked about his collection over the phone. 

But this interest in collecting actually began with the lack of access to information as a child. Although his parents are from Jackson, Tennessee, he grew up in New Orleans beginning in the 1970s.

The Vols might be on regional or national TV only two or three times a year. The internet had obviously not come along, and the “Johnny Majors” Sunday TV show was not available in New Orleans before cable TV. And picking up a Vol football game on an AM station on the radio was possible only at night with a little work.

“I remember some days lying on the floor in a corner trying to pick up (UT play-by-play announcer) John Ward,” he said.

However, his father, Joe Spain, was president of the New Orleans alumni organization, and the extended family would send them clippings about games. The younger Spain would devour those writeups from the seemingly faraway-but-beloved town of Knoxville.

“Tennessee football was a mythical thing for me,” he said in explaining how the writeups brought the Vol community a little closer to him.

He enrolled at Tennessee as a student from 1987-91, when he finally got to see his team up close on a regular basis. But that would not diminish the passion or keep him from picking up newspapers and saving articles from the games and reading them voraciously as he had always done. 

As he began his work career, he continued saving papers about the games and UT football. That continued until about when the internet became more publicly accessible in the late 1990s, and he learned from someone about a collection of old newspapers that belonged to someone who delivered the News Sentinel. Some papers were still bundled up.

“He just found them in pristine condition, and I gobbled up as many as I could,” he said.

Spain, who in recent years has worked in financial investments, also learned that former UT football player Dr. Bernie Kozar had collected football writeups not only from his playing days from 1950-53, but also those of the next 17 years. Through friend Harper when Harper operated a sports memorabilia shop in Memphis, he was able to get some of the old articles from Kozar’s non-playing days, as well as an article about the 1971 Tennessee-Penn State game.

“I was over the moon to have these, and that filled a huge gap for me,” he said, adding that he later got the papers of the late player’s playing days.

Spain has continued his collection but has also been a provider of sports information and memorabilia. Besides the old broadcasts, he has also helped UT and former UT sports film director Barry Rice with historical information. He and Harper have also teamed up in helping write some for a UT sports publication.

Rice had also told him about an estate sale, and he was able to get some additional papers from the 1970s and early ‘80s he did not have.

Spain said part of all this interest is that he loves researching UT history. He considers former UT coach Gen. Robert Neyland not only in a class by himself as a coach, but also in his other accomplishments in the military. “He truly was a man among boys,” he said.

Despite this idealistic view of UT he always had, he admits that the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals that allow players to get paid well and other current general college football issues have soured him a little on the overall game.

And he dropped his season tickets a few years ago because of his travel schedule and other issues. That was right before Josh Heupel was hired and rejuvenated the Vol program, and, in contrast with his newspaper acquisitions, he regretted that decision. “I have been kicking myself over that one,” he joked.

He is not sure what he might one day do with his collection, adding that his children will probably not want them.

“I will probably just end up donating them to the athletic department when I pass on,” he said.

But it has been an enjoyable hobby dating back decades and which he still enjoys, he added. “I still go through these things and come up with amazing facts,” he said. 

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee football fan has the ultimate archive, dating to 1938