J.O. Gist

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J.O. Gist, who returned to school on the G.I. Bill following WWII,remembers life on the MTSC campus.

"Anyway, one of the things I remember that was different back then was when the [football] team would leave to go play somebody like on Thursday or maybe even Friday; we pulled the bus right up there in front of the Old Main Building, you know, and the football team would embark there. They'd let classes out to see them off and had a pep band. We'd have that pep band out to see them off. The school spirit was a lot better then. There wasn't any such thing as a guy wearing a Tennessee shirt, or anything like that, or a Tennessee cap. Boy, that was awful, you know, they just didn't do it. You had a lot more loyalty to the school, and that's the reason you find old guys who went to school here are still loyal to it. It was different."