Tennessee Waltz Has Become Tennessee Sprint : Receivers Like Sam Graddy Have Helped Get Volunteer Offense Off Ground

As the compliments were being slung back and forth in the ritual of building up a football game, Tennessee Coach Johnny Majors said of the UCLA secondary: “They’ve got guys who can run like a bunch of deer, and they’re in a bad mood when they get there.”

Maybe so. But the question going into UCLA’s nationally televised game at Tennessee Saturday is this: Can a bunch of deer run fast enough to catch the Tennessee receivers?

In the tradition of Renaldo Nehemiah, Dokie Williams and former Tennessee star Willie Gault, sprinters are doubling as receivers in record numbers at Tennessee.

Most notable is the player listed as the No. 2 wide receiver for the Volunteers, Sam Graddy.

Graddy won a gold medal at the Olympics last summer as a member of the 400-meter relay team. He also won a silver medal, finishing behind Carl Lewis in the 100-meter dash.

With Graddy on the 400-meter relay team that won the Southeastern Conference title in ’84 were two other Volunteer receivers--Terry McDaniel and Terry Scott. Graddy, Scott and Gault were all members of the 400-meter relay team that won the gold medal in the 1983 World University Games.

Yet none of the sprinters are even starters for the football team now. The Volunteers’ top receiver is split end Tim McGee, an all-conference player last season who holds the school record with 54 catches in a single season. Last year McGee gained 809 yards and scored six touchdowns.

As Graddy put it, “Tim McGee is the man.”

Tennessee’s quarterback, Tony Robinson, also an All-SEC player, completed 61% of his passes last season for 1,963 yards and 14 touchdowns.

So now Tennessee, long known as a running team, has on the cover of it’s ’85 football guide a picture of Robinson and McGee in the cockpit of an airplane.

Majors still believes in a strong running game, but as he told reporters before the season began, “You’ve got to be hard-headed not to change your style when the players’ abilities dictate it.

His offensive coordinator, Walt Harris, has said: “Whether we’ll have the best receivers or not, I don’t know. I do know we’ll have the fastest.”

Tennessee’s receiver coach, Kippy Brown, told the Knoxville Journal: “Not many teams in the country have the speed at wide receiver we do, even without the track guys. We have good speed without them. With them, we have great speed.”

Graddy said that when he reported for practice last spring, one of the things that he needed to work on was controlling his speed.

“Tony Robinson is a great quarterback, and he has a really good arm,” Graddy said. “He can really get the ball to you. But, at first, we had some trouble getting adjusted to each other.

“He wasn’t used to receivers who run take-offs like I run. I had to get used to the idea of concentrating on catching the ball first and then trying to power right by guys.”

Mostly, though, Graddy has had to practice catching the football. He has done well to move up to second team after starting at the very back of the pack last spring.

“When I stepped onto the field last spring, it was the first time I had played football since high school,” Graddy said. “And in high school (Northside High in Atlanta) I was a tailback. So catching the ball is pretty new to me. I caught the ball some as a tailback, but it’s not the same as being a receiver.”

He has come along so well that the coaching staff says he can be expected to play against the Bruins.

Graddy, who is 5-10, has added eight pounds since going out for football, which makes him 163 pounds now. He says he feels just as quick at that weight. And he says that the cumbersome pads of the football uniform don’t slow him much, either.

“It’s a different kind of running,” he said. “I think I’m in better shape now than I was in for track. I didn’t think it would be this hard, but sometimes I find myself huffing and puffing. . . . When the track season rolls around again, I should really flourish.”

At this point, Graddy has not decided whether his future--beyond college--will be in track or in football. He could see it both ways.

“If I could get a good NFL contract, then that could be a good opportunity for me,” Graddy said. “I’ve accomplished all of my goals in track except for one. I want the Olympic gold medal in the 100. I thought I was going to do it in ‘84, and I didn’t get it done. So I’m still thinking about ’88.”

Either way, his family has to be a top consideration. He does have two years of football eligibility left, but he doesn’t expect to stay in college for a fifth year. He’d like to get on with the business of supporting his wife, Cincotta, and his son, Samuel Lewis Graddy IV.

Naming a son in that manner would suggest a lot of family pride. Graddy is proud of his own name and he’s proud of those whose name he has. His father, Samuel Lewis Graddy Jr., was the first black pilot for Delta Airlines and the airline’s first black captain.

“I do have to think about my family,” Graddy said. “I’ll have to wait and see what opportunities present themselves. There is money to be made in track, but NCAA rules exclude college athletes from making money in track.

“If I could get a good shoe contract, I’d like to work toward ’88.

“For now, though, it’s all football. I’m so excited about Saturday. I’m excited about the whole season. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve played football, and I’ve missed it.”