September 14, 1984 (Revisiting the Past)

I'm going back through what comprised my senior year of high school and first semester of college in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Come along for the ride. New posts every day or so mixed in with other things.

September 14, 1984. The 1st Annual MTV Music Video Awards show is happening on this date at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. If you didn't have cable television like me (we were still living out on Jimmy C. Newman's farm) you'd be able to watch it on channel 17 just 3 days later. 

The Riverdale band was going to have a pancake breakfast at Golden Corral on Saturday September 15th.

The big story on the front page of the Daily News Journal was that the School Board was not going to take any action regarding the request from disgruntled basketball player parents to dismiss head coach Thomas Hopkins. The big rumor that swept the school at this time was that the request to fire Coach Hopkins was racially motivated because the white players weren't getting much playing time. The article in the paper spells out the allegations from the parents and that aspect is not broached so it remains to this day just a rumor. I guess those parents know if that rumor is true or not. My view then and my view now is that the best players should be the ones playing regardless of color or creed as long as their grades were okay. 

I had Coach Hopkins for health class when I was either a sophomore or junior. The best part of his class was when he insisted we take the hunter safety course. You had to fire a gun at the end so we got to shoot skeet with a shotgun on campus! This would never happen today for many reasons, but back in the 80's the Riverdale campus was still sort of in the country. I missed my 3 pulls, but several girls in the class who said they had never shot a gun hit their skeet. Coach Hopkins took some shots after us and missed. There was still time left in class so he told us all to go back inside while he kept trying to hit skeet. 

The upcoming basketball season would see the Warriors go undefeated in the regular season and Hopkins would continue to coach at Riverdale eventually getting inducted into the Riverdale Boys Basketball Hall of Fame. Kudos to Principal Hulon Watson for standing by a good guy and congratulations to Coach Hopkins who weathered the storm of 1984. 

The Daily News Journal from the day before had a photo of the new Murphy Center message board. It would remain in front of Murphy Center bringing us news electronically until it was removed in 2019.