On February 7, 2007, one of the pioneers of the Midway High School basketball program passed away at the age of 81. Lee Eble had an instrumental role in the development of the basketball program at Midway. Coach Eble was the basketball coach at Midway from 1950 to 1954, which included one of the best boys teams ever at Midway, the ’53 team that made it to the regional finals where they lost to eventual state champion Lenoir City.
Coach Eble loved basketball. He not only coached at Midway, but at his home town of Oakdale and at Kingston which included some very good teams led by Gene Raymer and the Collier Kingston boys. And like many men his age, Mr. Eble was a veteran also; serving in the Army Air Corps. In a Veterans Day interview with the Roane County Newspaper in 2001 from his room at Wellington Place in Kingston, Coach Eble described his fondest memories of his time in the service as “making friends and playing basketball.” [story]
Park Waldroup, class of 1955, recalled for us his time with Coach Eble.
“I first attended Midway in fall 1952. At that time the starting 5 was Buford Sitzlar at center, Don Johnson and Joe Woody at Forward, and Starlen Moore and Boyd Woody at guards. The next year the starters were Ed and Max Rose at forward, Brad Gordon at center, and Joe Thompson and Russell Alexander at guards.
I noticed in Did You Know section on SORSN.com, there was a comment ‘from 1947 to 1952 Midways teams were known as the Jumping Jacks….’ Actually Coach Eble came up with that name in the fall of 1952, because although the team was not particularly tall they were great leapers, especially Buford Sitzlar and Don Johnson. I had not seen or talked to Coach Eble in nearly 50 years, and when I saw the ‘Jumpin Jacks’ reference on the web site, I remembered him coming up with that nickname one day in practice.
To verify it, and also because I wanted to thank Coach Eble for all he had done for us as a coach and teacher, I looked him up on switchboard.com and called him several months ago. Even though we had not talked for almost 50 years and even though I was a minor player on the team, he remembered me well and we had a great talk. He verified that in fact he did coin the term ‘Jumping Jacks’ at that time. I did not know at the time how ill he was nor did he say anything about it, so I was rather shocked to learn of his death.
Coach Eble characterized to me what a coach should be all about. He emphasized sportsmanship, hard work, team play, and all the things that athletics should contribute to life.”
Though his time at Midway only consisted of a few years, Coach Eble left a positive impact on many of his players and helped bring the game of basketball to a small, rural community located south of the river.