Larry Seivers in 1975 uniquely became the first Tennessee Volunteer wide receiver since Buddy Cruze nearly 20 years earlier to become an all-American football player.
His story was also a little uncommon in that he was not a typical modern wide receiver compared to the many who would follow in his footsteps and, for a time, give Tennessee the nickname of “Wide Receiver U.”
Seivers was not overly fast, he joked, but what he lacked in speed, he made up for in reliability, concentration, and even heart and desire. If a pass came his way, Vol fans knew he was almost always going to catch it.
And often his heroics came at crucial times, giving him the movie-like equivalent of lead player in the dramas of several close Tennessee football games from 1974
to 1976.
As Seivers joked recently in trying to modestly put his contributions in perspective amid what he called his limiting skills, “They (the coaches) said to just catch the ball, and that’s what I did.”
But before he was waiting on those crucial passes, he also had to wait his turn in a show of perseverance not everyone could likely handle.
In connection with the 50th anniversary of his senior season of 1976, Seivers recently reminisced about his star career and life since. Raised in nearby Clinton - where he remembered as a small child seeing the various protests as Clinton High became the first school in the South to integrateby court order - he went on to play sports for the Dragons.
He was actually one of three Clinton High players to sign with Tennessee and enroll in the fall of 1972. Terry Moore and Russell Williams were the others, but Seivers said he was not a heralded high school wide receiver and defensive back at all. Moore was, however, and after the coaches became aware that Moore said he wanted to go where Seivers did, Seivers suddenly became a bigger recruit, he said with a laugh.
He said Clinton High did not throw the ball a lot, and when they did, he would run one of two basic routes that were easy for a defense to follow. But the challenge did help him learn an important skill - simply put, “I learned to catch in a crowd.”
After arriving at UT, he played on the freshman team when those were still popular. And during his second year in the fall of 1973, he was redshirted. “I don’t think they thought I was good enough to play, so they made me a tackling dummy,” he said.
Compounding the situation was that the more naturally gifted Stanley Morgan arrived as a freshman wide receiver that year, and Seivers remembers talking to his father and saying he might need to transfer with seemingly little playing time on the horizon.
But somehow, he waited and his turn came. While on the scout team in practice that 1973 season, he began catching the ball – learning even better how to concentrate hard and secure it in a crowd.
He also caught the eyes of the coaches. That included the defensive ones frustrated at how he was catching passes on their first-team defense in practice and forcing the scout team offense to repeat the same plays.
That and the talented Morgan’s move to the offensive backfield for a good part of the 1974 season gave Seivers a chance to play the next year and go from anonymity to star. Wearing No. 89 in honor of former Vol and family acquaintance Gary Kreis after wearing No. 88 in high school, he became close to No. 1 in the hearts of Vols fans during that stretch under coach Bill Battle.
He had a memorable two-point catch to beat Clemson and another one to tie Vanderbilt as a sophomore. And he also caught the winning touchdown pass from Randy Wallace to beat Maryland and star Randy White in the Liberty Bowl.
The next year, while rooming with defender Ron McCartney, he would make all-American, as mentioned, with 41 receptions and another memorable catch amid several defenders in an early season home victory over Auburn. Yes, he could still catch in a crowd, even on the big stage.
In 1976, he had 51 catches – including a school-record 11 against Clemson -- at a time when teams did not throw the ball as much as today, and he made all-American for the second time. He said he fortunately does not remember dropping a single catchable pass during his entire varsity career.
Despite his personal performances, it was not enough to keep coach Bill Battle’s job after 7-5 and 6-5 seasons. But Seivers says he greatly admired his coach, who, he said, found plenty of success later in the business world.
“Getting fired was probably the best thing that ever happened to him,” Seivers said. “He was an unbelievable man. I had more respect for him than anyone. I wasn’t a sure-fire thing.”
Seivers recalls playing in a college all-star game with Morgan, and Pitt’s Johnny Majors, who was to take the Tennessee job, was one of their coaches. He jokingly recalls Majors wanted to pick his and Morgan’s brains about the state of football at Tennessee rather than focus on the all-star game.
Seivers, whose 40-yard dash time was an average 4.7 seconds, was drafted in the fourth round by Seattle. But he never got a chance to catch a pass in a single preseason game while also trying out with Tampa Bay, Philadelphia and Green Bay. “I never got a look. They were looking for speed and that wasn’t me,” said the receiver known for possessing the intangibles more suited for college than the pros.
He went on to enjoy a successful career with a vending operation in schools and rest areas and later got into the solid waste business, operating a couple of landfills (Poplar View and Riverside C&D) with Stan Mitchell, the brother of former Vol letterman Steve Mitchell.
Now living in Louisville in Blount County, he is mostly retired these days, other than as a grandfather of five and avid Vols’ supporter watching most of the games now on his television. “I do whatever my wife tells me to do,” he said.
He and wife Sally raised two children, Larry “Charlie” Seivers and Jennifer Seivers Nash, both of whom inherited his athletic passion. Charlie played football at Tennessee Tech, while Jennifer played volleyball at Maryville College after they had both attended Webb School. Jennifer followed in her father’s footsteps by becoming an all-American at her level.
Seivers admits that the world of athletics has changed with the NIL deals for college players worth millions today. Back in his college years, he would get by on a $10 laundry check or by occasionally giving blood plasma for cash, he said. “I am so far removed from that concept, I don’t understand it,” he said.
But as a player, he did manage to give Vol fans of that era million-dollar memories with all his amazing catches still remembered today.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: How did Larry Seivers became a Vols star? He'd 'just catch the ball'
