Throughout the 2014-15 school year the Ohio Valley Conference will celebrate the stories of pioneers and leaders from each of our member institutions who paved and continue to pave the way for future generations of student-athletes and administrators. Check back here often as well as check out www.OVCSports.com/Diversity to learn more.
During our celebration of diversity this year we have heard stories of basketball players, football players and track and field stars. As the calendar has turned to spring and the weather warms up we take a look at a pioneer in the sport of baseball.
Morris Irby (1968-71) was not only a standout baseball player at Tennessee Tech in the late 1960s and early 1970s but he was also the first black player recruited for a baseball scholarship at the university.
A native of Cookeville, Irby went to Cookeville High School at the same time as current Tennessee Tech head football coach Watson Brown. When it was time to decide on a college he stayed home to play for the Golden Eagle baseball team.
On the field Irby led the team with five home runs, 39 runs and 21 stolen bases during the 1970 season. Over 40 years later the 21 stolen bases that season still ranks as the 10th-best in school history for a single-season. Overall his 40 career stolen bases still ranks as the eighth-best total in Tennessee Tech baseball history.
He would graduate from Tennessee Tech in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and in 1977 received a master’s degree in educational psychology also from TTU.
He then worked for nearly 40 years for Fleetguard/Cummins Filtration.
He has served on the TTU College of Business board of trustees and the boards of directors for WCTE, the Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency and the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center.
A staple in the Cookeville community, he was also part of
integrating Cookeville Central High School after the former Darwin School, a comprehensive black school for grades one through 12, was destroyed by fire in January 1963.
Irby recalls memories of that and growing up in a segregated community in the below video interview that originally aired on WCTE.