KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Nearly 100 years ago, the SEC was born in a downtown Knoxville hotel.
In December 1932, 13 institutions gathered in the Farragut Hotel on Gay Street and broke away from the Southern Conference. Together, they decided to form the Southeastern Conference.
The Knox County Archives hold the old photos of the hotel. Knox County archivist Eric Head said many teams were aggravated by the Southern conference's restrictions on broadcasting games.
"As far as broadcasting and the new medium of radio, as far as newspapers and photographers taking pictures, they were very restrictive of this," he said.
The schools met at the epicenter of Knoxville in that time period, said historian Tom Mattingly.
“The Farragut Hotel downtown was really one of the centers of operation downtown. Back in those days, if you went downtown, it was a big deal," Mattingly said.
But despite East Tennessee's love for the Vols and SEC sports, this piece of history remains relatively unknown, Head said.
“Here was the founding place of the southeastern conference, and yet it's unknown to most people,” he said. "This is really surprising to me that this is kind of unknown information here in the heart of the south where football is kind of like a religion."
Since the SEC's creation, the Vols fanbase has only continued to grow, Mattingly said.
“The fanbase just grew over the years, all the way back to the 1920s when General Neyland came to town. The fanbase grew almost by leaps and bounds,” Mattingly said.
And he said the magic of Knoxville is still going strong.
"This is a very historic place."
