This first one is an interesting account of a Japanese player for Maryville back in the mid 1880s

College Football Traditions in Tennessee
by B.B. Branton
posted August 31, 2009

MARYVILLE COLLEGE: College football in East Tennessee has its beginning at Maryville College by Kin Takahashi, a Japanese student who evidently played the sport in California in the mid-1880s.

Research shows that MC's inaugural football game was New Year's Eve, 1890 against a victorious Knoxville squad.

The first college game in the state was played 34 days earlier as Vanderbilt defeated Nashville, 40-0, on Thanksgiving Day.

Takahashi was player/coach and guided the Orange and Garnet in its first collegiate game on Oct. 15, 1892, but fell 25-0 to the visiting University of Tennessee.

MC alumni honor the former student each June with a Kin Takahashi Week which includes fund raising and volunteer maintenance work on campus.

The current Maryville team carries on the sport's foundation established by Takahashi as the Fighting Scot players stand as one after each home win and sing the school's alma mater in front of the home fans at Lloyd L. Thornton Stadium, while the victory bell at Anderson Hall is sounded.

Prior to kickoff, the players participate in the "March of the Scots" from Cooper Athletic Center down Donald W. Story Captain's Walk to the stadium.