by Hunter Patterson | Oct 23, 2011 | Sports
Ever since Lipscomb and Belmont played their first basketball game in 1953, they’ve been rivals. With the two schools being on the same street just a couple miles away, it was practically inevitable. However, looking back over the history of Lipscomb athletics, you’ll find more than just Lipscomb-Belmont. They were instead, other schools in town. “In the 1950s, East Tennessee State was a huge rival for David Lipscomb College,” said Andy Lane, associate athletic director. In those games, the team would actually get on a train and head to east Tennessee to play. Now, both teams are in the Atlantic Sun, so the fire is still there, but Lane says it was a lot different then. What most students don’t know is that the Trevecca Nazarene game was that game to be at. Known as the “Bleacher Creatures” during the ’80s, Lipscomb fans would pack both McQuiddy and Trevecca’s Trojan Field House so much that actions had to be taken to prevent from breaking any laws. “In McQuiddy, the fans were right on top of you,” Lady Bisons head coach Frank Bennett says. “Those games were as intense as any we have ever had,” Lane says. Communications professor Jimmy McCollum recalls one game where the fire marshal forced Lipscomb to shut the doors on the gym because it had reached maximum capacity. “We had what I believe was a perfect storm for rivalries,” McCollum said. “We had a small gym, we had an excellent team consistently ranked in the top 5 or 10 across the nation in the NAIA and we had not only one but two local rivals...
