Science Hill High School

Jack Osborne

Jack Osborne

Science Hill's football teams went 20-1-1 while Osborne was an upperclassman during the 1939-40 seasons. Osborne made the All-State and All-Southern team, the first Hilltopper to make All-Southern region. He was one of four players from Tennessee on that team which involved 12 states (including Texas).

The UP wire carried a story with a Lake City, Fla., dateline on Dec. 14, 1940 after Osborne made the team. The Johnson City Press-Chronicle inset Osborne's reaction with this headline: Osborne Says 'Gosh'.

That's what a lot of folks were saying earlier that year when Osborne stunned 4,000 fans at Elizabethton by returning the opening kickoff 91 yards and then going 76 yards for a TD the next time he touched the ball on a handoff on Science Hill's second play from scrimmage. The underdog 'Toppers won 31-0 victory.

Osborne was Knoxville News-Sentinel first-team All-East Tennessee in 1940. Thirty years later, Johnson City Press-Chronicle sports writer Jimmy Smyth wrote that Osborne was also one of the area's all-time best punters. Fellow Johnson City writer Rutledge Miller wrote that Greenville, S.C., newspapers called Osborne “one of the flashiest high school backs to ever show there."

Science Hill concluded the 1940 season with a 21-5 victory in Greenville against Parker High. Sports writer Doug Bean called Osborne "a one-man terror."

According to one newspaper article with a story on the 1940 All-Big Five team, Osborne averaged 45 yards per kickoff during the 1939-40 seasons and scored 106 points in 1940.

Osborne said he grew up playing sandlot ball at what is now Powell Square Park. With guys like Vincent Darden and Bob Storie, Osborne said his gang would routinely play a bunch Kermit Tipton would bring from Keystone.

Osborne also was a premier hurdler. He played briefly at Milligan for Bernie Webb, having a big game against ETSU as a rookie after co-captain Bo Brummit was injured. But he soon suspected his draft card was getting shuffled because of sports, so he headed for Knoxville and began serving his country. That meant flying bombers over hemmed-in Germans across the English Channel in World War II. Of course, those that'd seen him run always knew that he could fly.

"Jack Osborne,” Tipton said, “is one of the greatest halfbacks to ever play around here."