Science Hill High School

Vincent Darden

Vincent Darden 1941

Vincent Darden went by "Red," he went by "Ting" and he went by defenders.

Darden scored 21 touchdowns during his career and helped Plowboy Farmer's teams to a 20-1-1 record during his junior and senior seasons (1939-40).

His 55-yard interception return for a TD was the difference in a 6-0 defeat of Knoxville High in 1939, which was the Hilltoppers' first victory ever against the Trojans. Darden scored in five straight games that season, which Science Hill finished 10-0-1.

He led the '39 team with 11 TDs and scored eight in 1940. Those teams went a combined 20-1-1. Darden also passed for a touchdown and kicked three PATs.

In its first year without players such as Darden, Jack Osborne, Kermit Tipton, Bob Storie, Arthur Kelsey and Gayle Cox, Science Hill went 2-8-1 in 1941.

Osborne grew up at the corner of Spring Street and Maple Street. He said Darden lived on Maple, and the boys from their area were forever playing Tipton's Keystone team in sandlot games at Powell Square Park.

Darden also won state championships in the 120-yard high hurdles and 200-yard low hurdles in 1941.

"He was an outstanding football player but track was his favorite," Osborne said. "He set the state record in the high hurdles."

Indeed, Darden was the Hilltoppers third state champion high-hurdler in seven years when he won it in '41, and his mark of 15.2 performance at the state meet exceeded predecessors Charlie Fleming (15.5) and Jim Wallin (15.8).

"There's no telling what Vincent or Charlie Fleming or Jim Wallin could've done on the surfaces they have today," former track coach Sidney Smallwood said. "It took a lot of courage to run those high hurdles on a cinder track. You trip going full speed and they had to get out the iodine."

Osborne remembers Darden always being very driven (maybe, in part, because his father refused to buy a car).

"Vincent was just outstanding in what he did," Osborne said. "He always wanted to do better. He was like me in the fact that he liked to work.

We'd stay busy even if we weren't tied up with a squad."

Darden obviously entertained sports writers. The Press-Chronicle account of his game-winning interception return in a 6-0 win at Knox High: "The payoff gallop was turned in by Ting Darden, diminutive Hilltopper trotter who stabbed a Knoxville pass in the first frame and raced untouched 55 yards across the double stripes. ... Darden saw a pass intended for Hatfield, heaved by Troutman, and he kindly accepted the present, checking out from his own 45 to escape unmolested."