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East Tennessee University’s first baseball club was organized in 1875.

In 1919 and 1920, UT trustee Colonel W. S. Shields, who was president of City National Bank, paid off the purchase of land for a new athletic field, and UT agreed to get the field ready. About 700-800 students and faculty volunteered over two days in March 1921 to level the playing surface, install drainage tiles, and complete construction of the field. It was called Shields-Watkins Field in honor of the donor and his wife, Alice Watkins-Shields. The Vols played their first football game there on September 24, 1921, defeating the Emory and Henry Wasps 27-0. The original west stands that were transformed into Neyland Stadium were also completed in 1921 and seated 3,200 people. Shields-Watkins Field, which originally included the track and space for baseball games, was UT’s first regulation football field. The Vols played their earliest games off campus at Baldwin Park and Chilhowee Park. Games began on campus in 1908 at Wait Field, UT’s first athletic field, located near Cumberland Avenue and Phillip Fulmer Way.

Before he transformed the Tennessee football program, Robert Reese Neyland was a superb student–athlete in the Army. He won 35 games (20 consecutive) as a baseball pitcher, played starting end on the Cadets’ 1914 national championship football team, and won the academy’s heavyweight boxing championship his final three years. In 1925, Neyland was serving as UT’s assistant football coach and an ROTC instructor who was also a major in the Army when he was named head coach. His only piece of instruction was to beat Vanderbilt since the Commodores began trouncing the Vols in 1920. It took three years, but Neyland delivered on that win and many more. He developed one of the most efficient single-wing offenses in the country, complemented by an unyielding defense. Of the 216 games he coached, the Vols shut out their opponents 112 times. In fact, from 1938 to 1940, his teams recorded 17 consecutive regular season shutouts. Neyland’s teams eventually won four national championships and compiled an overall record of 173 wins, 31 losses, and 12 ties. During World War II, Neyland left his coaching duties and returned to active service, eventually earning a promotion to brigadier general. After the war ended and Neyland resumed coaching at UT in 1946, he was always known as “the General.” Although health issues forced Neyland to step down from coaching six years later, he served as UT athletic director for a decade and helped design the stadium. The UT trustees voted to name Neyland Stadium after him about a month before his death in 1962, and UT dedicated a statue of him there in 2010 that displays his seven game maxims.

In 1972, Condredge Holloway, nick named the “Artful Dodger,” was the first Black quarterback for the Vols football team as well as the Southeastern Conference. In his three seasons as a starter, Holloway led the Vols to the 1972 Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, the 1973 Gator Bowl, the 1974 Liberty Bowl, and an overall record of 25-9-2. He was also UT’s first Black baseball player, the sport he actually preferred to play. The star shortstop said head football coach Bill Battle told him during recruiting that he could play both sports at UT. In three seasons of Vols baseball, he maintained a .351 average and collected 145 hits with 103 runs scored, 62 RBI, and a .450 slugging percentage. After 13 seasons as a quarterback in the Canadian Football League, Holloway retired and returned to UT to work more than once. UT retired his No. 1 baseball jersey in 2015. He was assistant athletics director for student–athlete relations and lettermen when he retired in 2019. He is the only UT student–athlete named to all-century squads in baseball and football.