By: Burke De Boer Sports Editor
In the far-out year of 1975, a motley pack of punks set upon the Old PE Building to beat one another bloody. Hundreds of Western students, then called the Oregon College of Education students, came together to dig on the wild fist dishing and watch Tim Hundley reign supreme.
This was the TKB Smoker: an annual boxing tournament, hosted in May or June of each year. A trip to the archives at Hamersly Li
brary unpacked the details of this event that has long since disappeared from the campus.
The host of these spring season rumbles was a fraternity, of sorts. They called themselves TKB and were neither affiliated with a national Greek organization nor sanctioned as a club by the university.
In the 1962 intramural football tournament, their team was billed as Theta Kappa Beta. In the days of short haircuts and picket fences, there was still an attempt to be respectable.
But by the 1970s, after a decade of political protests and the advent of heavy metal, the era of renegades was upon the nation. When the campus newspaper covered the Smoker in 1971, they proudly went by the name they were truly known as: Tappa Kegga Beer.
Tappa Kegga membership consisted primarily of players on the Wolves football team. Players such as the 1972 offensive captain and running back, Doug Trice. Trice’s 5,416-career all-purpose yards is a school record nobody’s come close to touching. And Terry Watkins, the defensive line captain.
And Tim Hundley, who played at safety and linebacker as an All-American.
In addition to playing intercollegiate ball, TKB would organize a team for the intramural football tournament every year. In all the archived intramural coverage, TKB’s teams never lost.
The gridiron gang did not fare as well in the boxing ring though. The set up, advertised to entice any and all challengers, was that a TKB member would be matched up in weight class with any non-member. Hundley, Trice, Watkins: you, too, have a chance to flatten their noses.
Every year, Tappa Kegga brawlers wound up on the losing side of the overall head-to-head records. In 1973, they won five of the 12 fights, which was a pretty good year.
They could scrap together a few wins and Tim Hundley would lead the charge. He boasted five wins in a six-year span, as he transitioned from a football player and began his coaching career as a graduate program assistant.
One of Hundley’s most reliable defensive teammates was a player named Jack Flitcraft. From 1969 to 1973, Flitcraft was a Wolves icon. In his time, he set the school record for interceptions in a career. His record still stands at 21. For perspective, the career interceptions leader among the currently active roster is redshirt senior linebacker Tyler Johnson, who has four.
Flitcraft also played baseball, leading the team in runs, hits and RBIs. He was known as an all-around athlete, affectionately called “Flit.” He was not a member of Tappa Kegga Beer.
In June of 1971, Hundley drew Flit. Hundley had 10 pounds on his teammate, and was considered the favorite.
The bout opened as expected, with Hundley landing heavy hits. But Flit was more formidable than expected. A quicker, fleet-footed fighter, Flitcraft showed the speed that would lead to his school interceptions record.
When the final bell rang, it was Flit’s glove that was raised. By decision, the upset was complete.
Mike Haglund, a campus reporter who was in attendance, described the aftermath; “Tim just smiled and gave his congrats to Jack and they left the ring together.”
Tim Hundley fought for six years through annual matches with only one loss. And Jack Flitcraft would go down as the man who delivered it.
By the end of the ‘70s, the event had grown to being, by the account of the 1978 newspapers, “the most popular campus activity of the year.”
And, by this time, a new Tappa Kegga brother had risen from his ranks to lead his fraternity of fighters; Lee Reed, who in ‘78 was called “The Muhammad Ali of TKB,” strung together his own streak of smashing victories.
Gill Boardman, a campus newspaper staff writer, covered the ‘77 Smoker by saying, “The highlight of the evening had to be whether Lee Reed would put his opponent down in the first or second round.”
Then, in 1979, it all came crashing down. Or, at least, the boxing ring did. Before a crowd of 900, the floor of the ring collapsed.
It was repaired, and the bouts continued. Mark Smith, as a spokesman from the fraternity, later explained that they didn’t have the time to check the safety of the ring.
But in the 1980 intramural football tournament, no TKB team competed.
No mention of Tappa Kegga was found in the Reagan era papers. With no clue as to how it happened, the club disappeared. Perhaps the spirit of the ‘70s simply kept them bound to that happenin’ decade.
So who exactly was the best TKB boxer? As they were fraternity brothers, Hundley and Reed never duked it out. But if they had, the overlap would have landed right when one was a graduate student and the other fresh out of high school.
Hundley may have been one tough dude during his tenure as a pugilist, but something worth noting is Reed’s accomplishments after the fall of the Smokers. The Wolves Taekwondo club competed in Portland in 1980 and 1981, and Reed took the Northwest heavyweight black belt championship both times.
Taekwondo and boxing are, admittedly, different beasts, but it’s no wonder that Reed was so accomplished in the ring. For as long as his time lasted, at least, then he was off to prove his mettle in other arenas.
The ‘70s ended, so did the Smokers. And so did Tappa Kegga Beer.
Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu
