The Early Years

Born on May 19, 1885 in Delrose, Tennessee, Andrew Alexis (Lex) Stone was a college football player, basketball and football coach and later, politician.

He stayed close to his roots in Tennessee, attending Sewanee: The University of the South. During his time in college, he had several successful seasons playing for the Tigers as a tackle.

Stone was an imposing figure at 6’2” and weighed around 170 lbs, so the playing as tackle was the perfect fit for him. It’s not surprise that he was selected as a second team tackle for Sewanee’s All-time football team in.

At college he pledged Phi Delta Theta and in 1907 he was selected All-Southern.

Coaching History & Timeline

He graduated from Sewanee and started at his new role as Head Coach for the Volunteers at the University of Tennessee in 1910.

Stone was only Head Coach for this one season, where his record stood at 3-5-1. A losing season, he was unable to gain any traction as coach, and a loss to Central University 2-17 in the season opener didn’t help.

The next game a week later against Mooney School was a win, with the Volunteers going 7-0. But, this was followed by two back to back losses against Vanderbilt and Georgia, with the University of Tennessee losing 0-18 and 5-35 accordingly.

This pattern of one win followed by two bad losses repeated itself, with Stone’s team beating Howard College of Alabama 17-0, but then losing to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi without scoring a single point.

The 0-48 scoreline certainly didn’t help boost morale, and to make matters worse the Volunteers lost their next match at their home ground at Waite Field against Kentucky State College 0-10.

Not that it was much consolation but Stone and his time had a win against Maryville University, and a tie against Chattanooga to close out the season.

1910 was Stone’s first and last season as Head Coach for the Volunteers. When he joined the University of Tennessee, he was also the Athletics Director. During the early years where college sports programs were still new, there wasn’t a strong team of people to help with individual sports. This meant that he was the Head Coach for football, baseball, track and also the first ever basketball coach at the University of Tennessee. Unfortunately his record with the basketball team was not strong either, going 7-9 in his only season.

When you take all factors into consideration, being athletics director and serving as head coach for multiple sports is no small feat. It’s possible that Stone was simply spread too thin and unable to focus on one team.

Having had such success as a player, it’s likely that if he had a strong support system as a football coach and didn’t have to wear multiple hats, the Volunteers would have had a much stronger season under him.

It’s difficult to imagine this occurring in modern day sports, when each individual college sport’s team has multiple coaches.

Life After Coaching

Stone moved away from the coaching world, and into that of politics in 1913.

He served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for two years, and it is not known whether he embarked on another career path as he passed away only ten years after leaving his political post.

At the age of just 39, Lex Stone passed away on March 22, 1925 in New Orleans Louisiana.