Eric Gray grew up in a football family’s football family.
Gray’s uncle (Maurice Hall) was a running back at Ohio State. His father was is running backs coach until reached the college level. His mother was the director of his youth football league and “prayed for a football player” when she was pregnant with him.
Any one of those family members, in theory, could be responsible for teaching Gray the spin moves he used throughout his freshman season at Tennessee.
Gray said that move was self-taught, though, and that it didn’t come from football.
It came from the basketball court.
“Yeah, that’s where I learned it. That’s where I learned it, for sure,” Gray said on this week’s edition of The Slice, a weekly podcast produced by UT in order to showcase the personalities and personal stories of its football players.
Gray, like many of his Tennessee football teammates, is also obsessed with basketball. The Memphis native didn’t flinch when asked what he’d be doing right now if he wasn’t playing football.
“Playing basketball, probably. Just playing basketball,” he said. “I don't know where we’d be today. It’d be fun to see. We would not be sitting right here, though.”
Gray’s love of hoops nearly broke his family’s heart by taking him away from football. He nearly gave up on the gridiron in middle school.
“I wanted to stop [playing football],” he said. “Actually, fun fact: In seventh grade, I told my parents that I wanted to quit football and play basketball.”
That wasn’t the first time Gray had threatened to quit, either.
With a big laugh, he admitted a desire to ditch football after his first game.
Gray said his mother’s role as director of the football league allowed him to start playing one year early. As a 4-year-old, he was allowed to play with the 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds.
It’s fair to suggest Gray’s first game didn’t go well.
“My first game, it was a Monday night,” he said. “You had an ‘A’ team that played on Saturdays and a ‘B’ team and played on Monday nights, and I was the ‘B’ team because I was 4, you know what I’m saying? So when I was playing, I ran around. I was playing quarterback back there. I took out, I ran the ball and I got knocked out — like knocked out. I didn't even want to play no more. I wanted to quit it right there. I didn’t even want to play any more. But, like my coaches were like, ‘Get up, get up, get back in it.’
“I think that's where I learned my toughness.”
Gray’s multiple decisions to get back up and keep playing payed off for the Vols.
The first three-time Mr. Football award winner in Tennessee history initially committed to Michigan before switching to the home-state Vols late in the process, and he was the team’s best running back at the end of his true freshman season. Gray ran for a Tennessee freshman record 246 yards and three touchdowns in the regular-season-finale win over in-state rival Vanderbilt, and he was named MVP of the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl win over Indiana for collecting 120 yards and the game-winning touchdown on offense while also recovering a crucial onside kick late in the fourth quarter.
Gray finished his freshman season with 654 yards and five touchdowns on 114 touches, averaging 5.3 yards per carry and 8.8 yards per catch.
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May 19, 2020 at 04:01AM
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Decision to stick with football pays off for Vols' Eric Gray - 247Sports
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