HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Larry Smchittou sits in his second-floor office overlooking one of the bowling alleys he owns, this one in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
His office feels like a scene out of The Godfather. Schmittou, who still works six days a week despite turning 85 in July, works on a stogie as he looks over a large white board filled with numbers and information about how his bowling empire is operating.
Littered on the walls are photos, old newspaper clippings and other memorabilia from his baseball days. You wouldn’t know it or may not even believe it, but Schmittou is one of the most influential people in Tennessee’s baseball history, and his influence is the reason professional baseball came to the Tennessee Valley.
Schmittou’s love for baseball began at a young age. As a junior in high school, he began coaching youth teams while still playing baseball himself. He attended Peabody College to become a teacher. During this time, his youth baseball career flourished.
After finishing college, Schmittou became a junior high school teacher and coach before becoming the head basketball coach at Goodlettsville High School.
He would spend time as a scout for the Cleveland Indians before his first major gig came along.
In 1968, Schmittou was hired as Vanderbilt’s Head Baseball coach and football recruiter. Just like his youth coaching career, he found success, leading the Commodores to two SEC Championships, four SEC East Division Championships and being named the SEC Coach of the Year twice.
Around the time that he left Vanderbilt in 1978, Schmittou wanted to bring professional baseball to Nashville. He, along with investors like Conway Twitty, Cal Smith and Jerry Reed, went in together and the Nashville Sounds were born.
Fast forward to 1984, and Schmittou began to have greater plans for his hometown team.
Schmittou bought the Evansville Triple-A franchise and moved it to Nashville. The purchase meant he needed to move the Double-A franchise somewhere else.
“After looking at several cities, the Mayor of Huntsville, Mayor Davis, wanted a team,” Schmittou said. “We started talking to Huntsville about building a stadium and getting a team.”
Schmittou said that Huntsville being in the Southern League footprint and its growth are what made it stand out to him. He also considered Evansville, Indiana or New Orleans.
“One thing led to another, and Mayor Davis went to work and tried to put a package together for me,” Schmittou said. “I went down to Huntsville to meet with their City Council, and they asked me if I was going to sell beer, and I said absolutely.”
The City Council voted 3-2 not to bring the team to town because of Schmittou’s plans to sell beer.
Schmittou figured it was time to look at other cities to take his team. However, Mayor Davis reached out to him with a compromise: There would be a drinking section and a non-drinking section.
In August 1984, the City Council approved this revised plan, and Huntsville was officially set to get a team. Schmittou said it was an exciting time.
That feeling of excitement quickly faded to stress for Schmittou as a stadium had to be built and ready to play in by the following April.
“It was a deadline that you know you think, ‘Can we make it, can we make it?’ We got the Southern League to get us to open on the road to give us an extra eight days,” Schmittou said. “Fortunately, we had good weather to be able to get that foundation up, but the construction company and the City together just did an outstanding job.”
“It wasn’t 100% through when we opened, but it was 95%,” Schmittou said. “It opened as the premier stadium in the Southern League.”
Amid the stress of getting the stadium built, Schmittou knew he needed to start hiring a staff to open the franchise. No pick was bigger than who he would hire as the Stars’ first general manager.
Schmittou entrusted Huntsville’s Mr. Baseball, Don Mincher, who owned a trophy shop at the time, with that role.
“He and his wife came up to Nashville to see what my plans were, and I said, well, my first plan is to get you to be the general manager,” Schmittou said. “He said okay, and you know he had a few health problems, so I told him I’ll get you a good staff.”
The demand for baseball in the Rocket City was high. Schmittou remembers the massive crowds for the first home series and how, when Sunday finally rolled around, it was a relief. That relief quickly faded when he looked outside the stadium and saw a line all the way to Memorial Parkway.
Schmittou asked Mincher why people were standing in line, to which Mincher said there was a ‘little ole’ college game following the Stars series.
“You got as many people outside as we got inside,” Schmittou told Mincher. “Who’s the little college game?”
Schmittou didn’t know it, but a young standout baseball player by the name of Bo Jackson was scheduled to play at Joe Davis Stadium, and Huntsville couldn’t wait to get their eyes on him.
“We ran out of everything, food and all,” Schmittou said. “We’re spending the last two innings going to every grocery store getting what we can cause we got one group leaving and one group coming. We had as many people for that little ole college game.”
A few years after bringing the Stars to town, Schmittou began to phase out of baseball. He sold the team to a local group of owners but ended his time as owner on good terms.
“It was a delightful experience,” Schmittou said. “Huntsville opened their arms to our team and for that, I’ll forever be grateful.”
He linked up with Rick Scott to start a bowling alley chain before Scott went into politics. These days, Schmittou still manages that chain.
40 years later, he still thinks fondly of the Rocket City but is always thinking like the business mogul he is.
“I wish I had a bowling center down there,” Schmittou said jokingly when asked about Huntsville.
“I’ve just always been impressed with that city,” Schmittou said. “I just love Huntsville. It was just a middle-sized city with big attractions.”
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