Charles "Stumpy" Sarver stepped up in the spring of his freshman year to the challenge from then MT football coach and fellow Hall of Famer, Frank Faulkinberry, for "two good men in the middle of the defensive line." From that day forward, he was an MT guard.
His playing career was capped in 1935 by an 8-0 season and the SIAA championship. While he went on to coach in high schools throughout the Southeast, at MT he is best known as the student who accepted the challenge of the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal to come up with a new team name. To replace the uninspired "Normalites," "Pedagogues" and "Teachers" that been used since the school's founding, Sarver proposed the "Blue Raiders." It was a name he said was inspired by Colgate University's Red Raiders. For his effort, Sarver won $5.
