Coach James E. “Jim” Stockdale was born in Columbus, Ohio, on July 30, 1930, but grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. He graduated from Bearden High School in Knoxville, received his bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College (OH), spent two years in the U.S. Army, and received his master’s degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

He was hired by the University of Tennessee Medical Units in Memphis in 1955 as Assistant Director of Student Welfare, which was the beginning of a career with the University that lasted thirty-seven years. Jim shortly became Director of Student Activities and had responsibility for the intramural athletic program, the management of the University Center, the logistics for Commencement, the orientation of incoming students, and just about anything that affected students outside the classroom. He and lifelong friend, the late Bill Robinson, were responsible for the design and construction of the Randolph Student-Alumni Center, completed in 1969. Also, in 1969 he became the first Personnel Director of the UT Medical Units with responsibility for creating and designing the first personnel program on campus which included the task of integrating the non-academic work force. Jim was one of four people who wrote the personnel policies for the entire University of Tennessee in the 1970’s. He was active in the College and University Personnel Association and served as its national president. Upon his retirement he was granted an Honorary Life Membership in the Association. Jim finished his career with the University as Assistant to the Vice Chancellor, retiring in 1992. He is active with the UT Retirees Association and has served as its president.

Jim was a pioneer in women’s basketball, serving as coach of the UT Nurses basketball team for twenty-six years, from 1955 through 1981. He was a volunteer in this endeavor for the University as he coached a team of students from the University of Tennessee College of Nursing that played in the Memphis Nurses League and also traveled throughout the Southeast and Midwest playing other nursing schools. He was instrumental in starting the Cotton States Invitational Nurses Basketball Tournament which was played in Memphis from 1957 through 1985 and during its entirety involved hundreds of nursing student basketball players from a total of thirty-seven schools from ten different states. During his coaching career Jim coached 174 women playing for the UT Nurses and during this time they won 333 games and lost 151 against nursing schools. They also captured seven Cotton States Tournament titles and won the Memphis Nurses League 12 times. Upon his retirement as coach, Jim was inducted into the Memphis Amateur Sports Hall of Fame. Fittingly his former UT Nurses players have endowed two scholarships in his name, one for a student at the UT College of Nursing, and one for a player on the Lady Vols women’s team in Knoxville.

Upon retirement for UT, Jim continued his love of women’s basketball as he and his wife, Dorothy, have had season tickets to the Lady Vols in Knoxville since 1993 and have never missed an SEC Women’s Tournament or a trip to the Final Four when the Lady Vols were there.

Jim and his wife, Dorothy Ashford, have been married 63 years. They have three daughters, one son, ten grandchildren, and fifteen great grandchildren and counting.