Jimmy Chin Lee found murdered
Football star dead
two weeks before season
set to begin at Vanderbilt
By Mitchell Sawyer
Tribune Staff Reporter
The body of Jimmy Chin Lee, quarterback for the Vanderbilt Commodores and one of Nashville's biggest sports stars, was found shot to death by Metro police early Saturday morning.
Lee, whose senior season was set to begin in just two weeks, was shot twice, once in the heart and once in the chest.
"Right now, we have no apparent motive for the shooting,"Police chief Robert Struggle said.
"it was a brutal killing."
Metro Police received an anonymous 911 call about 6 a.m. on Saturday summoning them to the small house off West End Avenue where Lee lived alone.
Vanderbilt football coach Rick Randell expressed shock at the deal of his star quarterback.
"This is an absolute tragedy for Jimmy Chin's family and friends, for his team, for our university and for the whole city of Nashville," he said.
"Jimmy Chin never had any enemies. He never said a cross word to anybody. I just can't imagine a thing like this."
Lee burst onto the Nashville sports scene three years ago and single-handedly transformed it from a professional foortball culture to a rah-rah college town.
Vanderbilt football had been the mighty Southeastern Conference's traditional doormat, but with Lee directing traffic on the field, opponenets were much more reluctant to come to the Music City than they had been in nearly 60 years.
In his freshman year, Lee led the Commodores to seven victories, including a suprise win over rival Tennessee Volunteers -- the straw that broke the back of Johnny Colonels coaching career at UT. Vanderbilt played in the Liberty Bowl at the end of that season, beating Atlantic Coast Conference power Clemson.
Deck Layton, the Daily Tribune sports editor who had covered Lee during his high school days at Caneyville, said that Lee's talent was apparent from the very moment he stepped onto Dudley Field,
"He was a transforming figure, no doubt about it," Layton said.
"Jimmy Chin made you forget about all the great SEC quarterbacks of the past -- Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler, Peyton Manning. All of them. All you had to do was remember Jimmy Chin Lee."
During his sophomore year at Vandy, Lee proved that the freshman season had not been a fluke. Protected by a bigger and stronger offensive line than he had enjoyed his first year, Lee drove his team up and down the gridiron with abandon.
Patrick "Wolf" Wyatt, coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, said Lee's first trip to Tuscaloosa that year had an extraordinary effect on the crowd at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
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