Maryville College announces a bigger, better KT Weekend for April 11
April 1, 2026
It’s not the sort of celebration that signals the impending end of an academic year with banners hanging from buildings and flags from campus lampposts, but give it time, Maryville College Director of Community Engagement Chris Freeman says: KT Weekend will get there.
An annual Saturday give-back day designed to engage current students in the spirit of one of their famous forebears, Kin Takahashi 1895, KT Weekend shares an origin story with both KT Days and KT Global, two events organized by the MC Office of Alumni Affairs. In Maryville College lore, Takahashi’s work during his time on campus demonstrated an unflagging dedication to his alma mater.
Not only is Takahashi credited for introducing the game of football to East Tennessee, the Japanese immigrant served as both a player and coach on MC’s inaugural teams. He helped set up an on-campus community garden to feed his less-fortunate fellow Scots, and he lead fundraising efforts for and literally helped build Bartlett Hall, which still stands today, through organizing the firing of 300,000 bricks made from the clay dug out for the building’s foundation.
His name is synonymous in MC circles with service, gracing the KT Days summer program that invites alumni back to campus to take part in projects that range from painting and clean-up to light construction; and a worldwide effort called KT Global, taking place throughout April during which time alums perform community service projects wherever they reside.
“KT Days takes place after the spring semester ends, so while we always have plenty of alumni willing to come back to Maryville College and help, we wanted to organize a separate event during the academic year to involve students,” said Alumni Affairs Director Jennifer Phillips Triplett ’07. “The idea behind KT Weekend is that organizers didn’t want to interfere with their classes, they could put together a service weekend, which aligns perfectly with the calling made by our founder for us all to ‘do good on the largest possible scale.”
Among current students, however, the story of Takahashi is familiar, but not necessarily one that Scots can recite from memory, Freeman said.
“I did a tabling event that had some trivia involved last month, and one of the questions had to do with KT,” Freeman said. “The question was, ‘Who brought football to East Tennessee before (the University of Tennessee) even had a football program?’ And it was funny, because students would be like, ‘Wait! I’ve heard about this! It’s that guy!’ Some knew right away, but others didn’t, and when I explained a little more about him, and how he got students together to make bricks for Bartlett Hall, they were like, ‘Wow!’
“When they actually hear more about that story, they’re a little bit more impressed, and sometimes I think a little bit more proud, of being a Scot. So for this KT Weekend, we’re organizing three things to plug into the man, the myth and the legend.”
The first event, KTCares, will see KT Weekend participants return to the Maryville College Woods, where ongoing efforts to clear out invasive plant species is a never-ending task, and where light construction and painting projects often require some old-fashioned elbow grease.
This year, Freeman added, Biology Professor Dr. Drew Crain will lead groups of students and alumni into the Maryville College Woods for restoration projects in and around what used to be the greenhouse for House in the Woods, built in 1917 as the home of the first College pastor. Reggie Dailey, the former director of MC’s Facilities Operations and the “volunteer-in-chief” project leader for KT Days, will organize the various groups and projects.
The second project, KTCamp, is one of fortuitous timing, Freeman said: The College’s Community Engaged Scholars include those enrolled in the Bonner Program, a nationally recognized service initiative that requires service commitments from scholarship recipients. Bonner Scholars are also required to complete capstone projects, which enable them to build on their time in the program to create a signature project, and for Bonners Bryson Rollins ’26 and Zae Richardson ’26 — two standouts who helped lead the Scots to a phenomenal football season last fall — that project is a free football camp for local children ages 8 to 13.
“It was a complete accident that it happened to get planned on KT Weekend, but for the man who brought football to East Tennessee, I think it’s fitting,” Freeman said.
Finally, KTCookout — a campus-wide cookout put together in partnership with Fresh Ideas, the College’s dining services provider — will take the place of Saturday lunch service in Pearsons Hall that day. The event will feature, in addition to food, a deejay, an ice cream truck and game stations organized by other Bonner Scholars.
“For instance, the Bonner Scholars at the Martin Luther King Center (in nearby Alcoa) are doing a soccer obstacle course, and student staff in the Center for Community Engagement are doing a chalk walk,” he said. “Each set of Bonners at our various service sites are sponsoring a station of fun things to do, and it’s an opportunity for students to walk into an event about this guy who cared about doing good on the largest possible scale and seeing some examples of that.”
The first KT Weekend, held in 2014, was organized by the College’s Nonprofit Leadership Alliance (NLA), the campus chapter of a national organization that provides certification in the management of nonprofit organizations to students who complete a set of certificate requirements in addition to the requirements for their chosen majors. Freeman got involved in KT Weekend for the first time in 2024 as the new staff advisor of the NLA, and by leaning into the Kin Takahashi angle of the service Saturday, he can see a day when KT Weekend will be a celebrated part of the academic year.
“The big grand plan here is for KT Weekend to be the celebration of the end of a year of service for Maryville College students,” he said.
The idea for supercharging KT Weekend came through conversations in the Division of Student Affairs about ways to better engage students through traditions that are often hyped and well-attended, like Finals Breakfast or the spring festival Blister in the Sun. In discussing those key events, Freeman, Triplett — who organizes alumni volunteers to work with students on KT Weekend — and Doniqua Flack Chen ’15, director of student involvement and leadership development, had an idea: “What if we blew it out? What if we went crazy with it? What would that look like?” Freeman said.
“We thought, ‘What if it was a bunch of things that celebrated this legacy of Kin Takahashi?’ So this is our first go at it, but hopefully we really push it to be something the students just show up for cookout — or they don’t even know about it, and they come out expecting their regular Pearsons Saturday meal — their day is disrupted in a way that’s actually exciting.”
And that, Triplett said, is a way to foment excitement on the part of students who become active alumni once they graduate and depart College Hill for lives and careers.
“I’m excited to see how KT Weekend is expanding to really immerse students in the tradition and inspiration of Kin Takahashi,” she said. “Learning about his impact and how to continue his legacy of service as a student deepens the meaning we find in continuing to serve as alumni.”
Registration for KT Weekend is now open: https://maryvillecollege.givepulse.com/event/853680. Students are encouraged to wear work clothing for the KTCares morning project and to bring a water bottle; no registration is necessary for the cookout. For more information, contact Freeman at chris.freeman@maryvillecollege.edu.