KNOXVILLE — A former University of Tennessee baseball player has passed away.
Billy Joe O’Kain, who attended Tennessee from 1949-53, died on Tuesday, April 28. He was 89.
O’Kain played on the Volunteers’ first team to reach the College World Series and was the national runner-up, losing the championship game to Oklahoma.
The Vols went 20-3 during the campaign and won the Southeastern Conference with a league mark of 16-1.
O’Kain, a right-handed pitcher for the Vols, went 3-0 during their SEC championship season. He returned to play for Tennessee in 1952 before graduating in 1953.
He had vision problems upon leaving UT and completely lost his eyesight in 1954.
But that did not keep him from opening his own insurance business in his hometown of Oak Ridge, where he was a high school baseball star for the Wildcats.
He opened Bill O’Kain Insurance in 1956. That firm was renamed O’Kain and Clark Insurance in 1989.
The former Vol retired from the insurance business in 1996 and was an amateur radio operator.