KNOXVILLE – The tributes in remembrance of Johnny Majors confer a stature that befits his achievements and his personality.
The former Tennessee football star and coach died on Wednesday at the age of 85. In perusing the eulogies and the history, several distinctions stood out in appreciating his life and career:
Players’ coach: Former running back Aaron Hayden shared via social media a pivotal moment involving Majors during Hayden’s freshman season:
“He walked up to me and said look me in my eyes and don’t blink,” Hayden recalled, “He said you’re either gonna be scared of the defense or scared of me.
Get in the huddle and play to your abilities or I can send you back to Detroit.
“It was what I needed to hear and he never had to say anything to me on the field again. He was truly a leader of men.”
Former Vol Charles Davis played for Majors during the 1980s, when the program’s resurgence gained traction. He said that a day doesn’t pass without him thinking of his former coach.
“He had a profound influence on my life and always will,” Davis said. “I can easily say that I love the man.”
Tennessee heritage: In announcing Majors’ death, Mary Lynn Majors, the coach’s wife of 61 years, said: “He spent his last hours doing something he dearly loved, looking out over his cherished Tennessee River.”
Majors harbored anger and resentment for being forced to resign as head coach with three games remaining in the 1992 season. The corresponding events damaged his relationship with his successor, current athletic director Phillip Fulmer.
The sad turn of events didn’t diminish his legacy. It also didn’t sever his relationship with the university or hew any of the roots that run deep into his home state. He was an ambassador for the program and a presence into the tenure of current coach Jeremy Pruitt. As senior offensive lineman Trey Smith noted via Twitter: “Coach was always charismatic and encouraging when I spoke to him.”
“He’s Tennessee,” Davis said of Majors, “and Tennessee is him.”
Doubly distinguished: Few have been as accomplished as both a player and a coach as Majors.
He was a two-time SEC player of the year in 1955-’56. He was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy after the ’56 season.
“A lot of Tennessee fans tell me that I should’ve won the Heisman Trophy,” former UT quarterback Peyton Manning said, “but I can promise you it was Coach Majors who really should have been the Heisman winner his senior year.”
Majors’ playing career earned him induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. His coaching career deserves to be so honored. He won a national championship at Pittsburgh in 1976 and earned 185 career victories in 29 years at three different schools.
“He’s every cliché that you want to talk about when you’re talking about the giants of our game,’’ Davis said.
Hear him out: When Majors climbed to the top of the tower at UT’s practice field wielding a bull horn, it promised to be a long, loud day – for his assistant coaches as well as the players.
“Sometimes, he was not an easy guy to work for,” said former assistant Ron Zook, who then added in the same breath, “but he taught me a lot.”
Zook recalled a reunion of former Tennessee secondary coaches that he attended. It happened before Zook, Kevin Steele and Dom Capers all coached in an NFL preseason exhibition game. Seems that they were better for the experience.
“He used to always say that if you’re yelling on Saturday, you didn’t do enough yelling during the week,” Zook said.
Love of football: Along with being interesting, Majors was man of many interests.
His son, John Ireland Majors, noted his father’s love for the symphony, travel, history and “almost any type of museum.”
But football is where he created history, which mattered the most.
“I always enjoyed talking to him about his playing days at Tennessee,” Manning said, “and about some of the great games that he played in and some of the great rivalries of that time. I really enjoyed those conversations.”
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who covered University of Tennessee athletics from 1988-2019. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.