Question for you old timers

#101
#101
Mose Phillip's Watch said:
Do you think Tn would have keep Bill Battle as head coach if Johnny Majors wasn't so successful at Pitt ? His record wasn't that bad

Just a little before my time
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My dad (God rest his soul) sure would have wanted them too. He thought Battle was a heck of a coach. Still have the autographed photo Battle sent my dad.
 
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#102
#102
Re Gossett and Exum, I grew up in Chattanooga. Went to school with Ward. My recollection is that he seemed to have very little interest in sports at the time, but turned out to be a very good sportswriter. Roy Exum writes a daily opinion column for the chattanoogan.com. Occasionally he will write a column reminiscing about sports, when he was with the skywriters preseason football group, etc.
 
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#104
#104
JohnWardForever said:
Yep! Dang I couldn't pull him up! (Dementia setting in) Roy was Excellent. I even saw a couple "Guest articles" by Roy fairly recently. Thanks for the reminder!
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Roy is at Chattanoogan.com. Look under opinion section. Writes mostly about Covid vaccines these days.
 
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#106
#106
JohnWardForever said:
Depth wise; Maybe. But there is some top talent on this Tennessee team. Could be interesting.
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undeveloped talent is not what I would call top talent. The staff the last 3 years developed them backwards from a talent standpoint, not forward. JMO
 
#107
#107
TNREADER said:
Re Gossett and Exum, I grew up in Chattanooga. Went to school with Ward. My recollection is that he seemed to have very little interest in sports at the time, but turned out to be a very good sportswriter. Roy Exum writes a daily opinion column for the chattanoogan.com. Occasionally he will write a column reminiscing about sports, when he was with the skywriters preseason football group, etc.
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\

Just read the "self Obit" of /By David Alfonso, featured by Roy . Really Good.
 
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#113
#113
The moving van would have been sent anyway I imagine. GBO! The Vols were strong in the 60's and Dickey left Battle a very good team. Battle's first couple seasons were good with Dickeys players but we went on the skids some after that with him. In fairness too Battle he was awful young, and he is a sharp guy. I just don't think the timing was right for him. GBO!!!!
 
#114
#114
jim pique said:
Woodridge was an opionated,bigot who loved his old number7a little too much.Kicked am29 year.old.javelin thrower named Bill Skinner off the track team because he wouldn 't shave his mustache.Also tried to run off a IT running back because the girl he was dating,Woodruff thought she was white.He ran the show back then.
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I don’t know all that but Woodruff did build a hell of an AD during that time. When he was hired as AD, football was a disaster, basketball basically didnt exist. He hired Dickey, an assistant, to rebuild the FB program, hired Mears from Whittenberg College to stand toe to toe with Adolph Rupp, built national championship track & swimming programs. Yeah he made a mistake on Battle but he was pretty strong in his other hires.
 
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#116
#116
BigOrange#11 said:
I was born in 1965 but I studied the history of UT football. If you will watch a video called 100 years of Volunteers Col. Tom Elam explains what happened when Dickey left. Other trustees including Col. Elam wanted to go with Majors then but the AD at the time Bob Woodruff wanted to hire Battle. Elam’s reasoning was , if we ( the trustees ) go with Majors we will need to fire the AD and that is the last thing I want to do so we need to go with Battle. In my opinion this is the biggest mistake in UT football . Majors would have never let the program go down like Battle. Majors would have kept it at the top and UT may very well have been the dominant program in the SEC and not Alabama.
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I took your recommendation and watched parts 1 and 2 of 100 years of Volunteers on YouTube . Great history! Its a must see. One thing I never understood from the program was whether or not Woodruff was "that good" or "that political"? Any ideas?
 
#117
#117
Tman44 said:
I took your recommendation and watched parts 1 and 2 of 100 years of Volunteers on YouTube . Great history! Its a must see. One thing I never understood from the program was whether or not Woodruff was "that good" or "that political"? Any ideas?
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I do not know that much about Woodruff. He did a lot of good at Tennessee one of which was getting lights installed at Neyland stadium. My dad told me that the reason Woodruff wanted Battle was that Woodruff could control Battle easier than Majors. If Woodruff had agreed to hire Majors, Majors would have been running the show and not Woodruff. Majors had a bigger personality then Woodruff and everything would have been run through Majors and not Woodruff.
 
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#118
#118
BigOrange#11 said:
I do not know that much about Woodruff. He did a lot of good at Tennessee one of which was getting lights installed at Neyland stadium. My dad told me that the reason Woodruff wanted Battle was that Woodruff could control Battle easier than Majors. If Woodruff had agreed to hire Majors, Majors would have been running the show and not Woodruff. Majors had a bigger personality then Woodruff and everything would have been run through Majors and not Woodruff.
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This explanation makes sense.
As an aside re lights, I was a freshman in 1970. Then had 11 games with first game usually the third Saturday in September, with games thru first Saturday in December. First game in 1970 was SMU and it was HOT. No water fountains in stadium and most vendors ran out of ice before halftime, with several cases of heat stroke. Portable lights brought in for the first game of 1972. It was Penn State, we had ruined their undefeated season in the last game of 1971 and Paterno, not wanting a rematch and knowing the hot weather in September said he would only play if game was at night, otherwise he would find a way out of the contract. Woodruff brought in portable lights and we again beat Penn State. Permanent lights the next year.
 
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