Talk to us about......Number 45.

[ru4real-really?]

I was about 10 years old in Chattanooga when he took the vols job. I could swear there were television commercials showing his college pictures with When Johnny Comes Marching Home playing over it. Anyone else remember that?

now that was like yesterday! 1976 as I recall. Yes there was a lot of "When Johnnny Comes Marching Home!" We were all excited but it did take a few years for things to come together!

 

[orangebloodgmc]

My favorite JM quote ... "Well, er'body burns the biscuits, now and then."

 

[ptcarter]

Met 45 at David Rudders funeral. Thanked him for being a Vol. Told him that Doc said that coach should have played him more. He said ’well hell I probably should have.’
What a great Vol.

I was a Sigma Chi at UT, and was there when Tim Irwin and David Rudder were there. During those days, I worked at Gibbs Hall as a waiter/dishwasher at the Training Table in the bottom floor if Gibbs across from Stokely.
It was a pretty good gig. They took $20 a week out of my check and that paid for all my meals and I got to eat there even when I wasn't on a shift. Breakfast was light, so I'd work those instead of supper and after I got the dish washer area tidied up, off to the Hill.

Another perk on that job was that, even though the cafeteria was locked, I could get in there and spread my books out on a table and study in peace, and I had a refrigerator and drink machines at my disposal. Sunday's were special, it was coat and tie and we work little fake tuxedo jackets (orange).. Players and coaches could bring family in there and it was really a treat (but since so many people were there, you had to work your butt off on Sunday's).

One day I was hunkered into some homework, drinking a Mayfair chocolate milk out of the cooler, and quite absorbed. Cooks were getting the meal ready and I was alone in the cafeteria. I didn't notice that Majors had walked in there and he surprised me. I looked up and his head was level with my head and the exchange went something like this:

JM: "How's it going?"
ME: "Pretty Good".
JM. (Shocked look on his face almost angry, and he pounded his fist on the table hard) "I don't want to hear any of this 'pretty good' stuff, so I'll ask you again, 'How's it going'"?
ME: (in a Tony the Tiger voice): "It's going GREAT".
JM: "That's what I want to hear..........now go back in the kitchen and bring me one of those apples out of the fridge".

I did, and he sat there with me and we shot the breeze as he ate his apple. We talked about Sigma Chi and my Mom being from Tullahoma (close to where he grew up). To this day, I cherish that 10 minutes of just the two of us sitting there an me watching him eat that apple.

Also, a sidebar - in the off season, he'd take some buddies fishing and they would come by Gibbs and drop the fish off for the cooks to clean them in there. That always cracked me up.