VFL-82-JP
Bleedin' Orange...
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The Tennessee Volunteers have had twenty-six head coaches in our 125 seasons of college football (it has been 129 years since the first Vols football team in 1891, but we didn't play in 1898, during two years of World War I, or in 1943 during World War II...and didn't have a coach until 1899).
Six of these twenty-six men have been selected as SEC Coach of the Year (General Robert Neyland, John Barnhill, Bowden Wyatt, Doug Dickey, Johnny Majors, and Phillip Fulmer), five of the six were elected to the College Football Hall of Fame (Neyland, Wyatt, Dickey, Majors and Fulmer), and two were named National Coach of the Year (Wyatt and Fulmer--astoundingly, never Neyland).
Thought we might shake off the corona virus and turn a blind eye to protests for a few minutes to look a little closer at those fellas who coached our lads in Orange over the years. Today, we can start with the foundation years, pay tribute to the three fellows who coached the Vols' first five seasons.
And before we talk about each coach, a note about this time period.
The game evolved significantly between 1875 and 1935. The size and shape of the playing field changed, the shape of the ball too. The number of players was whittled down from no-limit mobs to 20 a side to 11. A host of safety innovations, including helmets and pads, were introduced because at one point players were dying on the field at a rate of up to 10 or 20 a year (!!).
The scoring system was amended six different times--big changes, too--at one point, not only the field goal but the conversion too were worth more than a touchdown. Football, indeed!
Another change added a new requirement that teams advance a certain number of yards in a certain number of plays (originally 5 yards in 3 downs, today 10 yards in 4 downs); before this, teams could slowly grind their way down the field for most of a game. The snap from center to QB was introduced. Later, the forward pass was added. And so on.
In short, if you watched a Tennessee football game in its earliest years, the years coached by these first three fellows in particular, you might be forgiven for thinking of it more as a rugby match.
Okay, on to the coaches:
#1 -- Joseph Audley Pierce, 1899-1900 --
Tennessee's first-ever coach was a Pennsylvanian, from a small town named Jefferson Hills in the southwestern corner of that state. Pierce went off to Lafayette College in eastern Pennsylvania, then moved to Knoxville to attend law school. One assumes Pierce got involved in football at Lafayette, which is part of one of the oldest football rivalry matches in the nation, called simply The Rivalry, against Lehigh University. Those two schools have met 154 times, the most in the history of the American sport. Since their first match was in 1884, several years before Pierce attended, it is likely Pierce had a part in The Rivalry. While studying law at Tennessee, he coached our football team for two seasons. His record as the Vols' head coach was 6-2 (2-1 in conference) in 1899, then 3-2-1 (0-2-1) in 1900, for an overall mark of 9-4-1 (.679). Aside from his law school years at Tennessee, his only other coaching experience was at a high school in Texas in the 1920s. One assumes he practiced law most of his adult life. He married Harriet Steuart and had at least two children, a daughter named Elisa and a son Joseph Jr., a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve. Joseph Audley Pierce, our first coach, lived to his 81st year, dying in 1956.
#2 -- Gilbert Kelly, 1901 --
Our second coach was the veteran of another of the longest rivalries in college football, this time the oldest one. Gilbert Kelly was born in Washington, DC, and attended Princeton University, graduating in the class of 1901. As a football player, he undoubtedly took part in one or more Yale-Princeton games. The two schools first played in 1873, five years before Kelly was born, making it the oldest rivalry in the sport. They have played 142 times since then, not quite as often as Lafayette-Lehigh but nonetheless an impressive number of meetings. Kelly's brief tenure as Tennessee's coach was cut short by a bout of rheumetism, from which he recovered and lived to age 69 or 70 before dying in 1948. His record in his single season as coach was 3-3-2 (.500). It is unknown what brought Kelly to Knoxville; quite possibly post-graduate law studies, like Pierce.
#3 -- Hubert Fisher, 1902-1903 --
A teammate of Kelly's at Princeton, and a star of that school's 1901 football team, Fisher took over the coaching duties at Tennessee while sitting for a law degree like Pierce and possibly Kelly before him. Born in Florida, Fisher earned one undergraduate degree from Ole Miss and a second from Princeton before arriving in Knoxville. His 1902 record was 6-2 (4-2 in conference), followed by a 4-5 (1-4) mark in 1903, for an overall result of 10-7 (.588). After earning his law certificate, Fisher settled in Memphis to practice, and married Louise Sanford. His distinguished public service career included serving two years in the Tennessee state Senate, three years as a U.S. District Attorney, and fourteen years (seven terms) as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Tennessee's 10th District. Going deaf, he retired from public service in 1931. He died ten years later while visiting New York City (possibly attending a 40th-year reunion of his Princeton class? the historical record doesn't say, but the timing seems right).
~ ~ ~
Okay, that's enough for one thread. If folks want, can continue with Saxton Daryl "Sax" Crawford in a day or two. This history stuff may not be as interesting to other VN.com folks as it is to me, heh. We'll see.
Oh, and i'm no professional historian, purely an untrained amateur. If you see mistakes I've made in telling--there are sure to be plenty--please feel free to point them out.
Go Vols!
Six of these twenty-six men have been selected as SEC Coach of the Year (General Robert Neyland, John Barnhill, Bowden Wyatt, Doug Dickey, Johnny Majors, and Phillip Fulmer), five of the six were elected to the College Football Hall of Fame (Neyland, Wyatt, Dickey, Majors and Fulmer), and two were named National Coach of the Year (Wyatt and Fulmer--astoundingly, never Neyland).
Thought we might shake off the corona virus and turn a blind eye to protests for a few minutes to look a little closer at those fellas who coached our lads in Orange over the years. Today, we can start with the foundation years, pay tribute to the three fellows who coached the Vols' first five seasons.
And before we talk about each coach, a note about this time period.
The game evolved significantly between 1875 and 1935. The size and shape of the playing field changed, the shape of the ball too. The number of players was whittled down from no-limit mobs to 20 a side to 11. A host of safety innovations, including helmets and pads, were introduced because at one point players were dying on the field at a rate of up to 10 or 20 a year (!!).
The scoring system was amended six different times--big changes, too--at one point, not only the field goal but the conversion too were worth more than a touchdown. Football, indeed!
Another change added a new requirement that teams advance a certain number of yards in a certain number of plays (originally 5 yards in 3 downs, today 10 yards in 4 downs); before this, teams could slowly grind their way down the field for most of a game. The snap from center to QB was introduced. Later, the forward pass was added. And so on.
In short, if you watched a Tennessee football game in its earliest years, the years coached by these first three fellows in particular, you might be forgiven for thinking of it more as a rugby match.
Okay, on to the coaches:
#1 -- Joseph Audley Pierce, 1899-1900 --Tennessee's first-ever coach was a Pennsylvanian, from a small town named Jefferson Hills in the southwestern corner of that state. Pierce went off to Lafayette College in eastern Pennsylvania, then moved to Knoxville to attend law school. One assumes Pierce got involved in football at Lafayette, which is part of one of the oldest football rivalry matches in the nation, called simply The Rivalry, against Lehigh University. Those two schools have met 154 times, the most in the history of the American sport. Since their first match was in 1884, several years before Pierce attended, it is likely Pierce had a part in The Rivalry. While studying law at Tennessee, he coached our football team for two seasons. His record as the Vols' head coach was 6-2 (2-1 in conference) in 1899, then 3-2-1 (0-2-1) in 1900, for an overall mark of 9-4-1 (.679). Aside from his law school years at Tennessee, his only other coaching experience was at a high school in Texas in the 1920s. One assumes he practiced law most of his adult life. He married Harriet Steuart and had at least two children, a daughter named Elisa and a son Joseph Jr., a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve. Joseph Audley Pierce, our first coach, lived to his 81st year, dying in 1956.
#2 -- Gilbert Kelly, 1901 --Our second coach was the veteran of another of the longest rivalries in college football, this time the oldest one. Gilbert Kelly was born in Washington, DC, and attended Princeton University, graduating in the class of 1901. As a football player, he undoubtedly took part in one or more Yale-Princeton games. The two schools first played in 1873, five years before Kelly was born, making it the oldest rivalry in the sport. They have played 142 times since then, not quite as often as Lafayette-Lehigh but nonetheless an impressive number of meetings. Kelly's brief tenure as Tennessee's coach was cut short by a bout of rheumetism, from which he recovered and lived to age 69 or 70 before dying in 1948. His record in his single season as coach was 3-3-2 (.500). It is unknown what brought Kelly to Knoxville; quite possibly post-graduate law studies, like Pierce.
#3 -- Hubert Fisher, 1902-1903 --A teammate of Kelly's at Princeton, and a star of that school's 1901 football team, Fisher took over the coaching duties at Tennessee while sitting for a law degree like Pierce and possibly Kelly before him. Born in Florida, Fisher earned one undergraduate degree from Ole Miss and a second from Princeton before arriving in Knoxville. His 1902 record was 6-2 (4-2 in conference), followed by a 4-5 (1-4) mark in 1903, for an overall result of 10-7 (.588). After earning his law certificate, Fisher settled in Memphis to practice, and married Louise Sanford. His distinguished public service career included serving two years in the Tennessee state Senate, three years as a U.S. District Attorney, and fourteen years (seven terms) as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Tennessee's 10th District. Going deaf, he retired from public service in 1931. He died ten years later while visiting New York City (possibly attending a 40th-year reunion of his Princeton class? the historical record doesn't say, but the timing seems right).
~ ~ ~
Okay, that's enough for one thread. If folks want, can continue with Saxton Daryl "Sax" Crawford in a day or two. This history stuff may not be as interesting to other VN.com folks as it is to me, heh. We'll see.
Oh, and i'm no professional historian, purely an untrained amateur. If you see mistakes I've made in telling--there are sure to be plenty--please feel free to point them out.
Go Vols!
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