By Tom Mattingly
The month of August 1992 and the days beyond had a significant impact on the history of the Vol football program.
One journalist described the campaign as “part strange and miserable.” Head trainer Tim Kerin, a prime John Majors confidante since the days at Pittsburgh, had died early that month, doctors calling the cause of death a “dissecting aortic aneurysm.”
Tim’s was a voice of reason, a voice of integrity, tempering the often volatile Majors’ personality. Tennessee later named the training room in the Neyland-Thompson Center in his honor and memory.
A week or so later, Majors left practice early, with the media being told it was for a doctor’s appointment. That was correct as far as it went. The next morning, a local radio station announced Majors was undergoing heart surgery. He would miss the first three games of the season, with AD Doug Dickey naming offensive coordinator Phillip Fulmer interim head coach.
It probably didn’t help matters that Majors came back before anyone expected, the Sunday night after a 31-14 win over Florida, the second win over the Gators in the past three years. Many people close to the Vol program believed that circumstances might have been different, considering Kerin’s relationship with Majors.
The schedule-maker had also made things worse. There were successive losses to Arkansas (25-24) and Alabama (17-10) and open dates before and after a one-point loss at South Carolina (24-23). That trip will never make any list of the Top 10 road trips in Vol history.
It was a dark and foreboding time, one during which the Vol family seemed to be torn asunder, with the fan base choosing sides. There was considerable discussion of broken promises, bad relationships, and disloyal behavior. Media “source stories” appeared daily on the front pages of statewide media.
No one, save those involved, knows the entirety of the story.
Things came to a head at a media conference in Memphis on Friday afternoon and evening, Nov. 13, at the Wilson World Hotel. That venue is gone, but the memories linger. The Vols played Memphis State the next day at the Liberty Bowl. Vol fans were shocked at what was transpiring, gathering at the hotel and at the Liberty Bowl with saddened faces, many fighting back tears, not believing what was happening.
Majors resigned that night, saying, “Since I have not been given the opportunity by the UT administration to remain as head football coach, I am, effective Dec. 31, 1992, relinquishing my duties connected to the University of Tennessee.”
The announcement of the end of the Majors Era came in the Bluff City, where his playing career at Tennessee had started more than 38 years before with a 19-7 win over Mississippi State.
Looking back, there was certainly travail in the program that fall. Emotions ran high. Regardless of the position Tennessee fans might have taken, choosing sides helped no one. Times were tough enough playing in the SEC without internal strife in the program.
One of the most poignant post-game moments that day was watching John Elizabeth Bobo Majors, John’s mother, leaving the stadium and walking into the late afternoon shadows, alone with her thoughts and memories.
The name “Majors” is written large in Tennessee football history, as Haywood Harris has noted. John’s brother, Bill, was killed in the car-train wreck in October 1965 that also took the lives of fellow assistants Bob Jones and Charley Rash.
“It is enough for longtime residents of this community to say he was a Majors,” Harris wrote for the Houston game a week later. That’s how strong the Majors name was and still is today around Big Orange Country.
Majors and the Vols swept the regular season’s final three games, defeating Memphis State (26-21), Kentucky (34-13) and Vanderbilt (29-25). Fulmer was named head coach Sunday night after the Vanderbilt game.
A 38-23 victory over Boston College in the Hall of Fame Bowl made Fulmer’s head coaching debut a successful one.
One other conclusion is inescapable.
“Majors’ programs were widely regarded as one of the nation’s best,” wrote the Knoxville Journal’s Russ Bebb. “To many people, he was Tennessee football. Majors might have painted himself into a corner, but no matter what he might have done to bring about his ouster, no matter what demands he might have placed on the administration, he deserved a far nobler farewell.”
GOOD PEOPLE LOST RECENTLY: Charlie Severance, Natalie Haslam, Hank Bertelkamp, and oldest living letter winner Jim Worthington
