The ‘people’ and ‘events’ of Tennessee football
By Tom Mattingly
There are memories of a number of great moments scattered across the expanse of Shields-Watkins Field. I’ve seen most all of them from my vantage point in Section OO, 53 years and counting.
When Tennessee played its first football game in 1891 against Sewanee, no one could have possibly imagined how the program would develop, what an influence it would have across the state of Tennessee and beyond, especially since Sewanee won, 24-0.
There were the tentative steps to maturity, marked by coaches coming and going (some for just a year or two), with J.A. Pierce being first in 1899. The Vol program finally found a 3,200-seat home on campus in 1921, with seats on the west side only. The orange jerseys came a year later.
You look at pictures of those early games and see solemn-looking men in suits and stovepipe hats. Precious few women attended. There didn’t appear to be a spot of orange to be seen in the stands.
It’s been amazing to see how things have worked out over the years. The stadium has grown from that modest grandstand into a 100,000-seat structure that fills to the brim each home Saturday. The stadium stands in testimony to all those uncounted Tennessee people who have been a part of building the legend known as Vol football.
The “people” and “events” of Tennessee football are special. In the mind’s eye, you can almost see John Deanie Hoskins or Bob Campbell carefully overseeing the turf, Johnny Butler motoring his way to the South end zone, 56 yards for a score against Alabama in 1939, and Gen. Bob Neyland in his double-breasted suit standing stoically on the east side, near the 50 yard line, substitutes at the ready.
If you look closely at the Southeast corner of the field, you can recall a celebration featuring Larry Seivers and Gus Manning after Larry caught the game-winning two-point conversion against Clemson in 1974. Gus is there, complete with cigar and briefcase.
At the northeast corner, there’s the spot where three Vols (Sewanee’s Bill Majors, Athens’ Wayne Grubb, and Knoxville’s Charlie Severance) stopped LSU’s Billy Cannon short of the goal on a fourth-quarter two-point try on Homecoming Day Nov. 7, 1959. Cannon said after the game he made it. If you asked Severance about it over the years, he’d politely (and proudly) disagree.
There’s also the 43-yardline, South end, where the Vols got a second chance against Arkansas in the 1998 game. The Vols looked dead in the water, but thanks to the famed “Stoerner Stumble,” they rallied and made the most of it, all the way to a national title.
Things looked bleak for the Vols, with a crestfallen Cosey Coleman shown on the sideline. Here’s how CBS reported it: “There’s 1:47 remaining. One time out left. 12 to go for the first down. Stoerner… lost the football. Oh my goodness! He stumbled and fumbled, and Billy Ratliff recovered.”
During the summer, the stadium is usually quiet, save for normal refurbishing and maintenance, not to mention expansions of the seating area or ancillary facilities.
Even with these additions to the house that Neyland (and many others) have built, the stadium is still imposing and no less of a testimony to Tennessee football. It’s just a special place, something to be revered.
The off-season between the 1993 and 1994 seasons was a memorable few months, when grass finally came back to the floor of Shields-Watkins Field after a hiatus since the final gun of the 1967 Vanderbilt game. Tennessee fans came in droves from Knoxville and beyond to Gate 7 at the South end. They would ask Bob Campbell or one of his aides to let them walk in to see the field, to literally let them watch the grass grow.
There was the aftermath of the 1998 win over Florida and the spirited celebration that followed, as Vol fans went “bee-serk” in Ward’s parlance. It resulted in large chunks of turf being excised from the field, enraging the football purists.
The next week, I ever so gently chided Vol fans in a “Last Word” column for Volunteers Magazine for tearing up their field, the greensward where so many great moments in Tennessee history had played out, where so many memories seemed to linger.
To my mind, fans of other schools might attack the things they hold most dear, as thousands of Georgians did after the 2000 Tennessee game. That’s when the supposedly sacred hedges surrounding the field came tumbling down at Sanford Stadium. Bulldog fans were still celebrating on the field, long after the final gun.
In both cases, it was a surreal sight. Those who love the Tennessee program and faithfully follow the fortunes of the Vols should have known better. Most do.
“This field belongs to everybody,” said Campbell. “It’s a special place. I’ve taken stewardship of it for this moment in time.” Hoskins once challenged Neyland’s assessment of the field, saying, “My field will be ready. Can you say the same about your football team?”
If someone tells you a football field is only a field, devoid of memories, don’t believe a word of it.
