In November 1963, the times were a-changing where University of Tennessee football was concerned. Bob Dylan, author of that famous song a month or so earlier, had it exactly right.

Another Bob, interim AD Bob Woodruff, was ready to make a move, ready to bring Arkansas offensive coordinator Doug Dickey to Knoxville as head coach. The single-wing was on its way to being consigned to history.

However, Woodruff needed a second opinion to sell Dickey's appointment to the other powers-that-be. That resulted in a phone call to Union City, and the law offices of Col. Tom Elam, an influential trustee and athletics board member. It came the week before the Kentucky game.

Woodruff asked Elam to meet with Dickey late that Saturday, size up the youthful Arkansas assistant, and report his findings. History does not record the exact day of the call, but plenty of history exists about the context of that weekend.

The game was played Nov. 23, 1963, at Stoll Field in Lexington, the day after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

The request did not sit well with Col. Elam.

"I was mad to begin with, because I had never heard of Dickey," Elam said. "Woodruff said this guy is another Darrell Royal or Frank Broyles. I said I didn't care if he were another Knute Rockne. We're playing at Kentucky and I haven't missed a Kentucky game. He said go see him anyway."

Each man had a differing recollection of that weekend. Elam maintained that he and Kathleen had driven to Memphis and met Dickey at an airport near downtown, then drove him through Bluff City streets for an hour or so. Dickey recalled that he flew to an airfield near Union City, with the Elams driving him around the environs of Obion and Weakley counties.

However it happened, Dickey had the right answers to the two major questions Elam posed, i.e., how to make the transition from the single-wing to the "T" ("Get a quarterback") and about recruiting across the state of Tennessee ("If you can't recruit your home state football players, you're in trouble. That would be a major objective with me.").

A Knoxville News-Sentinel story the day before the Kentucky game listed Dickey as a candidate, albeit a secondary one, for the job. By the next Sunday, however, sports editor Tom Siler did not mention Dickey among his final four possibilities.

There was a "rash of rumors," Siler wrote, ranging from retaining 1963 head coach Jim McDonald, to a deal being worked out for a "name coach."

The "name coaches" were Murray Warmath (Minnesota), Paul Davis (Mississippi State), Jim Owens (Washington), and Clay Stapleton (Iowa State). Warmath and Stapleton had played at Tennessee. Davis was from Knoxville, and Owens did not fit either category.

There was a voice from an unnamed trustee offering an alternative direction.

"I think we ought to be thinking of a bright, young man who can do the job," the source, probably Col. Elam, said. "It's awfully hard to hire away an established coach these days. We need to get one of the young ones ourselves, pay him well, and let him do the job."

There was a contentious meeting the day of the Vanderbilt game, continuing into the night after the game. The result was that McDonald was out as head coach to become assistant athletic director. Woodruff, named athletic director that day, had his marching orders to hire a new coach. Two histories of Tennessee football indicate that Breezy Wynn left the meeting and later resigned from the athletics board when the proposal to hire Warmath was rejected.

Ever the cautious type, Woodruff told Dickey to fly to Memphis, and catch the all-night train to Knoxville ("Coach Woodruff wanted me there in the morning," Dickey said). The secrecy didn't work. As normally happens, word got out, a Sunday night call to Dickey's home yielding the news he was on his way to Knoxville.

Marvin West was there to witness Dickey's 6 a.m. Monday, Dec. 2, arrival for the News-Sentinel. The Knoxville Journal was on the streets with a front-page headline announcing Dickey's hiring, with a stock photo. West got the first photo of the new coach as Dickey came off the train and was greeted by Woodruff.

There was a quick confab with Andy Holt at the president's residence and a media conference later that morning.

Dickey was the new head coach, but not without a little intrigue and a memorable moment or two.

The Vols may have defeated Kentucky 19-0 Nov. 23 and Vanderbilt 14-0 a week later, but the big news was happening elsewhere, as the seeds for the resurgence of Tennessee football were sown during that time, first in West Tennessee, then in Knoxville.

Tom Mattingly is the author of "The Tennessee Football Vault: The Story of the Tennessee Volunteers, 1891-2006" (2006), to be published in second edition in 2008, and "Tennessee Football: The Peyton Manning Years" (1998). He may be reached at >tjmshm@comcast.net. His News Sentinel blog is called "The Vol Historian."

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.