Mattingly: Stoll Field helped set standard for rivalry

Photo by University of Kentucky

Kentucky used this photo of Babe Parilli, who had his troubles against Tennessee, to tout the quarterback for All-America honors.

Kentucky used this photo of Babe Parilli, who had his troubles against Tennessee, to tout the quarterback for All-America honors.

If Crump Stadium helped define the Tennessee football series with Mississippi and Mississippi State before the advent of Memphis Memorial Stadium, then Stoll Field, site of the Tennessee-Kentucky game nearly every other year from 1906-71 until Common-wealth Stadium arrived, helps us put this heated border rivalry into its proper perspective.

The Lexington venue was more properly called Stoll Field/McLean Stadium. The stadium dated to 1880, became Stoll Field in 1916, had an announced seating capacity of 37,000, and was host to some wonderful moments for both sides during its existence.

There was Thanksgiving Day 1929, when the Vols and Wildcats played in a "blinding snowstorm," as News Sentinel sports editor Tom Siler termed it in a 1961 book, weather conditions that seemed to catch Tennessee unprepared. Kentucky dominated, scoring early in the fourth quarter and kicking the ball to the Vols on every possession thereafter, often on first or second down. Late in the game, Gene McEver, the "Bristol Blizzard," returned a punt to the Tennessee 45, and the Vols were in business.

Bobby Dodd then completed a pass to Buddy Hackman that appeared to tie the game, but on further review, once the officials cleared the snow from the field, they discovered it was six yards short of pay dirt, doing all that without video replay. Here's where things got complicated.

Bob Neyland inserted his placekicker, Charley Kohlhase, but had to remove him once the officials ruled there had been no score. According to the rules of the day, he couldn't return.

Hackman scored, tying the game, but the extra point failed, and the game ended in a tie. It was the third tie in the last four Tennessee-Kentucky game, second in a row in Lexington. Siler wrote that, "it amused the Kentuckians to spoil Tennessee's all-winning ways for the second consecutive year."

During the "Babe" Parilli era, 1949-51, Tennessee knocked off Kentucky three times. The Parilli teams of that era never scored on the Vols, and Bear Bryant ended his Kentucky tenure two years later having beaten the Vols but once.

When Tennessee defeated the Wildcats 28-0 in 1951 in Lexington, Haywood Harris and Gus Manning wrote that the "Volunteers' best performance was also its most consistent," as the Vols rolled to a touchdown each quarter.

Kentucky started a home field winning streak of its own against Tennessee in 1953, winning that season and in 1955, 1957, and 1959, before the Vols won in 1961 and didn't lose at Stoll again.

In 1957, Kentucky's Lou Michaels dominated a 20-6 win, serving as a one-man wrecking crew, recovering two fumbles, one for a touchdown, and keeping the Vols at bay with booming left-footed punts. Vol lineman Bill Johnson, the 1957 co-captain, has painful recollections of his every play encounter with "Big Lou."

John Majors had a word about this incident in his book (written with Knoxville Journal sportswriter Ben Byrd).

"Johnson, who was an All-America guard that year," Majors and Byrd wrote, "told me that all game long Michaels kept looking for him. He'd yell, 'Where's Johnson?', and Bill said he would scrunch down as low as he could to escape notice. During the game, Michaels splintered Johnson's face mask and split his face open from his lower lip to his chin."

The finale at Stoll Field came in 1971, when the No. 11 Vols came to town in the white jerseys with the orange collar. Tennessee had a tenuous lead, 14-7 late in the final quarter, but the Wildcats were moving, seemingly at will, toward the Vols' goal. The "Offensive Defense" was reeling, but, as always seemed to happen, made a big play when it counted.

Defensive end Carl Johnson intercepted a pitch out and lumbered 87 yards for a score, recovering long enough after the game to explain how he did it.

"The quarterback came down the line on the option. He kept coming closer and closer, and I wanted to stay in position," Johnson said. "I punched him with my left arm, and he pitched the ball at the same time."

Then came the miracle, the game-turning play.

"There was the ball. I ran it back some 87 yards. Half the team caught up to me because I ran out of steam about halfway there."

Two years later, as the magic of Stoll Field somehow transferred to Commonwealth Stadium, the Vols barely escaped their first game there, as Kentucky missed a field goal at the horn, final score, Tennessee 16, Kentucky 14.

Tennessee has found life at the new stadium to be tough going on numerous occasions, reflecting that many of the games at Stoll Field helped set the standard for this hard-fought rivalry.

Alas, Stoll Field has passed on that great stadium graveyard, wherever that is, but the memories linger for fans of both schools.

Tom Mattingly is the author of "Tennessee Football: The Peyton Manning Years" (1998) and "The Tennessee Vault: The History of the Tennessee Volunteers, 1891-2006" (2006), to come out in second edition in 2009. He may be reached at tjmshm@comcast.net. His News Sentinel blog is called "The Vol Historian."