UT pushing to get Majors in Hall as coach

The Big Orange Tipoff Club will be hard-pressed to surpass Wednesday’s program.

New Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin was the featured speaker. Lady Vols basketball coach Pat Summitt, who won her 1,000th game last week; UT basketball coach Bruce Pearl; and UT athletic director Mike Hamilton also addressed the group at its weekly luncheon.

Not all of the sports celebrities were on the dais. Former UT football coach John Majors was in the crowd. And Hamilton made sure that the fans knew about it.

Hamilton said UT was pushing Majors for the College Football Hall of Fame — as a coach.

Majors, who was an All-American single-wing tailback for the Vols in the 1950s, already has made the College Football Hall of Fame as a player. Only three people have been inducted as both a player and coach, and two of them have UT connections, Hamilton said.

Amos Alonzo Stagg, Bobby Dodd and Bowden Wyatt have been inducted as players and coaches.

Bowden was an All-American end at UT, where he was later a head coach. Dodd was an All-American quarterback at UT and later had a successful career as Georgia Tech’s head coach.

Majors has outstanding credentials as a coach as well as a player. He rebuilt three programs, including UT’s.

While Majors won three SEC titles at UT, he is better known nationally for what he did at Pittsburgh, which had one of the worst programs in the country when Majors took over in 1973. In his fourth season at Pitt, Majors led the Panthers to an unbeaten season and national championship.

Majors also turned heads by turning Iowa State into a winning program prior to his arrival at Pitt. Majors’ 1971 Iowa State team lost only three regular-season games — to the top three teams in the country (Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado).

Majors’ time at Iowa State connects him with the new football regime at UT. Monte Kiffin, who is the defensive coordinator at UT, was a defensive coach at Nebraska when Majors was the head coach at Iowa State.

“We made a lot of calls to him when we went to Pittsburgh,” said Majors, who wanted Kiffin’s insight on the “50 eagle” defense. Majors said he later tried to hire Kiffin as his defensive coordinator at UT, but Kiffin took an NFL job instead.

“He’s a great coach and motivator,” Majors said.

The College Football Hall of Fame's veteran committee selects the inductees. The players and coaches are inducted in December at a banquet in New York, then enshrined in July at the Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.

Sports@knoxnews.com.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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