Tom Mattingly

Mike LaSorsa, a Korean War veteran who came to Tennessee as a walk-on football player and finished his career as captain of the 1960 team, died Saturday at his Knoxville home, after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 77.

Frank "Boomer" Boring, a former teacher and football coach at Central High School, died Monday in Knoxville. He was 83.

Steve Wold, a fullback who still holds a single-game record at Tennessee, died Nov. 5 at his home in Atlanta. He was 63.

Alf Holmberg, described as a "distance runner and biggest name in Tennessee track before the Chuck Rohe era" by Hall of Fame journalist Marvin West, died this past Sunday morning in Stockholm, Sweden, at age 83.

Bob Zvolerin, who lettered at Tennessee in 1962-63 and started at left tackle in 1963, died Nov. 3, at his home in Cleveland, Tenn. He was 71.

Longtime University of Tennessee football fans remember sitting by their radios listening to George Mooney bringing home the story of the Vols.

Bob Davis, who mastered the intricate single-wing center snaps during his career at the University of Tennessee and a member of the national championship team in 1951, died Sunday in Knoxville. He was 81.

John Whitfield "Whit" Canale, a University of Tennessee letter winner in 1962 and 1964, died on Sept. 17 in Memphis, at St. Francis Hospital. He was 69.

Tom Mattingly recalls some great moments in Tennessee football history.

Sometimes you have to wonder if football schedule-makers or promoters ever took a course in geography. In an effort to make intersectional games "work" (that is, making them palatable for media exposure), geographic considerations often take a beating.

When the experts say football is a "team game," they really mean it. It takes a "team" to win. That's been true since the days of Pop Warner and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Tennessee coaches from the days of Bob Neyland ...

Here's an interesting question for all the armchair historians out there. Name an opposing quarterback who helped defeat Tennessee in a bowl game and became an assistant coach for the Vols several years later.

Talk about a gauntlet. Whoever worked up the 1962 football schedule didn't do Tennessee coach Bowden Wyatt any favors. Not in the least.

The 1971 Tennessee football season offered Vol fans a crash course in what can happen when things are unsettled at quarterback.

Here's a question for your consideration during what is often called the "dog days" of summer, when everyone can barely wait for fall, or at least for the arrival of the Vols back on campus.

When, if ever, could the lowly tie game be perceived as a win?

You may not remember it, but there was once a 9-3 Tennessee team that was not ranked by the Associated Press during the entire season. It's all right there in black agate type on page 171 of the "2010 Tennessee ...

There are times the game-by-game scores in the Tennessee Football Media Guide, pp. 165-173, are just a mind-numbing array of numbers, assembled neatly through seasons stretching from that first game in 1891, Sewanee 24, Tennessee 0, through recent years.

The day was June 2, 1998, 13 years ago this past Thursday.

The immediate future might not have looked bright for the Tennessee football program in 1963.

The old Yankee Stadium in New York City has been torn down.

No one can rationally explain exactly how it works, but the "mind's eye" is something special. Close your eyes ever so slightly, and you can almost see the great moments (and maybe some not-so-great moments) pass in review.

Frank Kolinsky, a University of Tennessee offensive tackle from 1955-57, died early Monday at Mercy Medical Center-St. Mary's in Knoxville. He was 76.

Interesting things can happen when one coach leaves and another takes his place.

All Travis Stephens wanted was a chance to be the man.

There was a time from the 1950s into the 1970s, News-Sentinel Sports Editor Tom Siler carried on a running battle with the University of Tennessee Athletic Department concerning kickoff times for Tennessee home games.

Jerry Gowdy, who lettered as an end on Tennessee football teams in 1962 and 1963 under coaches Bowden Wyatt and Jim McDonald, died April 14 in Ridgeville, S.C. He was 71.

Over the course of recorded Tennessee football history, was there ever a better afternoon to be a Vol fan than Sept. 29, 1973?

There are days from another lifetime that can never be forgotten. Answer the phone enough times, and a great many interesting things will happen.

The calendar tells us that Oct. 21, 1967, was a Saturday. It was the "Third Saturday in October," and that meant Tennessee and Alabama would be squaring off on the freshly painted turf of Legion Field in Birmingham.

The inexorable passage of time has a way of defusing nearly any controversy. Fans often look back at "hot button" athletic issues of the past, wondering what all the fuss was about.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Traveling to various esoteric venues with the Tennessee football team often is enjoyable, and there are some intriguing stories, many of which can be told in the pages of a family newspaper.

It had to have been an exciting time in the early hours of Saturday, July 17, 1948, when Mickie and Lindsey Nelson welcomed the arrival of their first daughter, Sharon, at St. Mary's Hospital in Knoxville.

Back in the day, it didn't matter how players ended up at Tennessee to play football. It didn't matter who you were, or what your "credentials" were. Once players arrived in Knoxville, they had to prove themselves. Over the years, ...

The story came out of left field, someone claiming to have poisoned two 130-year-old live oaks at "Toomer's Corner" near the campus of Auburn University, to the point of admitting so on the "Paul Finebaum Show."

What does Neyland Stadium have in common with Wrigley Field?

"There is a basic flaw in the college game, one that courses through its body like an infection. It is called recruiting, and it is the bane of college football."

When you think about it, the average college basketball game is really 10 4-minute games. That's how you should look at it, whether you're a fan, a coach, or a player.

While officials in both football and basketball often take a beating from the fans who watch the games so intently, there also are some exceptionally memorable stories involving those officials.

In the spring of 1936, Maj. Robert R. Neyland returned to Knoxville looking to pick up where he left off in his first tenure as head coach of the University of Tennessee football team.

Former Tennessee blocking back Bill Bevis, who played for the Vols in 1942 and 1944-45, died on Dec. 31, 2010, in Tallahassee, Fla. He was 90.

New Year's Day bowl games have created all kinds of memories for Tennessee over the years. There is a hotly debated school of thought that bowl games somehow have an impact on the year to come.

If you're so inclined, cast a glance toward North Florida on Monday afternoon and remember a significant moment in the history of Tennessee football.

Tennessee players carry coach Bill Battle on their shoulders as they celebrate their 14-13 Liberty Bowl victory over Arkansas on Dec. 20, 1971.

From left, University of Tennessee president Andy Holt, Bluebonnet Bowl defensive MVP Frank Emanuel, Tennessee Gov. Frank Clement, and offensive MVP Dewey Warren pose after the Vols' 27-6 win over Tulsa on Dec. 18, 1965.

When Tennessee squared off against New York University on Dec. 5, 1931, at Yankee Stadium, it may not have been an officially recognized bowl game (the NCAA doesn't count this and other Depression-era bowl games in all-time records), but it ...

Twenty-five years might seem eons ago in today's concept of history, but for longtime Vol fans, the 1985 Tennessee football season might well have happened yesterday. Memories are still fresh, with the team remembered fondly.

It was Nov. 21, 1891, 119 years ago, that Tennessee played its first football game, in Chattanooga against the University of the South, a.k.a. Sewanee. There were no defining moments, nothing to suggest what might be in the offing in ...

A bronze statue of legendary coach Tennessee coach Brig. Gen. Robert Neyland, UT's winningest football coach, was unveiled on the west side of Neyland Stadium on Friday.