I got to hear Johnny Majors speak at the Little Rock Touchdown Club on November 7, 2011. Here is a paragraph from his 2005 talk to the club:

Majors became the coach at Iowa State in 1968, where his assistants included Jimmy Johnson, Jackie Sherrill and Larry Lacewell.

Lacewell, who went on to coach at Arkansas State, was in the audience Monday. Majors took the opportunity to needle him a bit.

“Larry Lacewell, Jimmy Johnson and Jackie Sherrill were on my first staff up there. Man, they had all the answers,” he said with a touch of sarcasm.

Majors went to Pitt in 1973, taking over a team that had won one game the previous season and eventually winning a national title. After a 16-year stay at Tennessee, he went back to coach the Panthers, trying to resurrect the program for a second time. But he went 11-32 in his second stint and retired at the end of the 1996 season.

Larry Lacewell was also a part of Johnny Majors coaching staff at Iowa State:

Johnny Majors – Hall of Fame Class of 1999

Courtesy: Iowa State University           Release: 09/12/2006

Courtesy: Athletics Communications http://www.cyclones.com/ Johnny Majors – Hall of Fame Class of 1999

Johnny Majors, who was an All-American for Tennessee while finishing second to Paul Hornung in the balloting for the 1956 Heisman Trophy, was hired by Iowa State athletic director Clay Stapleton as ISU’s head coach in 1967.

 

Majors started 16 sophomores in his first season as head coach in 1968, winning three games to start his rebuilding efforts. Majors’ 1968 staff included football legends Jimmy Johnson and Jackie Sherrill.

 

The 1971 ISU football squad earned the first bowl berth in school history with an 8-4 mark. All of the Cyclones’ defeats came to ranked opponents, including No. 5 Colorado, No. 2 Oklahoma, and No. 1 Nebraska. ISU played Louisiana State in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, losing 33-15 to the No. 11 Tigers.

 

The following season, Majors’ squad returned to a bowl game. After being ranked throughout much of the season, Iowa State was invited to play in the Liberty Bowl. Georgia Tech defeated the Cyclones, 31-30. Following the Liberty Bowl, Majors announced he  accepted the head coaching job at Pittsburgh, where he captured the 1976 national championship.

FB: The Best of Johnny Majors at Iowa St

Below is an article on Larry Lacewell’s talk to the touchdown club. He mentions his time under Johnny Majors in his talk and says that was a very fun bunch of guys.

Jim Harris: Lacewell Sees Major Changes Over The Years In Defense

by Jim Harris

10/24/2011 at 3:45pm

Rex Nelson, one of the weekly presenters of the Little Rock Touchdown Club program each week, rattled off a series of state college football scores that sounded more suitable for a basketball result. Around the country the past few years, it’s nothing to see 50 or more points put up by offenses in a game — sometimes by both teams. This isn’t your dad’s or grandad’s colllege football anymore, at least not on the defensive side.

Larry Lacewell, one of the preeminent defensive minds as a coordinator at Oklahoma during the Sooners’ 1970s heyday and at Tennessee during back-to-back Southeastern Conference title runs in the early 1990s, has noticed the difference from the way defenses are playing now to how it was when he was roaming the sidelines.

“It’s a combination of things,” Lacewell said. “I think maybe the passing game has evolved so well because these high school kids get this seven-on-seven, as I understand it, these camps in the summertime and throwing the football. Also, I don’t think any of these kids want to be cornerbacks anymore. I don’t. I think these 6-foot-2, -3 guys, they all want to be receivers. I’ve never seen so many tall good receivers and I think that has something to do with it.

“And I think that AAU basketball has taken over in your large cities so much that these kids that are in the sixth grade, seventh grade, that are 6-2, 6-3 that go on up to 6-4 and 6-5, they don’t play football. They play basketball. So I think you lose a group of people there.

“Having said all that, maybe they just don’t have great defensive coaches like I was.”

That’s Lacewell, ever the sardonic, ego-driven guy who draws a lot of laughs when he speaks. He can blend enough seriousness to keep you spellbound, then lay it on thick reminding you (almost) tongue in cheek that he was pretty good at what he did.

The former Fordyce Chigger junior high runt who reached the pinnacle of football as a player personnel director with the Dallas Cowboys during their 1990s Super Bowl runs entertained a large Embassy Suites ballroom crowd Monday at the Little Rock Touchdown Club. It was his first trip back in more than four years to speak with the club.

“I talked about Arkansas playing Arkansas State for 30 minutes the last time and y’all wouldn’t have me back,” he half-joked.

Remembering what an old Fordyce acquaintance said years ago, he said he wouldn’t go there again, at least not in depth. “Don’t step in a cow patty on a hot day.”

Lacewell’s appearance brought out some other fabled Arkansas-connected coaches of the past, including Forrest City’s Bill Shimek, who was an assistant coach and a top recruiter at both Okahoma and Oklahoma State. Bill Atkinson, a top Fordyce athlete of the past, was on hand. Lacewell went back and forth as to who really was the better star from Fordyce. “Bill was the high school valedictorian. I passed my classes.”

Lacewell went through his career, which is a pretty amazing one considering his roots. No one in his family had gone to college, his father had died when Lacewell was very young. Yet, at only about 5-foot-6, Lacewell became a pretty good Redbug and earned a spot at then Arkansas A&M in Monticello playing for Jimmy “Red” Parker. It set him off on a coaching career that took him to the top of both college and pro football.

Along the way, he worked for Bear Bryant, Chuck Fairbanks, Barry Switzer, Johnny Majors and Jerry Jones. He worked side-by-side with the likes of Switzer, Jimmy Johnson and Jackie Sherrill. He was a success as a head coach leading Arkansas State to its best run of success, during the 1980s, when the program was a Division I-AA team.

It’s been as though Lacewell was a college football version of Forrest Gump, only a heckuva lot keener. He was everywhere a championship program was being formed.

He made sure to show off his replica Super Bowl trophies, three of them, as well as his cluster of championship rings accumulated over the years. Many of those were obtained back-to-back, which like good defense these days is almost unheard of.

Arkansas’ defense hasn’t awakened for nearly a half in its last three games, all wins that the Hogs managed to pull out with second-half offense. Lacewell saw the Arkansas-Ole Miss game on Saturday in person in Oxford. He says he’s a big fan of Bobby Petrino and the Razorbacks, but he’s like the rest of us in trying to figure out why the Hogs’ defense starts so slowly.

“Well, it’s kinda strange performances,” Lacewell said in assessing the UA defense. “I don’t know what it is, but fortunately they play well in the second half of every game. I don’t know enough about what happens in that situation, but maybe they thought the game was at 1 o’clock. They play awfully well in the second half.”

Meanwhile, the soon-to-turn-75 Lacewell lives at Jonesboro and watches as the ASU program soars this year under first-year head coach Hugh Freeze. ASU is 5-2 and 3-0 in the Sun Belt Conference after a nationally televised 34-16 win over Florida International.

“It’s the best team that’s been up there in a long, long time,” he told a gathering of media after the luncheon. “They’ve got an awful good quarterback [Ryan Aplin]. When you’ve got a quarterback — anywhere and particularly at that level — you’re going to play pretty good. And I think [Dave] Wommack, he’s an experienced old defensive coordinator and he knows how to call ’em. And it’s obvious to me [Hugh] Freeze knows what he’s doing. He’s the offensive guru. They get in situations … they had a tight, tight ball game the other night and they turned that thing around in the second half. I think that’s coaching. I think there’s a whole lot of good coaching going up on there.”

Freeze has captured Lacewell’s attention along with the rest of Jonesboro and the ASU fan base.

“Whatever IT is, he’s got IT,” Lacewell said. “Somebody said he’s the best BS’er since me. He’s a movie star, he can talk. But he can flat coach. I like the way he handles his players, I like the way he’s handling the public. I think it’s a great, great hire for Arkansas State.”

Championships, Lacewell argues, will still come down to the “same ol’ things” in this age of prolific, explosive passing offenses — and that’s good defense, the kind his Oklahoma Sooners played in winning the 1974-75 titles.

“I do know Alabama and LSU are sitting on top and they are two great defensive teams,” Lacewell said. “The great thing about defense is, if you’re great on defense you don’t hardly have a bad day. You can catch a windy day throwing the ball, a wet ball, but the great defensive teams, they’re going to survive those things.”

Award-winning columnist Jim Harris wasn’t around when Hugo Bezdek named the Razorbacks, it only seems that way. His acumen for UA football history is renowned and he has covered the Hogs and the state sports scene since 1976. He knows his way around music and food, too. Email: jharris@abpg.com, and follow Jim on Twitter @jimharris360

Interview with Johnny Majors after 1982 Kentucky game

Jim Harris wrote these words about the Arkansas/Tennessee football series in the past:

THE TENNESSEE CONNECTION: Johnny Majors, who led Pittsburgh to the 1976 national championship and directed his alma mater, Tennessee, to SEC championships in 1985, 1989 and 1990, returned to the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday.

Majors was enjoying the plight of his successor, Phil Fulmer, in 2008 when he last visited and Fulmer was headed out the door in Knoxville. Majors made it no secret that Fulmer had back-stabbed the former Volunteer great as a player and coach to get the head coaching job during the 1992 season.

When Arkansas and Tennessee meet Saturday, it will mark the first meeting since 2007. Both schools started as permanent opponents in 1992, following the SEC’s first expansion with the addition of the Razorbacks and South Carolina. Following the 2002 season, the SEC moved away from two cross-division rivals and the annual Arkansas-Tennessee game went away until UT reappeared on the Arkansas schedule in 2006.

Former Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles was all for Tennessee as the Hogs’ regular SEC East rival, not only because of the state’s proximity to eastern Arkansas, but because the two football programs shared a deep bond.

Below is a picture of Lane Kiffin with Johnny Majors.

I got to hear Johnny Majors speak at the November 7, 2011 Little Rock Touchdown Club meeting. Below is a story about Johnny Majors from 2001:

     To me, Johnny Majors is and always will be a Tennesseeman.
He was born in Tennessee, played at Tennessee and was a pretty darn good coach at Tennessee.
It’s unfortunate that Majors feels the way he does about the university. But almost a decade after he left Tennessee with hard feelings, he still harbors an obvious hurt and anger towards some folks in Knoxville.
Majors feels a lack of loyalty by some members of his staff and non-support from Athletic Director Doug Dickey and then-President Joe Johnson led to his departure at the university in 1992. It was the year that he had heart surgery, and Phillip Fulmer took over the team while he was laid up. Majors eventually came back to coach later in the season, but it would be his last in Knoxville.
Majors was a visitor in Greeneville on Saturday. He came to speak at the Boys & Girls Club’s Champions Dinner that night, but he spent much of the day touring the city with Kathy Knight, who was chairman of the dinner. In addition to her many other civic duties, Kathy is the Accent Editor at The Greeneville Sun.
I met Majors in the lobby of the General Morgan Inn Saturday afternoon, and he chatted freely with me for about an hour, almost making him late for the reception scheduled at Link Hills prior to the dinner. I covered the Vols while Majors was coach. Although I didn’t necessarily agree with all his calls and decisions as coach, I did like him because he was Big Orange through and through.
We talked about lots of things. I didn’t press him about his leaving Tennessee because I knew that was still a sore spot with him. He did volunteer some comments, though, that left no doubt that he still harbors some ill feelings.
Majors was raised in the small town of Lynchburg, and his dad, Shirley Majors, was a football coach, first at the high school level and then for over 20 years at the University of the South.
A history buff, Majors seldom travels anywhere now without asking to see all the sights of that particular area. He was impressed with Greeneville. He didn’t know much about our town before, except that one of his teammates in 1953 was a big guy named Charlie Rader from Greeneville, a man he described as “extremely intelligent and an excellent football player.”
Majors retired from coaching in 1996 and since that time has served as a special assistant to the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. He said much of his duties involve fund-raising and speeches. He also plays golf “every chance I get.”
His first year out of football left him “sort of lost,” Majors said.
“My dad began coaching football in 1943, and from 1943 until 1996 I had been around football,” he said. “That’s 53 years. Naturally I missed it. I missed being around the players and the coaches and every thing.”
Majors said he still watches a lot of football on television, but he doesn’t miss coaching as much as he used to.
He said he always thought recruiting was a challenge, “and I even enjoyed that up to
a point.” He was obviously a good recruiter, as his record shows. He turned a downtrodden Iowa State program into a winner in his first head coaching job, then was summoned to revive a Pittsburgh program that was struggling. All he did there was win a national championship with Tony Dorsett.
“You never know how good the player will become when you recruit him, but everybody thought Dorsett would be great, and he was,” Majors said.
He said Reggie White, the defensive lineman who he recruited from Chattanooga to play at UT and who went on to become a great player with the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers, was cut out of the same cloth.

When Tennessee began looking for a coach to replace Bill Battle in 1977, Majors seemed almost a natural. A former All-American tailback, he was greeted with open arms by the faithful back home. Tennessee was struggling at the time just as Iowa State and Pitt had been in his ventures there, but he quickly got things going in the right direction at UT and won Southeastern Conference titles in 1985, 1989 and 1990.
But he left Tennessee in anger, and has been back on campus only one time since. He did come to the reunion of the Sugar Bowl champs of 1990 last season. The team and coaches were introduced at halftime of a football game and were met with a rousing roar of approval.
“I did that for the players,” he said. “But the people in Knoxville were very nice to me.”
“I left UT with a winning program,” he said, with a touch of bitterness in his voice. “I never had the luxury of taking over as a coach and having it laid out on a silver platter.”
Majors recalled a lot of ball games, both as a player and a coach. He likes to talk about quick kicks, something that’s almost a lost art in college football nowadays.
He recalled a quick kick against Georgia Tech that he booted for 69 yards. As a coach, two of his fondest memories involved quick kicks.
“One came in 1983 against Alabama in Birmingham,” he recalled. “We had it third down and 24 from our 25, and we got out of trouble with a quick kick and went on to win the game. Another was during a wind storm in Nashville against Vanderbilt. We had it second down with the wind at our back and we sneaked the punter in before the quarter changed and we’d lose the wind advantage. Colquitt kicked it and it rolled 81 yards to the 2 yard line.”
The four wins over Alabama rank high on the list of Majors’ accomplishments at Tennessee, including the last year that Bear Bryant was in charge of the Crimson Tide.
The win over highly-favored Miami in the 1990 Sugar Bowl was also a highlight that he fondly recalls, as well as the 1991 Notre Dame game in South Bend when the Vols staged the biggest comeback in school history, trailing 31-7 before coming back to win.
He still keeps track of many of his former players. Two weeks ago, there was a reunion of the 1976 national champion Pittsburgh team and he said several of those players spent time at his home with him and wife Marylynne. There has also been a recent reunion at Iowa State for the 30th anniversary of the Sun Bowl team that Majors coached in 1971.
He also keeps track of many of his former assistant coaches. Walt Harris, an offensive coordinator for six years under Majors at Tennessee, is the head coach at Pitt  “He’s done a fine job over the years,” Major said. “He was also one of the most loyal coaches I had at Tennessee.”Loyalty was a word that he used often, both in the interview with me and later in the evening during his speech at the banquet, attended by some 200 people. He still feels that he was betrayed by some of his own assistant coaches while he was in Knoxville.
      I think he was surprised at the number of people who asked him for his autograph while at the Saturday night dinner. Whether you liked him as a coach or not, he is obviously a coaching legend, and to have him in our midst for a day and evening was nice. He did an excellent job as speaker, and the Boys & Girls Club was the big winner, taking in some $25,000 in the fund-raiser.   I hope someday Johnny Majors will bury some of the bitterness that he holds toward theUniversity ofTennessee. There are two sides to every story, and I’m sure the university people have a different story to tell than does Johnny. But the hurt he felt when he left the university squeezed most of the orange blood out of his veins.  I hope there’s still some orange blood there. Because to me, and apparently a lot of other people that I’ve talked to over the years, Johnny Majors will always be aTennessee man.