The Volunteer 1941 Yearbook Annual of University Knoxville, Tennessee (Football National Champions Coach Robert Neyland and All-Americans Molinski, Weber, and Steiner)
(12" x 9.5", 360 pages; coverage of Knoxville campus activ...)
12" x 9.5", 360 pages; coverage of Knoxville campus activities and sports during the 1940-41 school year.
Robert Reese Neyland was an American football coach and army officer. He was often called the greatest defensive coach in the country.
Background
Robert Reese Neyland was born on February 17, 1892 in Greenville, Texas, United States. He was the son of Robert Reese, a lawyer, and of Pauline Lewis. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Neyland (usually pronounced Nayland, although he claimed it should be Kneeland) later said that he was too shy to speak in public and therefore chose to become an engineer instead.
Education
After graduating from high school in Greenville, Neyland attended Burleson College (1909 - 1910) and Texas A and M (1910 - 1911).
Career
In 1912 Neyland received an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy.
Neyland did not make the varsity football team as a plebe and could not play during his sophomore year because of his involvement in a hazing incident. But he played end on the 1914 and 1915 teams, became the heavyweight boxing champion of the academy, and excelled in baseball as a pitcher.
His overall baseball record of thirty-five victories and five losses, twenty straight wins, and four victories over Navy brought him bonus offers from John McGraw of the New York Giants, Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics, and other teams.
Neyland chose instead to pursue a military career and in 1916 he served with the Army Corps of Engineers along the Mexican border before going overseas with the Allied Expeditionary Force in 1917.
After brief service in France he returned home in 1918 to become a training officer.
In 1920 he entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he received the Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1921. Neyland then returned to West Point as an aide to the superintendent, General Douglas MacArthur, whom he later called "unquestionably the greatest officer and man I ever knew. " He also was assistant coach in baseball, boxing, and football.
It was a time of change in curriculum and athletics at West Point, but within a few years the "old guard" had beaten back the challenges to tradition and MacArthur had moved on. Neyland, in turn, decided to try coaching and in 1925 accepted a job with the University of Tennessee to head its Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program and to help upgrade its weak football program.
By 1926 Neyland was head coach, and over the next nine years he developed teams that won seventy-five games and lost only twelve. He also continued to teach in the ROTC program until 1931 and, as a regular-army officer, he worked on what was later to become the Norris Dam.
In 1935 Neyland was assigned to serve with the Corps of Engineers in Panama. Unhappy with the post, he resigned from the army in 1936 and returned to coaching at Tennessee. He soon recruited an outstanding team that won thirty-three straight regular-season games. It held regular-season opponents scoreless in 1939 and brought national recognition to Tennessee. The team also played in several post-season bowl games. Ironically, although he helped give such games status, Neyland's teams had little success in them. Neyland was recalled to active duty in 1941 and had various stateside assignments (including an unhappy time as coach of an Army All-Star football team) before he went overseas.
He retired from the army in 1946 as a brigadier general. When he returned to Tennessee in 1946, Neyland found conditions changed. It was an era of wide-open, T-formation, and free-substitution football. But he refused to change his system, retaining the older single-wing offense and requiring his athletes to play both offense and defense. Alumni displeasure and declining fortunes (Tennessee was 9-9-2 in 1947-1948) brought family pressure to retire. Instead, Neyland grudgingly accepted the free-substitution rule and led Tennessee to a 36-6-2 record in 1949-1952. The 1951 team was generally accepted as the best in the nation. But, never altering his views of what he called "rat-race football, " Neyland worked quietly behind the scenes in 1953 as a member (and eventually chairman) of the NCAA Football Rules Committee to eliminate the free-substitution rule. The decision for elimination was later modified.
Plagued by a liver and kidney ailment that ultimately took his life, Neyland retired from coaching in 1953. He spent his remaining years as athletic director at Tennessee.
Neyland was one of a small group who made football coaching and athletic administration respected professions and who gave organization and national scope to what had been a more casual game dominated by a few eastern and midwestern universities.
(12" x 9.5", 360 pages; coverage of Knoxville campus activ...)
Views
Although Neyland eschewed what were later called "specialty teams, " his players were drilled in the timing and execution of punts, kickoffs, and kick-return strategies. Once he tried to write down his rules for football; characteristically he could come up with only four offensive principles while listing twenty different guidelines for the defense. Committed to the simple, power football of his brand of the single wing, Neyland's offensive teams relied on nearly perfect execution of a limited number of running plays, occasional pass patterns, and crisp blocking. He stressed meticulous planning to take advantage of opponents' mistakes and the importance of mental as well as physical preparation for the game. Although he was a powerful presence in the locker room, Neyland claimed that last-minute histrionics by coaches probably did more harm than good.
Personality
Neyland did not attend clinics, lecture, or write about football, yet he freely shared his knowledge with contemporaries who sought him out. Neyland had little time for "public relations. " He refused to be interviewed on radio or television, made few public appearances, and discouraged attempts to write about his career. As a consequence he was not well known nationally and seemed to the public to be aloof, self-assured, and something of a tyrant.
Neyland's military background was always present in his bearing, his delegation of authority to subordinates (and expectations of their accomplishments), and his drillmaster preparation of his teams. His players both feared and respected him and in later years spoke with affection of his demands for discipline, hard work, and commitment to the team. He kept his professional duties separate from his private life, where he was to his close friends the genial host, the conversationalist, and an avid bridge player and fisherman.
Connections
Neyland married Ada ("Peggy") Fitch on July 26, 1923. They had two sons.