It would not have been fun to watch Jeopardy with Johnny Majors, especially if one of the categories was about college football. Why? He would have been constantly been blurting out the answers.

Majors was bright, intelligent and had a habit of saying things that could annoy people. 

The former Tennessee and Pittsburgh head coach was most memorable from afar by his firing and his frequent pot shots that he would take at his replacement, Phillip Fulmer, during various golf outings. Getting to know him revealed a much different man.

Fortunately, I was able to get to know Majors. That’s why the Johnny Majors Classic between Pittsburgh and Tennessee on Saturday has me feeling a bit nostalgic.

You might not know that there was a second edition planned for “The Johnny Majors Show”, in which he and I would break down Tennessee football. Former sports radio talk show host Heather Harrington was the third of the trio. There were affiliates lined up for a statewide show. We even did a pilot. 

There was one problem: there were no advertisers. Needless to say, the show never happened. However, I still remember that test run of the show, which would have aired had it not been for the glaringly blank commercial breaks.

Majors and I had met before, but he made a beeline to me as soon as I stepped into the studio for the first show. He told me that he had a habit of being long-winded, which was enjoyably true. He told me it was my job to make sure that he didn’t ramble on. I was supposed to coach the person that was Tennessee’s head coach throughout my youth. Daunting? A bit.

We had a system. If he started answering a question and started going long, I was supposed to nudge him just out of the camera shot. I only had to do that once. Why? Because I told Majors that all he had to do was stick to 45 second answers. He nailed it time and time again, almost like a play clock. 

Majors took coaching well in television. It took a bit longer on the links. For what seemed like a decade, there was a story every summer in which Majors would go off on Fulmer. As far as interviewing goes, it was like shooting quotes in a barrel. I didn’t write those stories, but I’m sure the local reporters that did felt they had found a gold mine – a quote or two that would go viral before anyone knew what that was.

After being approached by Tennessee, Majors refrained from his public criticism of Fulmer. I’m glad he did. It allowed him to be re-embraced by the Tennessee program. It wasn’t easy to bite his tongue. He had some rather choice words to share when I asked him about Fulmer becoming Tennessee’s athletic director in 2017. I don’t think I can publish any of them.

I had no idea that Majors was unaware that the Vols hired Fulmer when I called. I figured that out pretty quickly. After a long tirade, I could have managed a quote or two. Nah, I scrapped it. I knew how it would play in the public’s eyes. Majors didn’t need that at that point in his life.

The thing that still stands out to me most about Majors occurred when I bumped into him in the training facility just a couple of days after former Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin bolted after just one season in Knoxville for Southern California.

Majors was a Kiffin fan. Why? Because he wasn’t Fulmer. I expected that fandom might fall by the wayside considering Kiffin had left Tennessee after just one season. It didn’t. Perhaps agenda driven, Majors began listing off all the great coaches over the years that had left a program high and dry after a short stay.

I couldn’t write fast enough to keep up with all the names. It was a good thing I had a recorder with me as Majors casually went back through the decades all the way to the 1950’s with well over a dozen coaches that had left a program after a season or two.

It was amazing to see how quickly he could recall all of those coaches. He wasn’t done. Majors called me back. Unfortunately, I missed the call.

When I got home, I played the voicemail. In case I didn’t have enough for my column, Majors had some more coaches for me to think about – all the way back to the 1920’s. Majors was born in 1935, but he was enough of a football historian that he knew the history of the game when Red Grange was running around.

It’s easy to say that Tennessee made the right choice when they fired Majors and replaced him with Fulmer. However, Majors seemed to be on the cusp of winning a national title as well and – trust me – swears he would have hoisted a championship trophy had he not been let go.

In truth, Majors was fired for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons were his fault. He rubbed some boosters the wrong way, but he probably would have never been fired had he not had to undergo heart surgery in 1992. That opened the door for Fulmer.

I’m glad Majors had a championship in his pocket when he passed away. He earned that at Pittsburgh. Having running back Tony Dorsett didn’t hurt, but there was a lot that went into that championship.

Whether or not it happened, Majors believed that Fulmer actively usurped him. And that’s probably the case. Fulmer had ambition. It’s hard to blame a man for that. However, it could have been handled differently.

Majors is remembered as a championship coach that ended up being a very successful head coach at his alma mater. He’s remembered as one of the best college football players in his era. Good. That’s what he should be remembered for, not his penchant for throwing barbs at Fulmer.

There will never be a Phillip Fulmer Classic. Fulmer, like many coaches, had a huge impact on one college football program. Majors had a huge impact on two. It’s difficult to name any coach that is beloved by two different schools and still celebrated decades after his coaching career concluded. Majors was 85-years old when he passed away in 2020.

What is a legend? Johnny Majors.