Latest / The Mike Keith Show / The Mike Keith Show | BIG INTERVIEW WITH TIM JOHNSON (10.2.26)

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The Mike Keith Show | BIG INTERVIEW WITH TIM JOHNSON (10.2.26) · The Mike Keith Show

• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: In tonight accident, from Rocky Top, direct from the Goku.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: In tonight from the players, the inside draft.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Mike Keith starts now.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_16: Welcome to the big interview on the Mike Keith Show.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_16: We're going to talk about this new book.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_16: Robert Nealand, the West Point engineer who built Tennessee football.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_16: And the author is here.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_16: Tim, welcome.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_16: So glad to have you.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_16: Thanks.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_16: Great to be here, Mike.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_16: All right.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_16: You've written nine books.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_16: All of them pre-20th century topics.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_16: Why was Robert Nealand the first 20th century topic for you, a Lipscomb University history professor?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I everything that I've written about prior to this book has been sort of 19th century military history.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm really early U.S.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: military history, but the thing that fascinated me with General Nealan is he's a military man.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew, and I've known for some time, that there had to be a story there that most people didn't really know about.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone knows his football accolades and what he accomplished with the UT volunteers.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: But most people don't really know much about his military career.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's what fascinated me.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's a story that I really wanted to emphasize.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_16: What did you know about his military career before you started this process?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I knew that he had gone to West Point, and I knew that he uh had been in the Second World War, that he had played some some role, and that he was active duty military for a number of years.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, his first 10 years as the uh volunteer coach, he was still active duty in the army.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's really about all that I knew.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know anything about his World War I experience.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that he was John J.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Pershing on the Rio Grande prior to World War One, uh in in what's called the punitive expedition against Pancho Villa.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there's so much about his military life that I just didn't know.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_16: Bob Nealand was an enigma to a lot of people, and he's been gone so long to Tennessee fans, he's still a mystery.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_16: In doing all this research, just a simple question for you who was Bob Nealan?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Bob Nealand was in many ways a very private man, uh, even though you know he was in the public eye all the time.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But he didn't like the public eye, and he he shied away from interviews, he didn't like the spotlight.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that uh that accounts for the mystery surrounding uh Bob Nealand.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um he i he was so much more than a football coach.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was very much devoted to his military life.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um he at at one time apparently told his wife Peggy that um that he he regretted retiring from the army when he did in 1936.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that was service to country was really at at the heart of what he felt that he was all about.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um Nealan was a uh was a private man, but a uh a devoted husband and father.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the the military gave him the kind of discipline that sort of permeated everything he did in life.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, he was a very learned man too.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: He read a lot.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was v well versed in history, especially military history.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can see that in his gridiron strategies.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know that this man knew military history.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_16: Okay, so you said let's talk about all the things he was good at.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_16: I've got them right here.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_16: He was a really good football player.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_16: He was an all-time great at West Point as a pitcher, 35 and five.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_16: He took up boxing at the U T at the U.S.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_16: Military Academy and became the heavyweight champion.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_16: Sterling engineer who was trained at Texas AM, West Point, and MIT, one of the greatest military men of the 20th century, I think it's safe to say.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_16: Unquestionably one of the great football coaches in the history of the sport.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_16: Is there anything he wasn't good at?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: He was good at everything he he attempted.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he put his whole heart into it.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm glad you mentioned his baseball career.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was he may have been the best college pitcher in the country in 1915 and 1916.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he graduated West Point in 1916, but he pitched the first no-hitter in West Point history.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he had a 20-game winning streak at one time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um he he was um uh he was the captain of the team.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he started all four years against Navy, beat Navy all four times.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: That was something he was very proud of for the rest of his life.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you mentioned boxing.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of took that up kind of on a fluke, um and became the West Point champ three years in a row.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, everything he did, he was really, really good at it.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh you you you mentioned his role in in the war too.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was an outstanding uh engineer and logistics officer, but I think one reason why most people don't know much about his military career is because he was not a combat commander.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people love and he was mad about that.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was mad that he didn't see service in those instances.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be in the action.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be on the front lines, and he usually had these sort of um logistical roles sort of behind the front lines.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh you know there is a saying uh in in the military, um amateurs talk tactics, but professionals talk logistics.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Nealan was a logistics man and World War II in the Southwest Pacific where he served, China and India, required unusual talent and skill in organization and logistics, and and that's that's what Nealan was good at.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_16: And he was one of the people that was often talked about as credited for being a factor in winning the war, his supply chain, his logistics, his construction project.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_16: Nealan as an engineer was as good as Nealan as a football coach in terms of talent.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he was.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was outstanding, and and that's the reason why I think they they um promoted him to general in the fall of 1944 and sent him to Calcutta, India.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Calcutta was this huge harbor city supply base, supplies going to the Chinese army uh in China and to the British Army in Burma.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them came through Calcutta.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: But Calcutta was an underperforming port city uh when Nealand took command in November 1944, and within four months, the port of Calcutta was the most productive military supply port in the world.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he just he turned that port facility around.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_16: So, how did General Nealin get to the University of Tennessee when he was just Captain Nealin?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_16: Tim Johnson is back to tell us more about his book and revelations about the general.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_16: When the big interview continues on the Mike Keith Show.
• 8:17
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• 8:24
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• 8:28
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• 8:30
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• 8:34
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• 9:29
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• 11:04
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• 11:09
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• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Being at the Vols game saved my life.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was a normal day going to the game with my son, but this time it felt like a sledgehammer hit my chest.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: The UT medical team knew exactly what they needed to do and just kept me calm throughout the process.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably the most serious heart attack that you could have.
• 12:24
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• 12:30
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• 12:50
  SPEAKER_16: Robert Nealand's life is littered with contact with people who turned out to be very, very famous.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_16: He played football with a future president, Dwight Eisenhower.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_16: He played baseball with a future five-star general, Omar Bradley.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_16: He worked for Douglas MacArthur as his aide in his career.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_16: So that's just some examples of the military side.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_16: But on the football side, there was a story in the book that really interested me.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_16: Everyone who knows General Nealand understands that his relying on the kicking game was at the fundamental root of what he wanted as a football coach.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_16: He believed deeply in that.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_16: And he had an encounter with one of the most famous early football players in the history of the sport who impacted him towards the kicking gate.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_16: How does Jim Thorpe factor into what Robert Nealan later thought about that part of football?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is when um Nealan was a cadet at West Point.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Jim Thorpe played for the Carlisle School.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is a school, uh it was called the Carlisle Indian School.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Native Americans um uh went there.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um they had a great football team.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is um this is in the fall of 1912, and um Jim Thorpe was on the team, great running back, but also he was their kicker.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh so Nealan uh later would tell this story that uh uh Thorpe was standing on the goal line practicing his punts.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: The army kicker was standing on the 20-yard line nearby, practicing practicing his punts.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And every time the army kicker could kick one as far as Thorpe, the crowd would cheer.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, Thorpe was 20 yards further back, but it was a real ordeal, you know, for him to try to kick one as far as as as Thorpe was kicking.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: But but Nealan understood from that and from other um experiences that the kicking game is crucial because that's all about field position, and and that determines where you're gonna be on the field.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and Nealan once said he didn't want the ball inside his own 30-yard line.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, so you know, Nealan was was all about position, not possession.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to have favorable field position, which is why, and I mentioned this in the book, you know, he he he was an avid uh quick kick artist.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he he would kick the ball on third down or second down, or e even occasionally in rare instances, he would kick the ball on first down just to get it away from uh get it out of, you know, deep in his own territory.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Did Robert Nealand want to coach football?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: As a young man, he really wanted to be an army officer and he wanted to be an army engineer.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was great at math, by the way.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And when he graduated in 1916, he graduated 28th in a class of 125.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's not too bad.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: His high scores generally were in math.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that was uh that was his forte, that's what he was good at.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: But he became an assistant football coach in the 1920s at West Point and there he began to formulate ideas about uh game strategy and and um he he he really began to like the idea of coaching a team and putting his ideas into action and and that's really what led him to come to Knoxville and come to the University of Tennessee.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea of coaching sort of grew on on him over time.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_16: Now take that further.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_16: How did he get to Knoxville?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_16: How did he get on this campus and become first an assistant football coach?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he came to Knoxville in 1925.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: He um after the First World War and after a year at MIT, where he continued his study of engineering, the Army sent him back to West Point as a staff officer for the superintendent, who was Douglas MacArthur.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: His office was right next door to General MacArthur's, and he uh they developed a very close relationship and and Nealan loved MacArthur and and grew to admire him and respect him and would quote him for the rest of his life.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But while Nealon was there, this is from 1921 to 1925, he was also an assistant football coach under uh Charles Daly and he was an assistant baseball coach.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um UT um Mark uh Mark Bill Banks was the coach who preceded he preceded Nealand and um he wanted to hire an assistant and he went to West Point uh and um he actually went there intending to interview another individual.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um but he he ends up hiring Nealand and and this is in 1925 when um Robert Nealand came to Knoxville actually to run the ROTC program for the Army and to teach military science, and oh by the way, to be an assistant football coach too.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was the end coach, but he was only assistant coach for one year, and um the very next year he was promoted and made the head coach in 1926, a hundred years ago.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_16: So when he took over the program, Tennessee was uh pretty good.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_16: I think that's the best way to put it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_16: They had uh a lot of pretty good seasons.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_16: 1914 was their best team, that was their signature, but he took them from pretty good to a very different level within three years.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_16: As you studied it, what stood out to you, Tim, about how he took them from pretty good to being one of the nation's best programs?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: They were they they were an okay team, um maybe mediocre to good, but when Nealan took over the program, first and foremost, it was all about discipline.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I think he noticed under um uh under Coach Banks lacks discipline.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: That changed in a hurry.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, Nealan was all about discipline.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is the military in him.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so everything was precision-based, stop famous, stopwatch in hand, uh, and and discipline for all of the players and a work ethic.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was more than just the gridiron though.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh from the very beginning, Nealan saw himself as a teacher and the gridiron was his classroom.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he really uh believed that he was training young men, especially for life after football, and what you learn on the football field can carry over into life afterward, um, being tough and resilient, being disciplined, um, having an objective that you that you're willing to work for.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the things he instilled into his players.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and also um the camaraderie, uh, esprit de corps, um and and a team atmosphere.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and by about by his second and third year, he had the Tennessee program in in full swing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_16: From almost the start of his Tennessee tenure to basically the end as head coach, he was known, quote unquote, behind his back as the bull.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_16: Yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_16: Um that's how players would refer to him when they maybe weren't happy with how practice had gone or things were too hard or too tough.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_16: The bull wants this, the bull wants that.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_16: He was aware of that more than they ever knew, and maybe even okay with it because he saw it as a rallying point.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he the the first reference I saw of uh of a player referring to uh Nealan as the bull was Bobby Dodd in the late 1920s.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So this this goes back to his early years coaching, and apparently all through the years, his players called him the bull behind his back, never to his face.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: There may have been um i the uh sort of uh an endearing atmosphere associated with referring to him as the bull.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: But also, you know, the bull was big and gruff and he could be mean sometime.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just a very appropriate, uh, appropriate nickname.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: When I was when I was doing interviews for this book, I interviewed uh Jim Haslum, and and I asked him, I said, Did you all call General Nealand the bull?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes, he he said yes, we we called him the bull, but he said never to his face.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Mac Franklin also interviewed him.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um same thing.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Oh yeah, he was he was the bull uh to us.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: We called him that behind his back.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_16: We've got more of the big interview on the Mike Keats show right after this.
• 22:44
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• 22:50
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• 23:08
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• 23:19
  SPEAKER_16: All right, you mentioned Bobby Dodd.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_16: Bobby Dodd was his second All-American.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_16: In that first nine-year period, he was one of many great players.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_16: Dodd would go on to become the most successful coach on Nealand's tree.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_16: Obviously, the Bobby Dodd Award is named for the coach of the year in college football.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_16: Now he had a lot of success at Georgia Tech.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_16: But it feels like both when he played for Nealan and when he coached against him later, the two of them never quite jived.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_16: And it's always been talked about that for as successful as Dodd was, and Dodd was a Tennessee man, but then he later spent nearly 60 years at tech, uh, there was some maybe a little bit of animosity there.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_16: Was there something that just didn't fit them together in the best way?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit of friction there from the very beginning.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was because Nealan was so uh centered on discipline and doing everything by the book.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But Dodd was kind of a freewheeler and he he would kind of shoot from the hip.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like that on the football field.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I read uh, you know, a couple of stories about, you know, you know, people said that Bobby Dodd would would just give uh would would give Nealan fits, uh, watching him out on the field kind of winging it and ad-libbing uh uh as the game went on.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's kind of the basis of a a little bit of friction.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was good natured and and they respected each other, uh, but they were just a little bit different in personality and and and later when Dodd is coaching at Georgia Tech, and you know, um Dodd and Nealand actually faced off against each other as coaches a few times after World War II.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they played four times and they split that series two and two.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: But um Dodd wanted to, you know, wanted to beat Nealand uh more than more than anybody else.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, one year, the first year that he that he beat Tennessee, it was the first game of the season, and after the game was over, Dodd said, Our season is a success right now.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So uh you know, and and I think you often see this, you know.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if if you're gonna coach against your mentor, you you really want to beat that person more than more than anything else.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: But they always had that sort of competition uh rivalry aspect to their relationship.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_16: So if he and Bobby Dodd were not tight, Baldon Wyatt might have felt like the opposite.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_16: There are some who for years have contended, and I don't know if there's any attribution to this, that Bowden Wyatt was Neeland's favorite player, and maybe it's because he identified himself in Balden Wyatt.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_16: Why did he love Balden Wyatt so much?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think because he he saw Wyatt as a great leader.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um Wyatt was uh was respected among his teammates, and that's something that a coach respects in a player.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um he he did have this sort of special uh love for Bowden Wyatt, and um that's why he was so interested in bringing him back to Knoxville some some years later.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but you know, a lot of people think that Wyatt, uh, I think you you alluded to this, he his personality was kind of like Nealan's.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: He even dressed and uh and and physically looked like Nealand, so so uh maybe that was uh a source of a special connection that the two felt.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh but another player that Nealan really loved was Herman Hickman.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Hickman was this all-American lineman uh who played um 1929 through 1931.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hickman was from Johnson City.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: But um Nealon once said that Hickman was the greatest guard that college football had ever produced.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's a great story about Hickman.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I tell this story in the book.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is after the 1931 season when Tennessee was invited to go to New York to play New York University.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was a charity game.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when the Great Depression in 1931.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um at one point, New York University had the ball.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was about maybe the five-yard UT five-yard line.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Herman Hickman was not the typical lineman, not the kind of lineman that Nealand preferred.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: He liked smaller, mobile linemen.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Herman Hickman was like 5'10 and 230, which by today's standards, that's not all that big.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_16: And he didn't carry it real well either, and yet he was a great athlete.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: He was a great athlete.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was clearly, he was, he was pudgy, he was heavy, and that was obvious.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: But he was also fast.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, when New York University got the ball uh almost on the goal line, about the five-yard line, their coach said, run it at the fat boy.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they did three straight times.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when they turned the ball over on downs, the ball was on like the 14 or 15 yard line.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so um he he demonstrated very quickly why he was an all-American.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, um Grantlin Rice was at that game, you know, the the famous nationally syndicated sports writer from Tennessee.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Vanderbilt, grad.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was at that game, and as soon as the game ended, he went straight home and changed his All-American ballot and put Herman Hickman on the ballot.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_16: We'll talk more with Tim Johnson about his outstanding book on General Nealin.
• 29:35
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• 29:38
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• 33:58
  SPEAKER_16: So a lot of people have always wondered.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_16: Nealan went 1926 to 1934, won 76 games, lost seven.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_16: I mean, incredible success.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_16: And yet he sort of had this issue that was always hanging over it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_16: He had two jobs, and at the end of the 34 season, he had to leave because of one of those jobs.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_16: Explained sort of what went on for really about four or five years with him trying to balance two worlds.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was he was burning a candle at both ends.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was he's still a full-time officer in the Army.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: And initially, when he came to Knoxville, he was he ran the ROTC program, he taught military science.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: UT officials kind of worked with the Army to figure out ways to keep Nealand here in Knoxville.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so he then was assigned as uh to the Corps of Engineers to work on um projects along the Tennessee River.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when he was given that position, his office was in Chattanooga.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now he has two full-time jobs that are based a hundred miles apart, and he's back and forth all the time.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he had a special arrangement with the Army.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: They they let him off every fall uh during football season and also in the spring for for spring spring uh practice.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, an issue arose.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually in early 1933, that actually even involves Franklin Roosevelt.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um part of the TBA.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um the TVA was this great public works program that Roosevelt had campaigned on, and they're gonna build dams and they're gonna bring electricity to the rural south.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: There was already a dam in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the Wilson Dam, that was going to be one of the first ones to convert over and become a part of this TVA structure.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Nealand technically had oversight from from the headwaters of the Tennessee uh in the Knoxville area all the way down into North Alabama to Mussel Shoals.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what actually happened was um Alabama Power and Tennessee power were um using the federal government's generators to generate electricity to sell to their um customers, to their private customers, which was they were basically um defrauding the government.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um when FDR, president-elect FDR, went to muscle shows and they were dignitaries with him and senators, and they visited uh Wilson Dam, and it was there that they discovered some discrepancies that led to an investigation, and that investigation uh uncovered what Tennessee Power and Alabama Power were doing.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Nealand, um, he's a major at the time.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Major Nealand really was not culpable.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: He was not directly involved.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: But because it fell under his purview, uh the investigation uh determined that he probably should have been visiting muscle shows, but he but he couldn't because he's coaching this football team in Knoxville.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and so the report that was generated um um goes to great lengths to point out we have an army officer here who has two full-time jobs, and we really shouldn't be encouraging that.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was in 1933, and that kind of puts this special arrangement that Nealan had with the Army and with the University of Tennessee.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of puts that um um in in danger.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: And a couple of years later, uh when his uh duty time expired uh with the Corps of Engineers, that's when the Army sent him to Panama, the Pan Panama Canal Zone, and that ended his his first stint, his first nine-year stretch as a UT coach.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_16: Right.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_16: So he had the nine-year stretch to begin.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_16: Nealin goes to Panama for a year, and then he has another five-year stretch, which is interrupted by World War II.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_16: Actually, before the United States got into the war, he had already left the University of Tennessee to he was called back to the military.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_16: So then he returns and he coaches eight more years through 1952 when he's too ill to contend.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_16: In each of his three tenures at Tennessee, he had a three-year period that was just remarkable.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_16: Remarkable.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_16: In the first nine years, in the five years, and then obviously in the final eight years.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_16: So here's what I want to know.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_16: Understanding the history, knowing some of the behind the scenes that which three-year run in his tenure does Tim Johnson believe was the most impressive?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think it I think it was the 1938-39-40.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think General Nealan might agree with that.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um he believed, and a lot of other people believed, i the best team he ever had was in 1938.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: 38, 39, and 40, his teams were undefeated in the regular season.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um they went to three bowl games.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is at a time when there were only four bowl games out there.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: To to to get to invited to a bowl game w was a real a real honor and a prestige.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Nealand, I I believe, was the first coach to to go to three consecutive bowl games uh in those years.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now they um they won one and lost two of the bowl games, but they went to the Rose Bowl uh during that run.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Southeastern Conference was founded in 1933.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: This 38 to 40 run it it was a dynasty, and it was really the first dynasty in SEC history.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think uh this is when Nealan was at at the peak of his career, and his teams were so dominant.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: The 1939 team didn't didn't give up a single point until the bowl game.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: In the regular season did they ever do that?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: The the regular season, nobody, nobody could score on them.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so and so my short answer to your question, I really, I really like that 38, 39, 40 run.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_16: I would agree with that, especially based on the fact that even the two or three years before he left before the 35 season, Tennessee had taken just a little downturn.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_16: They weren't quite as good as they had been in in 28, 29, and 30.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_16: And then they had the tough year with Britain in 35.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_16: When he came back, he said it would take time to rebuild it.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_16: He did, and it was an amazing period of time.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: It it was.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you look at his uh you mentioned he had three separate tenures as the coach.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um you know, if his his three or four worst years uh at the bottom end of his seasons, they they generally came in those early years when he's at at the helm trying to build the program in twenty-six, twenty-seven, or trying to rebuild the program in thirty-six, thirty-seven, and again, rebuild the program in forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he built that program three times in in twenty twenty-seven years.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: In all different circumstances.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_16: Yes.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_16: And in all different circumstances of his life, too.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_16: True.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_16: Especially because in that last tenure, his health started to wane even maybe back as early as 48.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: He he was having sort of very quietly, I think he was having some health issues for two or three, three or four years.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they and they really they all stem from um World War II and and uh serious illness that he had while he was in China in 1944.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh you you're right.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: His you know, circumstances changed.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: The game was changing.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: The game, you know, the post-World War II years, uh college football was very different from what it had been in the 1920s.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, Nealand would make a few adjustments, but as a general rule, he stayed very true to his system and and to the kind of offense and defense that he wanted to run.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was always successful for him.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_16: One of the great stories in the book is about Robert Nealin's relationship with Bear Bryant and his success over Bear Bryant.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_16: We'll talk about that more as Tim Johnson continues with us on the big interview on the Mike Keith Show.
• 43:37
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• 44:00
  SPEAKER_13: Big interview is brought to you by Clayton Holmes, Oakwood Homes, and Love Homes of Tennessee, helping families across the state find their dream homes.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_16: Seven meetings with Bear Bryant's Kentucky teams.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_16: Some of Kentucky's best teams of all time, Babe Perelli at quarterback.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_16: In those seven meetings, Robert Nealand was undefeated.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_16: So from what you can surmise, was Nealand in Bryant's head?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think he very much was in Bryant's head.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um Nealand was Nealand was 20 years older than Bryant.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Bryant's a young coach.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is in the late 40s, early 50s when Bryant was at Kentucky.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, everyone wanted to beat Nealand.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Bryant had some great teams.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned Bay Perelli.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he would he took some number one or number two ranked teams into Knoxville and they played in this great snowstorm on one occasion.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: But Bryant could never beat him.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he once said, everyone said that Nealan had a jinx on us, but he said he didn't have a jinx.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: He was just a better coach than I was, and he had better players, and I couldn't stand it.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And on another occasion, Bryant admitted, he said, I lost my breakfast every day that we had to play Tennessee.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_16: Nealon has to quit after 52.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_16: He remains the athletic director at Tennessee for basically a decade after that.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_16: How did the general stay involved with football during that time?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he would he would often go to practice and he he didn't really meddle, but he would go to practice and kind of sit at a distance and keep an eye on things.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was a tough situation for Harvey Robinson.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, uh Robinson uh apparently was a very, very good coach, but for whatever and and he had he had been an assistant for Nealand for years, but for whatever reason, um it just didn't work out as head coach, and he had two pretty dismal years.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so uh Nealan certainly is involved in in that capacity, in um uh bringing in coaches, and and of course, they they still these are usually former players, former assistant coaches, and they're staying true to Nealan's system as well.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: About and why it's not changing a thing.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, he's not.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_16: 1962, the general's very sick in early 62.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_16: He learns, everyone learns, the board decides that they are going to name the stadium Nealin Stadium.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_16: It had previously been known just as Shields Watkins Field.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_16: So he knew that before he died in March.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_16: Knowing his love of engineering and how involved he was with the plans for expanding the stadium.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_16: Knowing how he loved football and knowing how he loved Tennessee, would you surmise, even though we never heard him say it, that that to him was the biggest honor he could get?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think he was deeply honored um to have the stadium named for him.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when he when he came to Knoxville in 1925, the stadium w would seat about 6,000, 5,000 or 6,000.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: It went through an expansion in 1926, which I think brought it up to about 6,000.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: In 1962, you know, they just added the upper first portion of the upper deck and that new press box.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as an engineer, he had had a role in helping to plan that expansion.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there had been at least four or five stadium expansions during his tenure.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's a builder, and he played a role in all of that.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he could sit in his office, I suspect, and and and look at the cranes through his window out there.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: But to have to have the stadium named for him, and and and he was told that the board of directors had decided to do that not long before his death was a great honor.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was a great honor.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um But I will I will mention this, and and this I think is kind of a sad irony.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: What he really wanted to be remembered for, he had a visitor in his office one day.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is just in the last year or two of his life.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: He had a visitor come by, and in their conversation, the visitor said, General, what would you most like to be remembered for?
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the answer surprised him.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I want to be remembered for what I did in Calcutta.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Nealan was a soldier, and he really um felt strongly about what he was able to accomplish uh in Calcutta.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I I have a chapter on his role in World War II, and all that he did in Calcutta, how he turned that that underperforming port into a very prolific supply base, it was it was crucial in the war against Japan.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and the irony here is that what he really would like to be remembered for is something that most people don't even know about.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_16: Now that you've completed this project, you've put out this wonderful book.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_16: When I say General Robert Nealand, what does Tim Johnson think at this moment?
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: My first thought is probably different from what your first thought would be, because I'm a military historian.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: When I hear General Robert Nealand, I think first and foremost about a man who served his country.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think of what Tom Brocall said, the greatest generation.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was one of the greatest generation.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: We don't ever think about that with Nealand.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um uh it's it's his military service that I that I think about the most.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I remember um that he uh even after he left the army, that he regretted that he had left the army uh after he retired.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so um part of what he was doing with his players on the football field, I mentioned earlier that he was he really saw himself as a teacher training these young men for life.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: Once you get to the post-World War II years, we're in the Cold War.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Nealan Nealan saw that all around him and understood that, you know, young men might be called into service again in the in the future.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he really believed it was important for him to build young men who were strong and resilient and tough.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so, as a military historian, when you say General Robert Nealan, I I see him in his uniform.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: I see him as a servant of the country.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_16: Tim Johnson, thank you so much for coming to share about this book.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_16: Thanks a lot for having me.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_16: From Bloomsbury Books, it is Robert Nealan, the West Point engineer who built Tennessee football.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_16: Great read, you'll enjoy.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_16: Thanks for joining us on this The Big Interview.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the mic all week long to the latest on the Tennessee effort.