Let's Not Lose the Greatest College Football Coaches of All Time

I very much want to write a book, the reason being is that we have lost some of the greatest coaches who have ever lived, particularly in the Southeastern Conference.

Gone are such luminaries as Bear Bryant, Shug Jordan, Johnny Vaught, General Neyland, and Wally Butts. Aging quickly are Vince Dooley, Frank Broyles, Johnny Majors, Pat Dye, and Gene Stallings.

The night before a recent Georgia-Auburn war, I was able to sit and listen to coach Tommy Tubberville reminiscence about a wild and insane game Auburn had played several years earlier at Mississippi State while Jackie Sherrill was the head coach. I could only hear bits and pieces, but from the reaction of the close friends surrounding him, it would seem that it could only be told on cable TV late after the family hour. It must have been rip-roaring!

Don't you think that Dooley and that whole crowd of retired geniuses could tell some stories about old-time SEC football Hall of Fame coaches that would make your jaw drop to the floor? They all coached with or against Bryant, Jordan, Vaught, etc. What delicious inside tales they must have that have never been revealed.

Did Jordan really tell the War Eagle booster club that the night before they named the stadium for him?

Did the crooked sportswriter Furman Bisher really get an "in-house" visit late one rainy night from Wally Butts and Bear Bryant when he wrongly accused them of fixing the 1963 Georgia-Alabama game?

And what did Johnny Vaught tell his married players that caused such a furor? 

These are all things that may never be answered if we don't ask them quickly. The original legends are gone.

There is still a connection, but these secret stories won't last forever.