A Word on Words; 0894; Bob Gilbert

we're down were dozens of books and their offer tonight bob gilbert talks about your host for word on words mr johnson publisher of the tennessean editorial director of usaid remain a world war the same thing then we talk about a book that focuses on the life of great day hero the gridiron the book is called neil and kneeland the gridiron general and i guess the author of that book is an old friend the distinguished journalist we go way back again about it was great to have you on our words you're preaching doing here and they used to ray cheers on the hill and fear across the southeastern conference he was at a tough task master he was a great tactician before that it was a point to

find students appeared athlete and i guess so i guess i wonder and why have this man a given his background decided to actually served one coaching and then white came the hill made that place to where he really created advantage of the ball bounced johnny was maddening and became a football coach the accident he had heard he had intended to have a military career you so he was a passionate student in engineering a lot of people know about and in addition to the you know to the degree at west point and it had gotten a bachelor's degree at mit and that he loved engineering and he loved the military and intended to have this is as a lifetime career but in nineteen nineteen twenty one he was reassigned west

point when general douglas macarthur was superintendent there and in addition they know macarthur's aide de camp he was assigned by about macarthur to have do and sundry tasks around was one black directed in particular band director and merlin end of the the punishment compound there and also was asked if he would help coached the football team monitoring daily in the region and chris newman played football player there was very little about three years and i am but but for what was the first love baseball and drills for four years that he coached under daily at west point he began to charlie allowed him some flexibility and some some initiative to to try things on and the leading into to become infatuated with the relationship between military tactics and how you win football games on saturdays and he wanted to

try these out on his own and cumber bun and he would be a man with the band in that i know well before know how much emphasis to put on that said not their background and that the application of their theory to football field blood for the sake of our audience to deal with it a little bit because there there are there are some people who are critics of numerous events a football program who maintain that there's more mist to that then reality and he really did apply military experience and combat tactics to remember that was right he did he have and i'm not a military man but in researching the book i found that the west point people come out of their

store awaited to what they call the year the field manual of military tactics use the usual rules of the precepts that that they used during those brief periods of of military history of the changes that warfare evolves but in his day labor they believe that you control defensively you control the promise didn't lecture circuit for i believe that in an offensive thrusts that you threw as much manpower into a hindu and a precise area target area as you could possibly and until only one came along officers lined up and do a short reading new entrees that he he did what they called double teaming up both sides of a point of attack to them blocking one here to here i'm going to and that's where the forest like an analyst for ford says labeling and

it was successful i think one of the criticisms of all have been leveled against bob dylan if you were sitting here with us today he would say it's quite justified was that he played a schedule which was designed to to label his team to win a majority of the games he believes that you could not get a military unit or a football team to perform at a cost of peak of efficiency and mosul he would schedule the a softer team it brings ritual before he had to play the alabama's or in the early days before he had to play then a book which was a power and he wanted to get his team prepared and in nineteen thirty nine and the eerie when i'm sort of in the regular season last team to do that in major college football a lot of road in tennessee fans were critical of the fact that you played southwestern than what they didn't know was he had trying to

schedule michigan he had trying to schedule princeton which was major part for five teams he approached a man could arrange it the duck in and they simply couldn't arrange her schedule but he he he was short of offended that attack that year and the unwanted rare appearances before civic club stated simply and it's my job to win football games inside job represents the best interest of these athletes who are not charge and then i have the schedule hour regardless of what you people think but what about the what about the why and the hill and beyond it was a very it was not necessarily a marriage of convenience is a man had plotted a korean military and was looking for for a place a to test these these military tactics

and forth this fast lane made it they came to to tell us and my guess is that if he really he really pushed it and been willing to wait meyerbeer the upton to do so at the point publicly available jobs in those days john i didn't know this until we start researching the book the between the wars between your one war to military career was really not a very attractive saying it here's a man who had dedicated himself to military career had prepared himself for graduating from west point and wanted to be a military man but there wasn't much room for promotion no verbal movement within the military certainly until about nineteen thirty nine an unknown he had gotten a stagecoach and west point and it just so happened by costas at university of tennessee needed an r o t e c commandant han the

man who later became dean of ingenuity to unite and artie also was chairman of athletics and it was his job to do to how are there so the commandant and also the hour and an assistant coach and coincidentally only one had played a texas and in one year before what was point number men and try my hand was interested as a graduate from socal charlie miller thank our oversight of college mr charlie had recommended leland to be interested to see people and also constantly nunes baseball coach at west point was a fellow named sandy stratford who is a university of tennessee gradual so everything this counterpoint stanley fell into a concerted point toward interested tennessee formally condemned as an assistant coach once again coach seems to me a character of the program that was molded in

in his image in a way it hadn't been molded before maybe hasn't sense much truth that wouldn't be possible to do that with a program again become such a dominant figure as giant mazes being a player hero of youtube has its share of critics served as my aunt and kneeland it looks upon the is the nearest thing we have you can do it was there saying to creating that sort of image but he was it seemed to me that he was a fan tough task master and part of the military you regularly brought weatherman do this will it did it i found an interesting to talk with people who'd played for and coached willing in the case of players they interfered in war or respected

in her to the point that they were trying to keep a distance from and when they were off the football for you and and knew and kept a distance from them he was as john paul to the retired football coach and almost all early in his career when he met the only reason i didn't talk to a grandma diva you know i was at football coach and the university and he was always regarded myself as a sergeant news that general mills and that's the way to football players look at and a lot of movement and she admitted that they didn't like they didn't like that the tough question that regimen that you put any other book but issues they graduated issues they won on all the sudden this decision reversed and almost four veneration schwartz over these guys were and they almost all in love there's a great this is a great anecdote in the book i guess they're playing duke speeds

during the feathers tenure quebec was big big racket besides he's gonna be a field general and create a plan create a play a novel says the device goes out of the game and it's not for a lucky a field goal at the game which gives a late think of pain because i drive thirty minutes layers and then at the next the practice after the day don't we give that says no as you stated the sarcasm still really dripping with sarcasm starkness of is what i always hear ringing in my use of the service we've got somebody on this team has much better coaching farm was

far it's a period direction i think the bracket and then he unloads on land would say not running laps and that i think about big racket our lesson i would not like them very much but i guess out of anticipated that so it was going to be that night but would years later big record so close to bob dylan's so fortunate to have been exposed to in a follow up to the john and at lehman's appreciation dinner after he retired from coaching in nineteen fifty three i guess it was january fifty three always go after them the grackles and leland does is telling stories about a month and reminiscing and it goes back to the play in nineteen thirty two thirty one was him and he says the whole old maid good collar players original was to pass on the planet

and we completed however we didn't complete to one of our man with three different fathers was such a standout and then you really dedicate a chapter to his name bookshop for that both chuck fuller picture of men living in the film but the book but the book feathers we really have made a great difference interestingly how individual stars emerge and he seemed to allow them to merge in the end and for a man who believed in military discipline which was everybody wears a single uniform an and fat is it seems to me stood out among most the players who were under him

as a as one who was really allowed to flower i mean even his name became more identified with university during that period then perhaps even human massacre that that's true but i do i think what happened was the bomb iran recruited on the basis of of instinct for talent not necessarily good football player simply athletic ability an old and voices and john would say zahir working for me was i had complete access to nunes football ledgers these were these were accountants ledger books that the aquarium made notations about whether something in their ears have reproduced and he would before the season he would make it his personal notations about personal strengths and weakness of an integral player and then during the season he would come in on this morning of the postseason reassessment and it's interesting that some of the players have played on his nineteen fifty fifty one national

championship team we're we're downgrade is war and his notations when they were sophomores he didn't know where this person to play when sherlock a celibate finney was a lot of things but he was a he was a very very i am articulate analysts in looking at these guys and he would he tried not to fill himself no one is that one of his present one of the maxims only one philosophy of the first law victory is not the food itself and so he tried to try to look at individuals and men and look at what their weaknesses war and then he led strikes discovered oh so many of his summers where became coach of there weren't any feathers is not a dime i see

him as another interesting anecdote equal robin deal in there when diab is playing a citation which mcgill is looking at dodd slaves during the last minutes of the game when he sees this record was mile long pants it was interesting to me it was the background of the world body doubles every sector that was a lot of hair and there and he in the un worker but constantly in the state of friction coach player fred in and it began before but even came to tanzania and tried to recruit the filming paul kingsport tennessee and died in her graduating together from kingsport and i knew and wanted it didn't want the aid but they had decided between them that they would go to the same school and they're so odd because nuland wouldn't take dodd there they decided to go the vanderbilt medical that offer both love and scholarship well it turns out and wanted out of ministry they

get in a film after about a week of classes as a lot of folks come to biden they say your body and we don't think you can pass it work here than go and so he imposed goal paul stakes and they go to a marshall college in macon georgia and the un was incensed that he's insisted on the vanderbilt amazement that they've transferred to two mercer but he sent word that he would still take and now he would take that doesn't want that so badly so they got started on that sort of adversarial relationship from her first day and that was in tennessee and it continued to does playing career because bobby darin was his own innovator on the field he ran the office he took chances you're very conservative governor and that continued on into the time i became an assistant coach george technology we had and they were always graded they're great well and it's just fascinated that condition existed between

coach and player that must learn headstrong young man to be able to stand up for the show in ways that old big couldn't wear some i don't want to and you mentioned ralph meals comment smiling on on the ceo and this summer you need both of wales and there was an impression that dr and conveyed an eye on the bad news of the new america the other half of the other with insurance you're a good job with hamas as yuri no lead but he also the thought how your brain's main even looked for people since may he was smart and he goes are spent was a great solid feel anew now holds a doctor of philosophy degree and he's

not the only one that money and college but i am but how important wasn't formally we think of at least at home being a huge bodies the game is very complex today and the uneven did rely heavily on i just actually thinking athlete will get your ride and his first thought was lose going after what today we described as a student athlete i think at moelis q's rat all americans are better hitter in an ad for his classic example was done to date and it was hard for young men women because when a lot of money back in those days and new approach employer and say the wharton school went to college and he says the point of

the university of tennessee um it possible for you can apply to football for tennessee and we'll get to finance duke university and a mormon and now he supported his players he you know he helped them academically he made certain that that they got help but officially they get tutorial help back in the days long before we set up the academic chaos and he believed that that carried over into football there were two things that were principal way one was physical condition he felt that the best condition to me the better condition team on any given have to then have a better chance when he also believe that the thinking team the team that led to that could outsmart the other team that could be mentally on top of that slight edge and mentally emotionally was with had the better chance to win those were the two things that he stressed as a great day segment of good

deals with is that the wartime years there is a portion that deals with a period in calcutta there are fascinating photograph from not only his life coach whose life as a soldier a lot i take it you must have access to family foundation just at everything that bob bob meighan listening and turned everything over to an alarm but i must say the things that i was extremely corporate later norton his <unk> and that's how we found out some things that were just fascinating to me for example in nineteen eighty eight serving or one in france in nineteen eighteen nineteen along the mexican border we humans station from one of trouble with the partial the early interactions with an outlaw and was parading their towns and it is the north of the border there was a sign at the time he was commander of the eighth engineers young as reginald i'm

entering interstate and on a sunday morning i jotted the date june fifteenth nineteen ninety the incentive though what worries across the rio grande in the seventh cavalry bars across an early and those will and they chased by julia back in the mountains this isn't that later becomes head football coach at the university of tennessee in windsor hundred and seventy three create what about me a little about the year the whole business of media during your soldiers here and coaching the war comes along here now our coaching back in your original role of the colonel becomes a general and now he's back at university to say he has served somebody is

there was a national championship but understands i think that retirements coming lester minto was a tough retired two years after winning a national championship this sick and he knew it and used it as he was physically emotionally worn out and no he felt that he you know he simply couldn't do a good job continue to have a job backing up a minute if we could you'd hear retired briefly in nineteen thirty five thirty six at comeback from panama isn't intended not fulfilled that requirement and we sort of the building in nineteen thirty nine and forty after his nineteen forties season they called him back in the army and he want to try to get a deferment any fatah and the reason they're warning back in was because they had a specific government for this engineer and let him district engineer norfolk

get him some like a hundred and forty one million now to build a coastal defenses between harrison and interests chesapeake in langley field and protect the norfolk naval base and i was his first salmon back in the day before we had ever gone and war and it before nineteen forty one and then they put him in charge of the division in the southwest was millions and millions of dollars to build airfields and pipelines that he goes to trial and i think this is the most fascinating chapter in the book the china is that it is that his one time he was a force that's taking american officer in china pushing all was there joe stillwell curdled way and nobody knew him as the man who was responsible for running the base of kunming china receiving all the supplies being flown over the hump and redistributing to american chinese forces in the tournaments in his career and it's really just mistake and coincidentally

you how what are the odds that the tools for the generals to have officers would be from the same county in texas and canada by alun and pushing out those like love it just thumbing through the book looking at the collection of photographs that really then huge events and others love that i've got the budget reading about this great leading left a legacy but also fighting in there pictures with his own public you know his own of innovation have been failed i guess to go back next day it looks is abusing still photographs to to design these families were the forerunners

of a lot of failed videotape by four for coaching part is photograph the first doctors think many pictures that good or again and then afterwards he would like notations on what had been done right directly involved in an arab a word players were out a position in the need simply going to practice on monday and sean these pictures and senators what you did well here's what you need and cruel usually have a cutoff was the decision to pick a success of men the wide and babar ahmad was the person epa and when a great player for an eleven inning he did first course he picked an army runs i was on the stephanie phil hardly deserve the chance to be a coach at harvard and landed it just a more being circumstances where they had gone from the ticketing system back to something that was while it was eleven yes and that wide worries about what sort of picture himself as a as a bubbly and he modeled himself completely ignored and he loved me

and he did great greek yogurt father neely has been our guest this program was produced in studios of wbez and television in nashville tennessee