Gus Manning — historian, storyteller and friend
Charles “Gus” Manning was born July 8, 1923. The reigning patriarch of Tennessee athletics passed away Monday morning at the age of 99.
Manning was a treasure. A walking, talking, full-of-life living history project for all things Tennessee.
From his start as a do-everything for General Robert Neyland, to handling basically every role besides coach in the athletic department for 50 years, Manning saw it all, remembered it all and could paint the picture of it all better than anyone. It’s why Peyton Manning befriended Gus, when he was a student playing for the Vols because the younger Manning loved hearing stories of life in the SEC. Peyton, through a donation, had Gate 16 at Neyland Stadium renamed the Gus Manning Gate in 2015.
Gus Manning wasn’t just kind to the superstars, he was always kind to me and he was kind to my wife. My wife used to come to basketball games that I was working and Manning, who had a front-row seat in the student section, would have her a seat.
The kind Manning was quick witted and often blunt. He would scrap with anyone to defend his Vols and didn’t hide his feelings about much of anything. While Manning told legendary stories, stories of Manning himself were legendary through the years. There was an infamous welcome to non-Vol visitors at the Rendezvous among many, many others.
I remember sitting on the back of a bus in Washington, DC in August 1999 as the Vols toured the Jefferson Memorial in their trip to meet President Clinton.
Manning bluntly turned to me and said, “Hey boy, you remember them scrimmages back last August? I thought we were going to be real s*%&^y. How did we get to the White House?”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Manning worked hard and played hard. He created plenty of laughs and smiles. But anyone who worked for him knew the work had to be done right or there would be no smiles because Mr. Manning knew what “good looked like” and more than anything, he wanted his Vols to be great at everything. It was his singular goal in every job he managed on the hill.
“He used to tell me about all of them,” Rick Barnes said of Manning. “From picking cheerleaders to doing everything. Tom (Satkowiak) has a great photo in his office where he looks like he’s holding everything in a brief case as he’s celebrating a big football win. Again, at the time, people tell me back in the day when everything was really just kind of getting started, he wore every hat that you could wear.
“He’s a person that every time you’re around him, he had something that he could share with you. Loved telling stories. Back on his wall back there, he’s got photos up of Bear Bryant, Adolf Rupp. You go through the line from the ‘50s on. He’s got all those legendary coaches and people that he worked with. I think he had up most of the coaches here. He did do that. He loved this place and this University loved him.
“I was fortunate to get to know Gus when he first got here and he really embraced me, took me in. I actually just walked back there because every time I’ve had people come on campus, one of the things I would do when I came into Thompson-Boling Arena was go in his office and let people see how time has kind of stood still. I remember, I think it was February 8, 2017, was the last game that he saw us play here. I can remember going in and often times he had a big old magnifying glass that he’d be reading the stat sheets. And the last time was when we played Ole Miss here back in February 2017. He was obviously an icon, a legend. We lost a true legend. He loved Tennessee. And he loved this place. I did have a chance to go to one of his parties out there. But we truly lost a great legend today.”
Legend is the right word to describe Manning, who watched the 1939 Vols not give up a point. The former Marine saw every iconic moment in Tennessee football as he attended 608 straight Vol football games from 1951-2003. He saw every home game for nearly 75 years.
For much of that time he tooled around campus and town for that matter in a Cushman enclosed golf utility cart. On Sunday nights, he would park it on the curb at the WIVK studios to come in and record his week’s worth of Gus Manning reports. That cart remains parked at Thompson-Boling Arena and hasn’t moved since Manning parked it for the last time.
“There’s a monument out back that has been here since he left and that’s his little golf cart,” Barnes said. “It’s still sitting out there. It’s got some flat tires. People tell me back in the day they would see him running up and down Kingston Pike with it, street ready. But it hasn’t moved since the day he left. It’s there.
“It shows you how much people respected him, because I’m sure he kept the key with full intentions that he’s planning on coming back, driving that cart. You leave today, you walk out there, it really hasn’t moved since his last day here.”
A storyteller, a history teacher, a Vol legend, and a friend — Gus Manning.
