The tragedy and triumph of Tennessee’s 1965 season

Kenny Stabler uncorked a pass towards the sideline. The Alabama quarterback, trying to save time on a game-deciding drive against Tennessee, had just unknowingly ran out of it as his pass sailed harmlessly out of bounds at Legion Field on Oct. 16, 1965. 

Stabler thought he had three more downs to spare from the Vols’ 4-yard line. Instead, his error left the scoreboard showing 7-7 as time expired. It felt more like a triumph for Tennessee. 

The Vols were less than two years into Doug Dickey’s rebuilding project to bring the program back to national prominence and had just taken their biggest step in getting back there in a draw with Bear Bryant’s defending national champion Crimson Tide in Birmingham. 

“I don’t say you’ve got a moral victory,” Dickey said, surrounded by newsmen and scribes inside of a joyous Tennessee locker room. “I’m happy we didn’t lose.”

Two days later, at a railroad intersection in West Knoxville, it became an afterthought. 

That Monday, three of Dickey’s assistant coaches were on their way to campus when a train collided with the car they were in in the early-morning fog just before 7 a.m.

Defensive backs coach Bill Majors, 26 and end coach Bob Jones, 30 were killed. Offensive line coach Charlie Rash, 28 died a few days later. They left behind five sons— all 5-years-old or younger—wives, and hopes and dreams of promising coaching careers.

The Vols’ dream season, fresh off of its greatest chapter, had turned the page to a nightmarish one.

“It was traumatic for everybody,” Dickey told Neyland Press Corps. “It took awhile to get over it. We decided to keep playing. I thought the players came together.”

This is the story of that team clawing its way out of its darkest moment, a confident young quarterback that brought brighter days and how a memorable afternoon in Memphis in 1965 set the stage for Tennessee’s resurgence. 

A team meeting and a somber victory

The watch that laid in the grass feet away from the twisted metal on the railroad track read 6:53 a.m.

It had “1957 Sugar Bowl” inscribed on it—the game that Baylor quarterback Bob Jones led the Bears to a 13-7 win over unbeaten Tennessee at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans eight years earlier.

Jones’ counterpart in that game was Johnny Majors, the Vols’ do-it-all All-American tailback who was the catalyst to an SEC Championship and very nearly a perfect season. Jones said “fate” led him to Tennessee, where he was hired by Doug Dickey in August 1965.

Perhaps it was fate, too that placed him in Charlie Rash’s Volkswagen that morning along with Johnny Majors’ brother, Bill–a Vols football hero himself that was in on the stop of Billy Cannon at the goal line the November afternoon that Tennessee knocked No. 1 LSU off of its pedestal at Shields-Watkins Field in 1959.

Both chose coaching after their playing careers and both were contributing to the Vols’ resurgence in ‘65. Jones’ watch and a charred, brown notebook that read “University of Tennessee” in gold lettering in the ditch were left as reminders of what might have been.

“You don’t just play for football coaches,” a dejected Hal Wantland, tailback and team captain, told reporters later that day. “You learn to love them and respect them. I don’t know what to say. I’m too shocked. It’s hard to believe.”

As Rash fought for his life in a Knoxville hospital, a decision loomed over whether or not Tennessee’s game against Houston at Neyland Stadium would be played the following Saturday. Vols players met on campus. 

For them, not playing Houston was out of the question.

“(The coaches) told us that we could cancel the game,” then-backup quarterback Dewey Warren recalled. “We as players said, ‘No. Let’s play it. They’d want us to go ahead and play.’ We went ahead and played. We dedicated the rest of that season to them.”

Even if the team did second-guess it, the wives of Majors, Rash and Jones wouldn’t let them. They sent telegrams later in the week, encouraging them to play. 

Warren doesn’t remember Tennessee practicing much that week, though. Dickey spent much of his time at Rash’s bedside until he passed away that Thursday. What time he did have to think about football was spent trying to fill the sudden void on his coaching staff. 

Assistant athletic director Jim McDonald, who Dickey replaced after coaching one season at Tennessee in 1963, joined the staff as the freshmen coach. Jack Kile was called off the recruiting trail to take over the scout team. George Cafego was moved from the scout team to help with the defense. Ray Trail, a former Arkansas player, accepted Dickey’s invitation to coach the offensive line. 

The Vols took the field against Houston in front of a somber crowd. A black cross was taped over the orange T on their helmets. They understandably got off to a slow start, but won 17-8 behind Doug Archibald’s interception return for a touchdown and a 6-yard scoring run from Walter Chadwick. 

A much-needed bye week followed, then another signature win of the Dickey era. The Vols upset No. 7 Georgia Tech, 21-7 in Knoxville as Charlie Fulton rushed for 133 yards and passed for 101 more. 

Bob Petrella intercepted sensational Yellow Jackets’ quarterback Kim King in the end zone to snuff out a critical Georgia Tech drive. 

Tennessee was 4-0-2, drawing bowl suitors for the first time in eight years and climbing to No. 8 in the polls that week ahead of a clash with Ole Miss in Memphis. Huntland hushed the boisterous locker room after the game to remind his teammates of their 30-0 loss to the Rebels a year earlier.

“We whipped Tech last year and I’ll never forget what happened the next week,” Huntland said. “I hope that we’ve learned that you face a new test each Saturday.”

Enter the Swamp Rat

Dewey Warren was missing something.

Moments after starting quarterback Charlie Fulton had injured his ankle right in front of the Tennessee bench on the first play against Ole Miss at Memphis Memorial Stadium, Warren rushed out onto the field. 

The redshirt sophomore quarterback from Savannah, Georgia who missed the 1964 season with an injury, was about to take his most significant snaps in a game that would either keep the Vols’ hopes of their first SEC title in a decade alive or kill them. Then Doug Dickey had to burn a timeout.

As Warren entered the huddle on the field in front of a nationally televised audience on NBC, his helmet sat on the bench. 

“One of the guys in the huddle said ‘We know you’re crazy, but are you going to wear your helmet today?’” Warren said. “I forgot my helmet. We had to call timeout, and that didn’t go over too good…I caught a lot of static for it.”

Warren couldn’t run like Fulton. Marvin West of the Knoxville News-Sentinel wrote that Warren’s 40-yard dash had to be timed with an hour glass. But what Warren lacked in speed he made up for in confidence.

The “Swamp Rat,” as he was known from his high school playing days, could also pass the ball unlike any Tennessee quarterback before him. He was about to revolutionize the Vols’ offense. 

Warren couldn’t remember exactly how many plays he had run in a live game in his career to that point, but he looked like a seasoned veteran leading the charge on a first quarter touchdown drive to take an early lead. 

Ole Miss answered to draw even, but a Bob Petrella interception in the third quarter set up another scoring march led by Warren and capped by a Walter Chadwick touchdown punch-in from the goal line. 

Tennessee led, 13-7 when David Leake’s extra point attempt missed wide left. The miss proved costly as the Rebels drove 72 yards in 17 plays in the fourth to score on a Mike Dennis run. The extra point put Ole Miss ahead for good in a 14-13 win that derailed the Vols’ hopes of an SEC crown and a potential Sugar Bowl berth.

What Tennessee did have hope for was its new young quarterback. Under Warren’s direction, the Vols’ offense totaled 267 yards and played well enough to win despite losing Fulton one play in.

It was unclear if Fulton would return with games against Kentucky, Vanderbilt and the regular season finale against UCLA on the very same turf Tennessee had just lost on in Memphis left on the schedule. But Warren gave the Vols reason to believe they could win out. 

“I was always told, ‘always be ready. When you’re called, be ready to go and don’t give it back,’” Warren said. “I was ready to go. I was a passer. I wasn’t a runner. I was blessed to have great linemen and great receivers. Great running backs that could catch out of the backfield. 

“We started throwing the ball, and we were pretty good. From then on, we strung it all out.”

The Rose-Bonnett Bowl

Tennessee’s grip was slipping. 

Less than a minute after Gary Beban rambled 36 yards for a touchdown to pull No. 5 UCLA within one score in the third quarter, a hit dislodged the ball from Walter Chadwick’s arms and left it dangling in the air. 

Tim McAteer ran under it—and didn’t stop running. His 35 yard return in front of a stunned Memphis Memorial Stadium crowd turned the Vols’ two-score lead into a 21-20 deficit. 

The setting was a familiar one for No. 7 Tennessee. A little more than a month earlier the Vols gave up a fourth quarter lead in a one-point loss to Ole Miss at Memphis’ brand new football venue, which had opened in September. 

Past Tennessee teams had played in Memphis, but the 45,000-seat arena offered a new incentive for the program to play more games in the city to solidify its footprint in West Tennessee. 

A top 10 bout between the Rose Bowl-bound Bruins and the Vols, who were on their way to face Tulsa in the Bluebonnett Bowl after beating Kentucky and Vanderbilt, drew plenty of interest and a full house. Sports writers dubbed the meeting of the west coast and southern football powers the “Rose-Bonnett Bowl.”

But not everyone was sold on the idea that it was a neutral site game.

“Playing Tennessee in Memphis is like playing Notre Dame in Rome,” Michigan State head coach Duffy Daughtery, there to scout UCLA ahead of their Rose Bowl meeting on New Year’s Day, quipped to reporters. 

If the partisan crowd was too much for the Bruins, it wasn’t showing in the third quarter. 

Tennessee led 20-7 at halftime after Dewey Warren completed nine passes for 128 yards, including a 26-yard touchdown strike to Hal Wantland. Then Warren pulled a groin muscle, forcing Doug Dickey to turn to Charlie Fulton, who was back from injury himself.

 Suddenly, the Vols couldn’t move the ball and their defense couldn’t stop Beban. 

“Gary Beban, man, he was running,” Warren said. “He was a great runner. He ran everywhere. He ran all over us…We started throwing it. We did whatever we had to do.”

UCLA upped its lead to 28-20 before Warren went back in. He brought Tennessee back to life with a pass to Johnny Mills, who pitched it to a streaking Walter Chadwick. The play set the Vols up at the 7 and they scored one play later to trim the UCLA edge to 28-26. 

Tennessee’s defense finally made a stand, and David Leake gave the Vols the lead again at 29-28 with a 20-yard field goal at the end of a 78-yard drive. Beban had more heroics left in him, though. 

He drove UCLA to the 4, then kept the ball on an option and danced into the end zone for a 34-29 lead, leaving Warren and Tennessee with just 3:20 left.

A 16-yard pass from Warren to Mills and a pass interference call helped the Vols move to the UCLA 25. Chadwick gathered in a pass, sidestepped a defender and raced down the sideline before being dragged down at the 5 with two minutes left. 

Tennessee reached the 1 in the next three plays, but as the clock ticked inside of a minute, the Vols were down to their last chance on fourth-and-goal. The final play call was supposed to go to Wantland, but as Warren rolled to his left, he saw him covered up. 

Warren, feeling the pain of the pulled muscle in his groin, tucked the ball and started for the end zone. He lunged towards the goal line as one Bruins’ defender closed in, then looked up at the official with both hands raised. 

“I just took off to the corner just as hard as I could go,” Warren said. “I don’t know how many people have asked me over the years, ‘Did you really score?’ And I say, ‘Well, the official raised both hands. So I scored.’”

Battered and bruised, Warren landed the final blow in Tennessee’s 37-34 victory that sent the Memphis Memorial Stadium crowd into a frenzy and UCLA head coach Tommy Prothro into a fit of rage. 

For Prothro, who was a Memphis native, it was a less-than-welcoming homecoming. He thought the officiating crew that included three SEC officials and two others from the west coast helped the Vols on their final drive. 

His players took out their frustrations on Bob Petrella after he snagged Beban’s final pass and took off for the opposite end of the field as time expired. He was knocked out of bounds on the UCLA sideline where players mobbed the Tennessee defensive back until his nose was pouring blood. 

A brawl nearly broke out as Vols players came rushing to the other side of the field. But anger gave way to jubilation. A Tennessee team that had tied Alabama, rallied after the deaths of three coaches, beat Georgia Tech and then saw its SEC championship aspirations dashed against Ole Miss had just pulled off a comeback for the ages. 

It also laid the groundwork for the program’s first SEC title in 11 years two years later in 1967—Warren’s senior season. 

“The thing about the guys I played with, it didn’t matter who scored, who made the tackle, who made the interception, whatever,” Warren said. “As long as we were ahead at the end of the game. Most of the time, we were. That season, really I think brought that whole team together. 

“It brought everything together and put everything in perspective. Here we are, we lost three great coaches. And we had to move on. We had to keep going.”