There are so many ways to go with this story on Johnny Majors. And a lot of them would end up going in a mean direction. Hell, the whole article is crying for subtext and reading between the lines. Part of that has to do with how I think of Majors.
The coming football season will mark 10 years since Majors coached his final game, 30 since he coached Pitt to a national championship and 50 since he finished second in the Heisman Trophy race and led Tennessee to a national title.
Both championships will be celebrated in style. Majors is helping organize the reunion for his Pitt team, which will be commemorated at the season opener against Virginia. A few weeks later, he’ll enjoy a bash with his boys from Tennessee.
Just don’t mistake him for a man living in the past. He refused to let retirement erode his spirit, although he admits it initially crushed him.
How could it not have? He’d practically become addicted to the structured, authoritative existence of a coach. Kids obeyed his instructions. Subordinates carried out his orders. Games fueled his competitive fire.
Then, one day, it stopped, like a 28-year roller-coaster ride pulling into the station. Majors knows many coaches — such as friend and former foe Joe Paterno – who are flat-out afraid to stop, and he can see why. They don’t want to wind up like Paul “Bear” Bryant, who died a few months after he retired.
“There really was an emptiness there for me,” Majors says. “I think I was on a practice field from 1943 to 1996. I was lost for about a year. I mean, I can’t remember my first spoken word or my first thought, but I certainly can’t remember when I didn’t love football. I saw a football before I could walk.”
Even after Pitt fired/resigned, Majors stayed associated with the school, but it was an uncomfortable time for Pitt fans to see him. He’d come into the stands during the first couple of seasons after his time ended. He’d shake some hands, exchange pleasantries and talk to people.
And he would also sit down in one of the many available spaces in the bleachers taking slugs from a flask as he was going. It was very painful to see, and unfortunately I did during that ’98 season (granted anyone who cared about Pitt probably needed to drink heavily to get through that season). Awkward doesn’t begin to describe it. People would quietly gesture, maybe whisper. Head shakes and sad, pitying looks his way. You would see security and ushers position themselves nearby to help him if he showed any signs of getting too wobbly.
Honestly, I wish these weren’t the things I think of with Johnny Majors. Unfortunately I was 7 in 1976 being raised in Central PA by Penn State alum, so there isn’t much I can tell you about that time regarding Pitt. I left Pittsburgh as Johnny Majors II began and so I didn’t see much of that period.
The optimist reading the story wants to believe that sort of thing is in the past and that he has found balance and happiness.
Before long, old interests awakened, and his schedule filled up. He hired one of his former Pitt secretaries to help him stay organized.
Travel is a top priority. Majors and his wife have seen “every state in the union.” They’ve been to Hawaii seven times, Scotland four times, Ireland and the Far East. Majors recently spent two weeks planning their next trip to Scotland. It’ll happen in the summer of 2007 with the families of coaching buddies Dick MacPherson, LaVell Edwards and Ted Tollner. The men will play four previous British Open venues.
“My next objectives are Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania,” Majors says.
What else? Well, he has walked the beaches of Normandy more than once, has a place on the board of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, plays tons of golf, buys more books than he could read in three lifetimes, fly-fishes in Montana every year, tags along with his wife on some of her botanical adventures (she’s president of the Garden Club of Allegheny County) and enjoyed a whale of a party at Paul Hornung’s house the night before the Kentucky Derby. (Alas, Hornung won again. He beat Majors for the 1956 Heisman and had Barbaro in the Derby).
Majors also retains office space at The Pete so he can fulfill his duty as “special assistant to the chancellor and athletic director.” He is heavily involved in charity work, most prominently in the form of John Majors Charities, which targets youths from disadvantaged families and involves them in sports and other activities. Some of those take place on Pitt’s campus.
Here’s hoping the stories of the hard drinking Majors are more things of the past, that make for simply some amusing anecdotes, and that he has can enjoy with some moderation.
