With his voice wavering, Jackie Sherrill recalled his final conversation with Johnny Majors.
"It was just Sunday night when he called me back after I had called him," Sherrill said Wednesday. "The last things we said were we need to see each other. We need to get together. Either he was going to fly to Texas or I was going to fly to Tennessee because it was time to see each other."
Two college football coaching legends -- bound by southern ties, playing careers at big-time programs (Majors was a Heisman Trophy runner-up at Tennessee; Sherrill played at Alabama), incredibly successful head coaching stints at Pitt and a friendship that began in 1967 as assistants at Arkansas -- still making plans. Sherrill chuckled when thinking about the stories his "father figure" might tell him.
He chuckled about the stories Majors already told him.
Majors, the man responsible for resurrecting Pitt football in the 1970s, creating the school's script logo and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, died Wednesday morning at his Knoxville, Tenn., home. He was 85.
"He was one of the best PR guys in our coaching business," Sherrill said. "He always had time to talk to everybody. He never forgot anybody, and he knew everybody."
Majors certainly knew how to build Pitt into a winner.
He arrived at Pitt in 1973 after a four-year stint at Iowa State, where he went 24-30-1. The Panthers went 1-10 in 1972, but Majors, with the help of freshman Tony Dorsett and a talented cast of players from Western Pennsylvania and beyond, changed the team's fortunes.
John Majors, 1935-2020.
He led us to our greatest glory and changed Pitt forever.
Thank you, Coach. Rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/bPs4OEoQXW
— Pitt Football (@Pitt_FB) June 3, 2020
Rest in Heaven, Coach. Words could never express what you meant to me. Catch you on the other side.@Pitt_FB @PittTweet pic.twitter.com/4QgM7mA2u2
— Tony Dorsett (@Tony_Dorsett) June 3, 2020
Thanks, Coach Majors ??https://t.co/W07gUlpFEa pic.twitter.com/LqULRFbcJw
— Pitt Football (@Pitt_FB) June 3, 2020
