John Chavis makes it sound like about 30 of the most grueling minutes of his coaching career.
Al Wilson makes it sound like about 30 seconds of fun. That’s the difference between the delivery side and the receiving side of a prank — in this case, a prank that had Chavis reeling in silence while his boss started making frantic phone calls, a prank that right now would mean Tennessee football fans harkening back to the 1950s instead of the 1990s to recall their last national championship.
And it’s the difference in perspective between a high school star who was comfortable enough with a particular coach — and in his own skin — to mess with him, and a coach who knew this was not just another high school star. This was the critical recruitment of 1995. This was Phillip Fulmer’s Tennessee against Lou Holtz’s Notre Dame. This was the No. 1 player in the state, a Jackson Central-Merry defensive back Chavis envisioned as a speedy linebacker in his defense. And this was more.
“Al was just different,” Fulmer said.
“An incredible person,” Chavis said.
“On any level of sports in my life, he’s the best leader I’ve ever played with,” said Deon Grant, a teammate of Wilson’s on the 1998 national championship Vols and a 12-year pro who helped the Giants win Super Bowl XLVI. “From Pop Warner all the way to the Super Bowl. Best leader, period.”
This started around 9 years old, Wilson estimated, because he hated losing so much in whatever sport he was playing that he discovered the need to implore others for help. He didn’t have it all figured out, he said, until he was a pro. He knew what mattered and what didn’t before a lot of teenagers who are celebrated for their sporting success.
Before he went in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft and made five Pro Bowls in an eight-year career with the Denver Broncos, Wilson led the 1998 Vols to a 13-0 finish and BCS title game win over Florida State. And famously called out Tennessee seniors Peyton Manning and Leonard Little at halftime of an eventual comeback win over Auburn in the 1997 SEC Championship Game. And established No. 27 as one of the great jersey numbers in Tennessee football history, worn by a two-time All-American and College Football Hall of Famer with a mean streak. And learned how to watch film and lift and recover and play winning ball on Saturdays from guys like Scott Gallion, Jesse Sanders, George Kidd, Tyrone Hines, Nick Jester and Craig King. And realized he’d be joining their room, the linebacker room, after a few practices of getting sucked up on play-action passes and watching the ball fly over his head.
And did a heck of a job of dodging reporters who wanted to know how those official visits were going.
“He didn’t talk to media,” said Jimmy Hyams, a sports-talk host on WNML-FM in Knoxville who was then the UT beat writer for the Knoxville News-Sentinel. “I was always trying to call a coach or someone around there to help me out.”
Recruiting coverage was minimal then. Rivals.com was four years from its debut. The internet counted about 5 million American users in 1994 according to Pew Research Center. That same year, Tom Lemming rated Tennessee’s class No. 1 in the nation on the strength of Manning’s signature. That fall, Brent Hubbs caught wind that the Vols were hot after a running back/safety from Jackson whom Notre Dame wanted as a ball-toting fullback.
Hubbs was working with Mike Keith, now the Tennessee Titans play-by-play announcer, at the time on a sports talk show on WIVK-AM in Knoxville. They detected the surging interest in recruiting coverage. Late each fall, as football season transitioned to recruiting season, Hubbs would find out what he could about the high school seniors Tennessee was recruiting and start working the phones. Juniors were way too far from the recruiting process to consider. Most of the prospects Hubbs called were willing to talk, and he was aggressive — competing primarily with Hyams for information.
Wilson gave them the same amount of it.
“I didn’t speak to Al Wilson on the phone once during his recruiting process,” said Hubbs, who started the Rivals site to cover UT recruiting, Volquest.com, in 2000. “He and I still joke about it now. Every time I called, his mom or grandmother answered and it was always, ‘Al is at the library.’ He was never home. Like, never.”
Or at least he wasn’t talking.
“That’s pretty much the way I’ve been my whole life,” said Wilson, 45, who now lives in Atlanta. “A blue-collar guy, let me go out and get my job done and let that speak for itself. I just wanted to stay under the radar. And I really didn’t want to put any extra pressure on myself. I wanted to see if I could compete at that level. At that age, you’re not sure. We didn’t have opportunities to prepare like the kids do now, with 7-on-7 and linebacker pass-rushing camps and all that. You didn’t know.”
Fulmer and Chavis had a good idea. And even in a 1995 class loaded with crucial targets (a class Lemming would ultimately rank No. 8 nationally, which in those days for the UT program counted as a so-so outcome), Fulmer chose on the first day of the live period to prioritize Wilson. He and Chavis picked Wilson up at home, brought him to school and hung out there all day.
“Al had no idea I was coming — he was shocked,” Fulmer said.
“It meant everything to me,” Wilson said. “Coach Fulmer, at that time, to a high school kid? Larger than life.”
Tennessee was in a position of strength, though Fulmer had to promise through gritted teeth that Wilson would get a chance to play safety. Just as David Cutcliffe was the secret weapon in the Vols’ recruitment of Manning, Chavis was the key for Wilson. The former UT nose tackle was in his last season in 1994 as the Vols’ defensive line/linebackers coach, soon to be promoted to defensive coordinator to replace Larry Marmie.
It was fitting for Tennessee that Wilson’s first season on campus was also Chavis’ first in charge of the defense. Helpful, too.
“If you know Chief, he just has that personality,” Wilson said of Chavis. “I don’t know what it was about Chief, but he just has that thing, that thing a young man can really relate to and buy into because he shows you he has that passion. When Chief’s your buddy, he loves you to death. And to have a man show that kind of love at that time was something I needed in my life.”
The Vols knew they were in great shape with Wilson after he dropped Illinois from his final list of contenders and focused on Tennessee and Notre Dame. What they didn’t know: Visits to both of those campuses had done much to form a decision that Wilson’s relationship with Chavis was merely reinforcing. The first was to Knoxville for the 1994 Tennessee-Florida game. The No. 1 Gators would win 31-0 — one of five straight for Steve Spurrier’s Gators until Wilson’s 1998 Vols ended the streak — but the thing that struck Wilson was the punishment Kevin Carter and the Gators defense was putting on Tennessee’s running backs.
“Eye-opening,” Wilson said. “I left there saying, ‘I think I’d rather play defense in college.’”
Still, running the ball carried intrigue, and Notre Dame was just a couple of years removed from Jerome Bettis’ big-back reign of terror. The Irish were pushing Wilson hard on the idea of being that kind of player in the Notre Dame offense, a fullback who got plenty of carries and chances to catch the ball. Quarterbacks coach Tom Clements, now coaching the same position for the Green Bay Packers, was Wilson’s primary recruiter. He made a convincing case when Wilson visited. He couldn’t stop the snow from falling.
“Coach Holtz was a very good salesman. He sold my mother very well, but I remember that very vividly,” Wilson said of the snow. “That made it kind of easy for me. I’m just not a cold-weather guy.”
Wilson was ready to make things official, shortly before signing day. He called Chavis.
Chavis: “He said, ‘Coach, I’m about to make my announcement,’ and I said, ‘OK Al, do you want me to come over?’ He said, ‘Coach that’s up to you.’ That’s the way he left it. I was at the school the next day. I felt like I had to talk to him.”
Wilson: “So Chief showed up, and I just kind of avoided him all day.”
Chavis: “Every time he saw me, he’d turn and go the other way. I’m thinking, ‘Man, this ain’t good.’”
Fulmer: “So now most of the day is gone and John is just sweating it out. I’m back in Knoxville and get word that Al may be wavering and leaning toward Notre Dame. And of course, I start making every call I can think to make.”
Chavis: “Finally at the end of the day I catch up with Al and say, ‘Look Al, we need to talk.’ He says, ‘Talk about what?’ I say, ‘Talk about this.’ So we find a room where we can talk. He points to a chair and says, ‘You sit right there, Coach.’ And then he sits down. He’s sitting behind me.”
Wilson: “I’m talking a little nervous and I say, ‘Coach, you know, I think I’ve made my decision and I’m going to Notre Dame.’ And he just gets real quiet for a minute.”
Chavis: “I just went silent. How do I answer that? What do I say? Here’s the No. 1 player in the state of Tennessee and we know how special he is, and I’m just thinking, ‘What’s the best way to answer this?’ When guys pick other schools, they usually don’t tell you to your face. I don’t know how long this went on. But it wasn’t just a minute or two minutes. Finally, I say, ‘If that’s what you’re set on doing, I’m not going to twist your arm, but I’d hate to see you leave the state and we think you’d fit our program well.’”
Wilson: “I said, ‘I hear you, but I’m going to Notre Dame.’”
Chavis: “He’s still sitting there behind me, and then all the sudden I hear him chuckling. Then I hear him fall out of his chair and he starts saying, ‘I got you! I got you!’ I thought about running and tackling him. But boy, was I relieved in that moment. And after a certain period of time, I was actually honored that he did that. I think it spoke to a special kind of relationship that we already had.”
It delivered Tennessee’s lone national championship since 1951. Tee Martin, Peerless Price, Raynoch Thompson, Chad Clifton, Cosey Coleman, Jeff Hall and others starred in that 1998 season. As with any championship football team, it would be easy to forget many of the contributions that added up to success. With this team, it would be impossible to find someone who wouldn’t start the list with Wilson and his 77 tackles, school-record three forced fumbles in the win over Florida, total command of Chavis’ 4-3 defense and leadership style that ranged from in your face on the field in front of everyone to one-on-one at home with an in-depth conversation.
“When I look at all the success we had in the ’90s, of course, you talk about Peyton,” Fulmer said. “But you have to talk about Al in that same breath.”
This recruitment was that important. And that long-lasting. Wilson is an entrepreneur and investor now, a father whose son, Carrington, beat brain cancer. Chavis returned to coaching at age 65 this year, serving as defensive coordinator of the USFL’s Birmingham Stallions. Fulmer’s return to UT as athletic director was short-lived, done in three years when his football coaching hire, Jeremy Pruitt, was fired for cause amid an investigation that recently resulted in NCAA allegations of 18 Level I violations.
Through all that and more in nearly 30 years, they have stayed in close contact, Chavis saying of Wilson: “If I pick up the phone and call him, he’s taking my call, and if he calls me, I’m taking his. There’s not a player I coached that I wouldn’t, but I’m just closer with Al than most.”
“Al and I have helped each other through some things,” Fulmer said. “I wouldn’t get into specifics because it could affect somebody else or whatever. But what I can tell you is he’s a wonderful friend. What started off as a football thing has turned into something a lot more personal than that.”
(Top photo courtesy of Tennessee Athletics)
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