Homecoming Traditions
October 15, 2008
One of the other major differences between those olden times and now is that we now have night games. One of the inspirations was a legendary game between the Crimson Tide and the Vols played up in Knoxville.
There was a major screwup in the scheduling. Daylight Savings Time had just been invented, but the folks at UT were a bit confused and when they set the clocks they fell forward rather than spring back, so the clocks were off by two full hours. Thus an afternoon where it would normally get dark around 5 became an afternoon where it got dark around 3. Given that the game kicked off at 1 under the faulty clock, this created a problem as the 4th quarter began right around 3, just as the sun was setting.
When the 4th quarter started, 'Bama had a narrow 21-17 over the Volunteers, but General Bob Neyland's troops still held out hope.
The game couldn't be continued in the darkness, but someone came up with an idea, and everyone drove their Model A's down to the sideline and turned on their headlights to illuminate the field and the game resumed.
The Vols were marching toward the end zone for a game-winning TD as the clock was running down and the end zone was still a little dark. A young local boy named John raced quickly to his Dad's car just as UT halfback Jim Don Wilson had broken free at the Alabama 15. John flicked on his father's headlights. Unfortunately, bright headlights had just been invented and young John didn't know how to switch them off. The lights blinded Wilson, who dropped the ball. Alabama recovered the fumble, ran out the clock, and won.
In response to the incident, President Theodore Delano Roosevelt decided it was time to bring electricity to the South, and invented the Tennessee Volunteer Authority, also known as the TVA, so those moonshinin' Vol fans would have the same fancy electricity as those rich folks in NYC.
As for young John, he felt really badly about his misdeed and promised to make it up to the Volunteers. He went on to be the first in a long line of Tennessee Heisman Trophy runner-ups. Yes, young John grew up to be star athlete and hero (and customer) to bootleggers everywhere, Johnny Majors. And now you know the rest of the story.