The College World Series will conclude with a best-of-three national championship series, Saturday-Monday, between Tennessee and Texas A&M.
Both schools have a connection with College Football Hall of Fame head coach Robert Neyland.
Neyland played football and baseball at Texas A&M for head coach Charley Moran in both sports. Moran, a Nashville, Tennessee native, played football for the Vols in 1897.
While at Texas A&M, Neyland had a desire to go to Army in West Point, New York. He would play football and baseball, while also competing in boxing at Army.
Neyland launched his football coaching career in 1919 as an assistant at Army before becoming head coach at Tennessee in 1926, one year after serving as an assistant with the Vols.
Moran played a role in Neyland being hired at Tennessee.
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The College World Series Finals between Tennessee and Texas A&M has allowed for Blake Neyland, grandson of General Neyland, to revisit his grandfather’s ties with both schools.
Blake Neyland revisited the book ‘Neyland: The Gridiron General’ ahead of the national championship series. He discussed the unique series with Vols Wire.
“Him playing baseball at Texas A&M, and now Tennessee playing them in the College World Series, is just too rich,” Neyland told Vols Wire. “He always loved and appreciated Charley Moran, it seemed. When he was accepted into West Point, Moran tried to talk him out of it. His dad also tried to talk him out of it, and tried to talk him into going to Texas being a lawyer and a family lawyer business. Yet at 18, he had the wherewithal to say no to both of them. He had his mindset on West Point. Perhaps the only coach, that I am aware of, that had that extensive of a military career and as a college football coach is remarkable.
“What really struck me was kind of a divine intervention. The General had no connection to the University of Tennessee, per se, but for whatever reason Tennessee went looking for a football coach and heard about Robert Neyland, a captain from West Point. Tennessee pursued him, and then Charley Moran, at the time was at Bucknell, he vouched for him and told Tennessee he would be a good choice. It is just amazing how that Texas A&M connection led him to Tennessee.”
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