Football LIFE D WORDS BY ALEX HAVARDANSKY & PHOTOS COURTESY OF AUDIE MURPHY / AMERICAN COTTON MUSEUM
The Greenville man who bled
ORANGE
From small-town East Texas to namesake of 100,000-seat college football stadium
If someone heard the name Neyland today and was asked about its significance, one might think of Neyland Stadium, the massive home of the Tennessee Volunteers football team, which can house more than 100,000 people at maximum capacity.
That stadium was named after Robert Neyland, an immortalized head coach for the Volunteers who holds the record for most wins in school history with 173. However, Neyland’ s life resume reaches far beyond the football field.
Neyland’ s excellence as an athlete and coach was paralleled by his life of service in the U. S. military as a brigadier general. However, perhaps a lesser known fact about Neyland is that before having a stadium named after him or serving in both world wars, the man grew up in Greenville.
Today, one of the main locations in Greenville where Neyland’ s memory is preserved is the Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum. Several plaques can be found around the museum discussing some of his various life accomplishments. However those like museum director Susan Lanning, believe Neyland deserves more recognition as one of Greenville’ s most accomplished men.
“ He showed how everyday people can do extraordinary things,” Lanning said.“ His name was and probably is still well-known in the football community but a lot of people don’ t realize that he was from here.”
In order to try and increase recognition of Neyland around the county, an ongoing effort is taking place between individuals such as Greg Sims of the Greenville Board of Economic Development, Lanning of the Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum and the Hunt County Historic Commission to push for a historical marker at Kavanaugh Methodist Church, which is near where Neyland was born.
As part of the application, Sims and several others from the historic commission researched and put together a 20-page document detailing the life and accomplishments of Neyland to show-
8 GREENVILLE LIFE