Tennessee basketball’s history covers over a century, and Vols Wire will explore the history of the program by examining each head coaches’ tenure at UT.
In 1935, when General Robert Neyland left Knoxville for active military duty, end coach W.H. Britton took over as the interim for the football program. Britton was also the head basketball coach at the time, and had to leave his post on the hardwood to fill in for the General. It was commonplace in those days for coaches to lead multiple sports, but Tennessee made a hire that gave the Vols their first ever full-time basketball coach in Blair Gullion.
Gullion was a former Purdue player and had just spent eight years as the head coach of Earlham College. Under a well-respected basketball mind, Tennessee enjoyed its first years of national prominence in the mid-30s. Gullion’s first season was a 15-6 campaign that saw Tennessee’s first ever win over Adolph Rupp as the head coach at Kentucky. The Vols went on to host the SEC Tournament at Alumni Memorial Gym, and won all three of its games over Auburn, Kentucky and Alabama to secure the school’s first SEC championship in any sport. Tennessee was finally on the forefront of the national college basketball scene.
On the court, UT was led by stars such as Harry Anderson, Floyd Marshall and Gene Johnson. Anderson would go on to become the school’s first All-American in 1936.
Records of 17-5 and 15-8 followed in Gullion’s next two seasons, but he quickly departed Knoxville after just three years to become the head coach at Cornell. The man who ushered in the first real success in the program’s history was gone almost as quick as he arrived.