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Tennessee Vols: Five previous events that cancelled or postponed athletics

By Caleb Calhoun

01 Dec 2001: Rex Grossman #8 of Florida throws the ball during the Florida-Tennessee game at Florida Field at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Tennessee won 34-32. DIGITAL IMAGE Mandatory Credit: Andy Lyons/ALLSPORT
01 Dec 2001: Rex Grossman #8 of Florida throws the ball during the Florida-Tennessee game at Florida Field at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Tennessee won 34-32. DIGITAL IMAGE Mandatory Credit: Andy Lyons/ALLSPORT /
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Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images /

2. 1917-1919

World War I

Varsity sports seasons cancelled

World War II cancelled just one season. However, World War I cancelled the major varsity sports for the Tennessee Vols in back to back seasons. Men’s basketball at the time would share a coach with the football program, and John Bender was leading both, succeeding Zora Clevenger, who had taken the football program to new heights in the early 1910s.

In 1914, UT won its first championship, going 9-0 and capturing the SIAA title. That was their second undefeated season. Bender maintained the momentum, though, as he took the program to an 8-0-1 record in 1916 and helped them capture another SIAA title. The program was rolling, and then World War I cancelled varsity sports for two years.

During those two years, the football program played as an unofficial independent team and went 0-3 and then 3-2. But none of those games counted. Bender returned in 1919 to go 3-3-3, and then he went 7-2 in 1920. M.B. Banks then took over for four years, and that is what set the stage for Robert Neyland’s arrival in 1926 and the program’s eventual ascendance.

Bender also coached the baseball program, which didn’t field a team in 1918 or 1919, and his basketball program did not have varsity play in 1917-18 or 1918-19. They went 3-9-1 and 2-6 during those two seasons under R.H. Fitzgerald before Bender returned. So World War I knocked out two seasons on Rocky Top, but there was unofficial play in men’s basketball and football.

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