Zora Clevenger 1911-16 A football coach by trade, Zora Clevenger was one of the first coaches in school history to simultaneously hold the head coaching jobs for the basketball and football teams. In five seasons as the basketball coach, he led the Vols to a 50-14 record. The 1904 Indiana University graduate’s winning percentage of .781 still rates as the best in Tennessee history. On the gridiron, he recorded a 26-15 record in five seasons and led the Vols to the 1914 SIAA championship. The Muncie, Ind., native got his coaching start at his alma mater in 1905 with a 5-12 record. A year later he led the Hoosier cagers to a 7-9 mark. Later, Clevenger coached four seasons (1917-20) at Kansas State Agricultural College, where he posted a 54-16 record on the hardwood. Following administrative positions at the University of Missouri and Nebraska Wesleyan, Clevenger returned to Indiana where he was named the director of athletics. In 1968 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a halfback. Blair Gullion 1935-38 Considered one of the nation’s top basketball tacticians, Blair Gullion (pronounced: GULL-yin) took over the Vols before the 1935-36 season and promptly won the school’s first SEC championship in any sport. The first full-time basketball coach in school history, Gullion posted a 47-19 (.712) record in his three seasons in Knoxville. A precise tactician who had written numerous textbooks on the game, Gullion ran a tightly patterned, multiple-screening offense that caused defenses to get lost. Described by one of his star players, Biggy Marshall, as a person who “lived, dreamed, ate and slept basketball,” Gullion gave the Vols their first glimpse of national basketball prominence. Two times he led the Vols to the SEC championship game, winning it in 1936. Under his tutelage, Harry Anderson became the school’s first All-America honoree in 1936. Just weeks prior to the 1938-39 season, Gullion abruptly left for Cornell where he stayed for several years. He also coached at Washington University at St. Louis and the University of Connecticut before retiring.
John Sines 1959-62 After eight years on the bench as an assistant coach to Emmett Lowery, John Sines became the first, and still the only, assistant to be promoted to head coach at Tennessee. Like his predecessor on the UT bench, Sines was a product of Ward Lambert’s Purdue teams from the 1930s. A captain of the Boilermakers’ 1938 Big Ten championship team, Sines went on to play in the National Basketball League. A forward for the Indianapolis franchise, Sines was named to the 1940 NBL All-Star Team. His first Tennessee squad returned only Dalen Showalter from the previous year’s starting lineup but finished the season 12-11. That first season was capped off with a 65-63 win at Kentucky, the Vols’ first win in Lexington since 1939. His second season was marred by eight losses by five points or less as the Vols dropped to a 10-15 record. Sines, whose Vols were rocked by scandal following the 1961 season, resigned one year later after posting a 4-19 record in 1961-62. Although the finish of Sines’ career at UT may have been disappointing, he left the school with one of best recruiting classes in its history. A.W. Davis and Bobby Hogsett spent the 1961-62 season on a freshman team that regularly defeated the varsity in practice. Ray Mears 1962-77 A showman comparable to the legendary P.T. Barnum, Ray Mears was also one of the top college basketball coaches in his era. Mears came to Tennessee in the spring of 1962 following a successful stint at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, where he had a 114-22 record and won the 1961 NCAA college division championship. Mears took just one season to reverse Tennessee’s fortunes. Inheriting a team that won just four games the previous year, the Vols won 13 Mears’ first year and were recording 20-win seasons within three years. His 21-year career record of 399-135 (.747) ranked second in the nation among active coaches at the time of his retirement. In his 15 seasons at Tennessee, Mears recorded a 278-112 (.713) record. During his time in Knoxville, the Vols won 20 or more games seven times, finished third or better in the SEC in 13 of his 15 seasons and won three SEC championships (1967, 1972 and 1977).
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John Mauer 1938-47 After Blair Gullion departed with such short notice before the 1938-39 season, John Mauer was tabbed by Major Robert Neyland as the man to take over for the popular Gullion. Prior to coming to Tennessee, the Aurora, Ill., native proved himself as an athlete when he was named the Outstanding Athlete and Scholar in the Big Ten Conference while competing for Illinois. A college roommate of Harold “Red” Grange, Mauer was one of the first college basketball players to use the “one-hand” shot. After college, he began his coaching career at Kentucky, where he preceded Adolph Rupp, and posted a 40-14 record in three years. In the early 1930s, he moved to Miami of Ohio, where he coached with Paul Brown and Weeb Ewbank on the gridiron and directed the Miami cagers for eight seasons. After a shaky start in his first season, Mauer cemented his place in the hearts of Tennessee fans with a 30-29 win over Kentucky in Lexington. The Vols went on to a 14-7 overall record and a 6-5 mark in the SEC in 1939. Two years later, Mauer led UT to the first of two SEC championships over a three-year period with a 36-33 win over Kentucky in the SEC championship game. In his eight seasons at Tennessee, Mauer recorded a 127-41 record. In addition to his duties with the Vol cagers, Mauer also served as an assistant football coach to Neyland and was the head baseball coach. On the gridiron, he helped lead the Vols to three SEC titles and the 1940 national championship.
Emmett Lowery 1947-59 An All-American guard as a player for coach Ward Lambert at Purdue in the early 1930s, Emmett Lowery brought that same success to Tennessee. A college teammate of John Wooden, Lowery brought a tightly-patterned, fast-break offense and man-to-man defense to Knoxville. In fact, he could often be heard yelling “Pass and cut, pass and cut,” from the sidelines. Other coaches in the Southeastern Conference took notice of Lowery’s mastery of the fast-breaking offense. “The Tennessee fast break under Lowery was the best I’ve ever seen,” famed Auburn mentor Joel Eaves said. “It was beautifully patterned, beautifully executed.” In his first season at Tennessee, the gentlemanly Lowery brought the Vols their first 20-win season in school history when UT posted a 20-5 overall mark. Over a 12-year career at Tennessee, Lowery was 169-110 before leaving to pursue business opportunities in Florida. On Jan. 14, 1950, he directed the Vols to a stunning 66-53 win over Kentucky, ending the Wildcats’ 44-game conference winning streak that stretched more than five-years. In a time when many SEC schools were building newer and bigger arenas, Lowery saw Tennessee take the first steps towards building a new facility. In Lowery’s final season, Tennessee moved out of the smaller Alumni Memorial Gymnasium and into the 7,500-seat ArmoryFieldhouse. Opening night in the new facility went down to the wire, with Vols guard Kenny Coulter hitting a last-second shot to defeat a strong Wyoming team 72-71.
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