Susan Harber, Daily News Journal, Sunday, July 31, 2016
Jess Neely, right, was an acclaimed Clemson football coach from 1931-1939. (Photo: Submitted)
Jess Claiborne Neely, a Smyrna sports legend, was born January 4, 1898, to William and Mary Gooch Neely. Jess was the grandson of John Gooch, a farmer and breeder of thoroughbred horses at Goochland.
John was well-known and highly respected as Colonel Jack, who organized the Company E of the 20th Tennessee Regiment in Smyrna in the spring of 1861. Jess and wife Dorothy had two daughters, Joan and Mary. While living in Smyrna, Jess was a member of the Smyrna Presbyterian Church. He was the great-great-grandson of the Rev. William Hume, a Scots minister and pioneer pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Nashville in 1801. Jess Neely is in my own lineage through my great-great-aunt Mary Law Gooch Johns, whose namesake of Mary Law Lane is a busy side street of Smyrna today. My mom, Judy, spent many nights and weekends as a young girl visiting Mary Law’s welcoming home.
After high school, Jess was an end and halfback football player at Vanderbilt under Coach Dan McGugin from 1920-22. He served as captain of the team in 1922. In his playing years with Vanderbilt, Jess only lost one football game. Having attained his law degree at Vanderbilt in 1924, he had a burning desire to coach football and pursued this dream with a passion. While in law school, his first coaching position was with a high school in Murfreesboro.
Jess was headed for a brilliant football career and moved into head coaching positions for Southwestern, Clemson and Rice colleges. He was the winningest coach in Rice history, with a monument looming high today on the campus in his honor. In the 1950s, he lobbied for the new 70,000-seat arena Rice Stadium in Houston that became the best spectator stadium in the country. His teams won the 1940, 1949 and 1953 Cotton Bowls and the 1946 Orange Bowl. He coached eight All-Americans and was revered for his remarkable manner of motivation with his players. While at Clemson, he coached Banks McFadden, the greatest all-time athlete on this campus.
A multi-talented individual, Jess served as baseball coach at the University of Alabama, Clemson and Rice. At the age of 68, Jess returned to Vanderbilt as athletic director and golf coach in 1967. Upon retirement in 1971, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, having won over 200 football games in his career. Jess continued to coach golf in Tennessee and Texas until the age of 81.
Jess was highly respected in the coaching profession by his peers and players as a leader with high ethics and hard work. He promoted “block and tackle” philosophy as a key to winning football games. One player described his technique as an extraordinary mental exercise. He was the only coach who could assemble a three-hour football practice with no football in sight. So much of his success was driven by the mind rather than the physical play. Jess also recruited a high number of small-town high school quarterbacks on the theory that they were each the best athlete on their team; and he could always find another position for them to play. Today, one can drive down Jess Neely Drive on the Vanderbilt campus or catch a baseball game at Shelby Park in the Jess Neely Athletic baseball complex.
Jess Neely died in 1983 at the age of 85 in Weslaco, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. His obituary describes him as a “cool, Southern gentleman, who stressed education as your first reward and sports as second.” The IPTAY scholarship fund founded under Neely at Clemson remains a top financial aid program today.
After leaving Smyrna to attend Vanderbilt College, Jess never returned to reside in his hometown of Smyrna. Yet, his embedded early roots of honesty and leadership carried him to all corners of our country as our all-star ambassador and Smyrna hero.
Contact Susan Harber at [email protected].