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Cadiz grad Trupovnieks will always admire Majors

Janis Trupovnieks remembers was on the radar of many Division I college football programs during his career at Cadiz High School.

Actually, he remembers a time when no fewer than five Division I head coaches were in Hopedale at one time to visit him and fellow Cardinal Jeff Kendziorski.

But, there was one coach in particular who made the biggest impact with Trupovnieks.

That just happened to be the late Johnny Majors, who began recruiting Trupovnieks as the head coach at Pitt and then convinced him to flip his commitment to Tennessee.

“During recruiting, Coach Majors would sit and talk with my mom and dad more about their pasts than my future,” Trupovnieks joked during a phone interview earlier this week.

Majors, who died earlier this week at his home in Knoxville at the age of 85, was a World War II buff and was honestly “fascinated” by Trupovnieks heritage, which included his father, Janis, who came to the United States from Latvia, and his mother, Inge, who came from Germany.

“Coach Majors and my parents really had a good bond,” Trupovnieks said. “He loved hearing the stories about how my parents came to America.”

That connection with the Trupovnieks parents was a big key in helping to land Janis as an offensive lineman for Pittsburgh.

Prior to Majors accepting the job with the Volunteers in 1977, Trupovnieks had heard basically from every Southeast Conference School other than Tennessee.

“After the Sugar Bowl when Pitt beat Georgia, Coach Majors accepted the UT job and he convinced me to make a visit,” Trupovnieks admitted. “I went down in February and it was honestly the first time I had heard from Tennessee. Coming from Cadiz, it was quite impressive to walk into Neyland Stadium that, at that time, held 85 thousand people.”

With the relationship with Majors already long established, Trupovnieks fell in love with the campus, city of Knoxville and everything about Tennessee football and accepted what turned out to be the final scholarship in the 1977 signing class.

“Jim Dyer, who was with an assistant with Coach Majors basically his entire coaching path, was the guy who recruited me, actually,” Trupovnieks confessed. “He and Coach Majors were really (close).”

Similar to the stories that Ohio Valley products Billy West and Curt McGhee shared about Majors from their Pitt days, Trupovnieks recalled Majors as a strong disciplinarian, who used a bullhorn quite effectively.

“When he was at Tennessee, he didn’t sit in the bleachers, but he went up on the scissor lift and would be up there, watching like a hawk,” Trupovnieks said. “He would start screaming at you through that bullhorn. You knew something was really going on when you heard that motor start up and you’d hear it making its way down. He definitely went up and down a lot.”

Trupovnieks, who still resides and works in the Knoxville area, saw Majors from time to time at different UT functions or golf outings. His last communication with him came just a few weeks ago, actually.

“I sent him a text on May 21 to wish him a happy birthday,” Trupovnieks said. “Usually, he’d send a text back, saying thank you. But, strangely, this time, he called me back. As I look back on it, it’s almost like he was calling to say good bye. He called me and then thanked me for wishing him a happy birthday.”

It was almost a year ago, however, that Trupovnieks spent and extended time with Majors.

“It was at the Johnny Majors Golf Invitational, which is held in Crossville, Tn.,” Trupovnieks said. “And a lot of us who played for him and knew him pretty well could see then that things were starting to change for him (physically).”

Though his physical health was deterioriating, Trupovnieks said his mind and memory were as sharp as ever.

“I remember he and I were talking about my dad’s history and he kept reminding me of a play I screwed up in 1980, as a senior at Georgia,” Trupovnieks said.

Trupovnieks gives a lot of the credit for the man he became to his high school coach, Ron Pobolish, and Majors.

“Both Coach Pobolish and Coach Majors meant so much to me … both in my athletic and personal lives,” Trupovnieks said. “When I finished playing, both men have become dear friends of mine.”

Trupovnieks plans to attend Majors’ funeral, but plans for it remain up in the air due to the coronavirus pandemic and the limits on mass gatherings.

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