Years after leaving, Johnny Majors told John Pelusi, 'I should have never left Pitt'

Johnny Majors walked down the steps into John Pelusi’s basement, picked up a cue stick, surveyed the pool table and laid down a challenge.

“He said to my dad, ‘If I beat you at pool, your son’s going to come to Pitt,’” Pelusi said.

“My dad says, ‘He’s not going to Pitt. That place is horrible.’”

After the two men sampled sips of wine, beer and even a martini, Pelusi ended up at Pitt and eventually helped lead the Panthers to the 1976 national championship as center and co-captain. He is now a member of the Pitt Board of Trustees.

Pelusi told the story Wednesday morning, with fond remembrance after learning Majors, 85, had died overnight in Knoxville, Tenn. Yet, he doesn’t remember who won the pool game.

“I just didn’t want anybody to get hurt,” he said.

Actually, Pelusi would have gone to Pitt no matter how the balls bounced that day.

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, he said he had between 70 and 80 scholarship offers, but his dad permitted him to take only five campus trips.

“He said, ‘You’re not going all over God’s green earth to party at schools. You’re going to pick five schools and go for one of those,’” Pelusi said.

“I told my dad I was picking Pitt as one of the five places. He thought I was absolutely insane.”

Pitt had won a total of 16 games in the seven seasons before Majors arrived in 1973, Pelusi’s freshman year.

But those other schools had a disadvantage: They were not coached by Johnny Majors.

“If you’ve ever met coach,” Pelusi said, “he had a unique knack of engaging with people, getting people to jump on board.”

Pelusi was one of 99 freshmen and junior college transfers Majors recruited to Pitt for his first season.

Jackie Sherrill, who was Majors’ assistant at Iowa State and Pitt, remembers that first training camp at Pitt-Johnstown in 1973.

“We took five buses (to camp),” Sherrill said. “Only three came back.”

Those were the days when teams often scheduled three practices a day. That year, Pitt had 16 of them.

“It’s not only the physical torture; it’s the mental torture,” Pelusi said. “If you can get through those things, in my mind, no matter what happens to you in life or in business, there’s nothing that would compare to what they put us through.

“Today, nobody would allow you to do that, but I can tell you I think it makes you a better person. I’m glad it happened to me.”

Pelusi said there were only 46 seniors (of the original 99) who made it through all four years.

“It’s like being part of an Italian family to have lasted four years under Coach Majors,” Pelusi said. “We might only get together once or twice a year or every other year. It’s like you’re having a family reunion and it’s 100% attributable back to coach Majors.”

Hours before Majors’ first game as Pitt’s coach in 1973, players walked onto the field at Georgia, per their coach’s instructions

Pelusi experienced 27 such events away from Pitt Stadium, but none like the first and last.

Pitt was a 36-point underdog that day as Majors matched his team that was 1-10 the previous season against the Bulldogs, who had won 18 of their previous 23 games.

“He always made us go out with coat and tie and walk onto the field (before the game),” Pelusi said, “and there are 10,000 people at 10 o’clock in the morning in the stadium. They’re yelling (at the Pitt players), `Dog food. Dog food.’”

As the stadium filled up, the chants continued, and then, Georgia mascot’s, Uga, relieved himself on the Pitt sideline.

“All we wanted to do was grab that little dog and choke him,” Pelusi said.

Properly motivated, Pitt fought Georgia to a 7-7 tie on its way to a 6-5-1 record and its first bowl berth in 17 years.

“That stadium was completely silent,” he said. “What was really amazing four years later, we played Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Same thing: ‘Dog food,’ and they got their (butts) kicked (27-3, nailing down Pitt’s 12-0 record and national championship).”

How did Majors transform one of the nation’s worst teams into a powerhouse that won each game by a margin of more than a touchdown.

“He just had this unique ability to connect with people,” Pelusi said.

“I always told him, ‘Coach, if you were a shoe salesman and I had 100 pairs of shoes, after you left, I’d probably have 105 pair. He could talk you into anything.

“I would never say he didn’t know Xs and Os. He did. But that wasn’t what made him what he was. He was just a tremendous motivator. No matter how bad things were, no matter how tough it was, he never let you feel sorry for yourself. He never let you get down.

”He always found a way to motivate you to do things you never thought you could do.”

Pelusi and his wife, Cathy, have kept his coach’s memory alive for many years by endowing a scholarship in the names of Majors and his wife, Mary Lynn.

“That was a tribute to him and the impact he had on a lot of us. That was the best way I could think of honoring him,” Pelusi said. “You taught me as much about life as my parents did.”

Majors and Pelusi had become close during their four years as player and coach.

“He told me before he told the team he was going back to Tennessee,” Pelusi said. “I said, ‘Coach, you need to explain to me why you’re leaving here.’

“He looked at me like, ‘What are you talking about? That’s my alma mater. I have to go back.’

“I said, ‘Coach, the guy they fired won 84% of his games. You win 84% of your games here, they’re going to name streets after you. There will be statues all over the place.”

Four years after Majors left, Pelusi visited him in Knoxville.

“He said to me, ‘You know, for somebody who was just green behind the ears, what you told me couldn’t have been more true. I should have never left Pitt.’”

Prior to the final two games, Majors told the team he was leaving, but the Panthers still beat Penn State and Georgia by decisive margins.

Pelusi said the team played no harder in those games than during any other.

“I think we played harder just because he was him,” Pelusi said. “You don’t want to disappoint a guy like that.”