NASHVILLE – Head Coach Eddie George and the Tennessee State football team seek their first victory of the season this Saturday at 2 p.m. CT against Kentucky State in the John A. Merritt Classic at Nissan Stadium. The Tigers will take the field officially on the home side of the stadium, facing the Tiger fans, just as Coach George experienced as a member of the Tennessee Titans.

When the Kentucky State University football team travels to Nashville to face off with the Tennessee State University Tigers at the John A. Merritt Classic on Saturday, September 18, they will unknowingly face their own history. Because while former Tennessee Titans running back and Tigers Head Coach Eddie George is all the rave, the classic's namesake is not only a Kentuckian and Kentucky State alumnus, he is Tennessee State's greatest coach of all time.

Not a whole lot of people have likely spent much time in the small Kentucky town of Falmouth. Today, the population hardly nears 3,000. But one hundred years ago, before the confluence of its bordering Licking River twice flooded, more than 11,000 Kentuckians called the home rule-class city home.

There, in 1926, John Ayers Merritt was born. His parents, Bradley Merritt, a stonemason, and schoolteacher Eva Grace Ayers Merritt couldn't have possibly known it then, but their second son would become one of the city and Commonwealth's most famous, and one of the nation's most winningest college football coaches ever. 

Educated locally in the city's one-room Black grade school, segregation forced the Merritts to send young John to live with his aunt in Louisville where there were opportunities for Black secondary instruction. The move made Merritt eligible to attend Central High School where as a ninth-grader, he was introduced to the possibility of playing football by his physics teacher. Merritt successfully juggled playing offensive guard on the football team by day with hauling garbage after school and games before graduating in 1943. 

Like his cousin, the future Norfolk State University president Harrison Wilson Jr., Merritt headed to the United States Navy for service in World War II. His discharge in 1946, combined with a football scholarship allowed him to return to the gridiron, this time at Frankfort's Kentucky State College. 

Both cousins would make athletic history on "The Hill" under the leadership of President Rufus B. Atwood, Wilson—the grandfather of National Football League (NFL) quarterback Russell Wilson—in basketball, and Merritt as an offensive guard on the Thorobreds football team. It was during his career at Kentucky State that the hulking Merritt was given the apropos nickname "Big John," a descriptor that followed him throughout his life. 

Following his graduation from Kentucky State with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950, Merritt earned a master's degree from the University of Kentucky in 1952 and went to work as the head football coach of the segregated Simmons High School in Woodford County. 

His college coaching career began in 1953 as the head football coach at Mississippi's Jackson State College. His ten-year stint there boasted 63 wins, 37 losses, and five ties including winning the 1962 Orange Blossom Classic and the school's first Black College National Championship.

The following year, Merritt began his legendary career at Tennessee A&I State College in Nashville. Described as larger than life, Merritt's signature cigar smoking was as recognizable as his domination of every room he entered was evident. Merritt boasted 21 consecutive winning seasons, including four undefeated seasons, six national championships, and four Black college football titles. 

Merritt, with the aid of an excellent staff of assistant coaches, including Joe Gilliam Sr. and Alvin Coleman, became nationally renowned for not only his wins but even more so for his relationship with his players. The more he won, the more players he sent to the NFL, a roster of more than 200 which includes "Jefferson Street" Joe Gilliam of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Richard Dent of the Chicago Bears, Ed "Too Tall" Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, and Claude Humphrey of the Philadelphia Eagles.

But Merritt always downplayed these victories, attributing his successes to "the Good Lord," and remaining focused on his role in his players' lives both on and off the field. His players were not just or even mostly players. They were students, and in no small measure because of him, they would also become college graduates. "A black kid doesn't understand how to win just for the sake of winning. He has to have a reason to win," Merritt once said.

At least a generation of Tennessee State students can recall his famous endearment, "Baby,' which pronounced the love he had for all students, even those not under his headship. Merritt indeed loved more than football. But his unique ability to keep his staff intact across two schools and over vast periods cannot be overstated. 

"He had a unique way of getting someone to go that extra mile," recalled Coleman. "He would urge you and challenge you and you found yourself making contributions to the program that you never would've expected you were capable of doing."

Coleman and Gilliam shared in almost every one of Merritt's 232 victories throughout his 31-year career. From 1963 until 1983, when illness forced his resignation, Merritt amassed a record of 172-33-7 at TSU and 232-65-11 overall. 

Merritt, who coined the phrase "quicker than a hiccup," referred to the football practice field as "holy ground," and once said he had a player who was so fast he could turn the light off and be in bed before the room got dark, died only a month later at age 57 on December 15, 1983, in Nashville after a long battle against otherwise debilitating illness. He was survived by his wife Maxine Owens Merritt, then head women's basketball coach at Tennessee State, and their daughter Bonita (Bonnie) Merritt Traughber.

Merritt was always aware of the importance, even if mostly symbolic, of his teams. "Football gives a lot of black people hope. They want to win and be successful, so when we do win, it gives them a lot of pride.

"That's important."

No matter who wins Saturday's game, Merritt, Black colleges, and their football, won't lose.