University of Tennessee Athletics
Manning Receives UT Alumni Award
October 09, 2007 | Football
Football star and UT alumnus Peyton Manning has received the 2007 Donald G. Hileman Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor an alumnus can receive from the College of Communication and Information.
"Peyton Manning is one of the greatest athletes of our time, but he is also an outstanding communicator and a role model for everyone with whom he comes into contact," said Mike Wirth, dean of the College of Communication and Information. ???We presented the Hileman Distinguished Alumni Award to Peyton in recognition of all that he has done off the football field to give back to society.???
Manning earned a bachelor's degree in speech communication from UT in 1997. He was the top graduate in his major.
"Peyton was an exceptional student. He was focused, actively engaged in the major and determined to succeed," said John Haas, director of the School of Communication Studies and former academic adviser to Manning. "We have no better ambassador for communication programs or representative for our unit than Peyton Manning."
In addition to his duties with the Colts, Manning also serves as president of the PeyBack Foundation, which he founded in 1999. The organization helps disadvantaged youth by assisting programs that provide leadership growth and opportunities. The foundation focuses its efforts in Indiana, Tennessee and Louisiana.
Manning has won numerous awards both on and off the field, including the 2006 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, which recognizes off-the-field community service as well as playing excellence.
As a student, Manning was recognized as a three-time Academic All-American. Following his senior season at UT, he won the Sullivan Award. The award honors the nation's top amateur athlete based on character, leadership, athletic ability and the ideals of amateurism.
The Donald G. Hileman Award is named for the first permanent dean of the College of Communications, the forerunner to the College of Communication and Information. The award was established in 1994 in celebration of the college's 25th anniversary. It is given to college alumni who have made outstanding contributions to the field of communication and information.
The College of Communication and Information is made up of four schools: the School of Advertising and Public Relations, the School of Communication Studies, the School of Information Sciences, and the School of Journalism and Electronic Media. The college offers four undergraduate majors, two master's degrees and is home to one of the oldest doctoral programs in communication and information in the southeastern United States.
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Contacts:
April Moore, (865) 974-0463, amoore9@utk.edu
Amy Blakely, (865) 974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu
FORMER VOLS DEFENSIVE LINEMAN DIES IN NORTH CAROLINA
| ?? |
| Robert Pulliam?? |
Pulliam is remembered as the 1970 Rowan County Defensive Player of the Year when Boyden High School went 10-1-2, but his honors extended far beyond the borders of the county.
He was a Parade All-America. Charles Little, his defensive line coach at Boyden, remembers Pulliam was recognized his senior year as the No. 1 defensive lineman in the entire South.
"A once-in-a-lifetime player," Little said.
Pulliam weighed 260 pounds as a senior, and the recruiting battle for his services was fierce. ACC and SEC schools were just beginning to accept elite African-American athletes.
Pulliam chose Tennessee, which already had a great black player from Kannapolis (tailback Haskel Stanback) on its freshman team. Pulliam went to Knoxville as part of a great recruiting class that included outstanding black quarterback Condredge Holloway and Johnny Yarbrough.
Pulliam's reputation swelled with Tennessee's freshman team. A Tennessee assistant stopped by Salisbury to inform the locals that the varsity Vols had stopped scrimmaging the freshmen.
The reason? Pulliam disrupted every offensive play.
"One thing I remember from those days is Robert's smile," said Conrad Graham, an All-SEC cornerback for the Vols. "He wouldn't say much, but he had that smile. The coaches told us Robert wrestled two guys at a time in high school. We believed it."
Pulliam started three years for the 1972-74 Vols at left defensive tackle and never missed a game. He played on three nationally ranked teams that went 25-9-2 and started three bowl games.
Pulliam played with Holloway in the 1975 Hula Bowl All-Star Game following his senior year, but he never got a real shot in the NFL.
"He was disappointed he didn't get a better opportunity," Stout said. "The word was that he was a little short. He was about 6-foot-1."
While Pulliam didn't get a chance to pummel NFL offenses, one of his pupils did. As a young coach, Pulliam schooled the late, great Reggie White at Howard High in Chattanooga.
"It's not hard imagining Robert instilling that same desire in Reggie he had," said Boyden teammate Justus Everett.
Pulliam added a master???s degree in administration to his degree in education from Tennessee. He was an assistant coach at Appalachian State and North Carolina A&T and head coach at Fayetteville State.
Pulliam eventually moved his family back to Salisbury and went into administration. He was an assistant principal at Salisbury and Mooresville before accepting the challenge of the principal's job at Henderson Independent School in 2000.
Pulliam, a Rowan County Hall of Famer in every sense of the word, is survived by his wife, Jean, two sons and his parents.
"It's an untimely passing of a great man and a great person," Everett said. "I really can't verbalize what he meant to all of us."
By Mike London, Salisbury (N.C.) Post
