A portrait of Johnny Majors, who served as head football coach at Iowa State University from 1968 to 1972. As a head coach at three universities he compiled a career record of 185-137-10. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1987 and the Iowa State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1999 as a coach. Photos courtesy of Iowa State Athletics
Sept/Oct 2024 (Volume 16, Issue 5)
By Payne Blazevich
Grass stains and dirt marks often patched the slacks and windbreaker of Iowa State University’s football coach Johnny Majors as he dropped to the terrain to demonstrate a drill or practice technique with a player.
Majors wasn’t above getting in the trenches with his team, working the pads with his players as he coached from the ground level. His tightly-wound energy was expounded outward on the football field as he rallied a competitive spirit within each player to don an Iowa State uniform under his tenure.
There was a life and palpable intensity that came with a Johnny Majors football team. And as he attempted to elevate a program that had grown accustomed to sub-.500 seasons, Majors needed to re-spark an absent energy within the program.
Majors, in his tenure from 1968 to 1972 as head coach at Iowa State, cultivated a young, hungry staff that worked to bring talent to the program. The Cyclones transitioned, through recruiting and player development, into a team capable of competing with the super powers among the Big Eight.
Johnny Majors is carried off the field after Iowa State routed Oklahoma State, 54-0, and secured its first bowl bid in 1971. It was the largest winning margin versus a conference opponent in school history at the time.
The program saw a rise to relevance that had sparsely occurred prior to his arrival. Majors secured a pair of bowl appearances during his tenure, the first in program history, and helped the Cyclones reach a fourth-place finish in the conference in 1971.
From a dozen NFL draft picks to postseason appearances, the former college football superstar built Iowa State into a true threat among its conference foes. It was a successful stop on a career that would result in a national championship and three SEC titles for Majors as head coach, and a coaching stint that he was proud of the rest of his life.
“He loved this place more than anything,” said Mike Green, who served as an Iowa State sports information director and assistant athletics director for communications from 1997 through 2022. “It is a special place in his heart, it was his first head coaching job and his love for Iowa State never waned until the day he died.”
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