UT alumnus (1951) Haywood Harris served in the army in the Korean War after graduation and then worked for the Charlotte Observer and Knoxville Journal before joining the UT staff in 1959 as alumni office field secretary. In 1961 General Neyland appointed him sports information director—the last hire Neyland would make.
Harris served from 1961 to 2000 as sports information director, assistant athletic director, and associate athletic director, and continued to serve as the Athletics Department’s historian after he retired. He was an honorary letterman.
He was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors Hall of Fame (charter class), Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame, Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and Tennessee Sports Writers Hall of Fame. He received the highest honor, the Arch Ward Award, from the College Sports Information Directors in 1991. In 2009 he received the Distinguished American Award from the East Tennessee chapter of the National Football Hall of Fame. In 1982 Inside Sports magazine listed him as one of the top five publicists in the nation.
With lifelong friend Gus Manning, he served as cohost on the sports-radio show Locker Room from 1961 to 2009—the nation’s longest-running sports-radio program. Also with Manning, he coauthored two books, Six Seasons Remembered and Once a Vol, Always a Vol.