The Neyland Stadium upper deck and press box addition had been a dream of General Neyland. An engineer, Neyland spent hours drawing up plans to incorporate ideas from upper decks and press boxes from around the country. Work had begun before he died in March 1961, but the addition was not completed until fall 1962 and was first used November 20, 1962, for the Alabama game.
Footings for the addition were sunk 65 to 70 feet into the ground. Plans were drawn by Rust Engineering, and the actual construction was done by SW Construction Company of Memphis. When completed, the press box ran from one 20-yard line to the other 20-yard line and held up to 98 people in the first level and 250 more upstairs. It was served by Western Union facilities. There were five radio and television announcing booths and four photographers’ booths. Three complete darkrooms were available. The coach’s phone booths were located at either end of the press box.
The upper deck added six thousand seats—sections SS-UU. Seats in TT or UU required a $100 priority contribution, and a $200 priority contribution was required for box seats. A multimillion skybox addition was completed in fall 1987 and was first used for the initial game of the 1987 season against Colorado on September 5. The facility was estimated to be able to hold as many as eleven hundred people for a big game. The first floor was for radio and television personnel, as well as photographers; the second floor provided for the working press, public address, security and stadium operations, bowl scouts, and visiting athletic directors; the third floor provided additional space for the press, a trustees’ box, and some skyboxes; the fourth floor contained the remainder of the 42 skyboxes. Commons areas on each skybox floor provided space for serving of food during games. UT initially said that alcohol would be allowed in the skyboxes and then reversed the position. Sale of skybox rights ($24,000 each) paid for the addition.