Checkerboard history

Maybe someone should share this article with JP. Sorry that was not necessary, anyway, Neyland had a record of 173-31-12 during his three coaching stints in Knoxville from 1926-52, a legendary career at Tennessee broken up twice because of his military service.

Kentucky's original football field sported a checkerboard end zone, starting in 1930.

In place of school, he spent his days at the racetrack, where he earned the nickname ‘Dutch the Clutch’ in honour of his precocious bookmaking and money-earning skills. It was 1944, and Paul Van Doren was an eighth-grade dropout.

Coach Doug Dickey began the TN Vol checkerboard tradition in 1964 and was said to have been inspired by a magazine ad.

In 1966, Van Doren – along with his brother, Jim, and friends Gordy and Serge – opened the doors to the Van Doren Rubber Company at 704 East Broadway in Anaheim, California.

The popularity of these new end zone creations took off for the next four years, but then the field was redone in 1968 when artificial turf was installed and the checkered wonders on each end of the field were taken away.

Finally, in 1989, they were set down again in each end zone, but this time within the cookie-cutter artificial turf.

In 2017, songwriter Frank Ocean attended the White House state dinner in a perfectly-tailored blue suit, and – you guessed it – a pair of checkerboard Vans.