Beattie Feathers scored thirty-two touchdowns in thirty games for Tennessee during 1931-1933. The Volunteers had a 25-3-2 record during that period. Beattie’s career rushing total, 1,888 yards, lasted thirty-seven years as the school record. He was an All-American halfback and Southeastern Conference Most Valuable Player in 1933. Feathers’ longest touchdown runs were: 1931 – 60, 75, and 80 yards vs. Mississippi, 70 yards vs. Kentucky, 65 yards vs. Duke, and 65 yards vs. New York University; 1932 – 54 yards vs. North Carolina and 33 yards vs. Mississippi; 1933 – 43 and 33 yards vs. Virginia Tech. As a punter, he averaged 46 yards on 23 kicks in 1932 during a driving rain against Alabama. In 1933 he made a 76-yard punt against Florida. Beattie played professionally, 1934-1940, and in his rookie year with the Chicago Bears set a pro record by averaging 9.9 yards per carry in rushing. Feathers was then head football coach at Appalachian State, 1942, and North Carolina State, 1944-1951, followed by twenty-four years at Wake Forest as head baseball and assistant football coach. William Beattie Feathers was born into a Native-American lineage at Bristol, Virginia, August 20, 1909; he died March 11, 1979, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was a teammate of Gene McEver, another College Football Hall of Fame halfback, both in high school at Bristol and in college.
