Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti dropped a great reference to legendary Tennessee Vols head coach Johnny Majors this week via his appearance on Bison Drops.

Cignetti, who led Indiana to a national championship this past season in just his second year in Bloomington, worked under Majors for four seasons at Pittsburgh (Cignetti served as Majors’ quarterbacks/tight ends coach).

After getting replaced by Phillip Fulmer at Tennessee in 1992, Majors returned to Pittsburgh, where he previously served as the head coach from 1973 to 1976.

Majors, who won a national championship at Pittsburgh in 1976, wasn’t nearly as successful in his second stint as the Panthers’ head coach, going 12-32 from 1993 to 1996.

Despite the lack of success at Pitt in the 1990s, Majors still imparted plenty of wisdom on Cignetti and others.

Curt Cignetti drops a great Johnny Majors saying

While discussing his coaching philosophy on Bison Drops, Cignetti referenced one of Majors’ sayings.

“Coach Johnny Majors was a legend back in his day,” said Cignetti. “And he used to always say, ‘The fun is in the doing’. So, you’ve got to love the process.”

That may seem like a simple statement, some might even say it’s cliché, but there’s a lot of truth in it. Champions are built through the process. There are no shortcuts. You’ve got to love the grind every single day, or you don’t stand a chance of being a champion — it’s not the saying that leads to greatness, it’s the intentional action of living the statement daily.

Love the process, and the results will follow.

And man, it’s pretty cool to see the late Johnny Majors’ influence still being felt in college football all these years later.

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