Hall of Famer Oval Jaynes dies at 85

As an athlete, administrator, and gentleman, Morganton may never see another Oval Jaynes.

A former two-sport athlete at Appalachian State, football coach and later athletic director at 12 different colleges or universities, and member of two halls of fame, Lee Oval Jaynes Jr. died on May 24 at age 85.

Jaynes was born and raised in Morganton, earning 11 varsity letters and starting all 11 of those seasons spanning his football, basketball, and baseball playing days at Morganton High School, from where he graduated in 1958. He served as team captain in all three sports as a Wildcats senior.

Jaynes then played football for four years and baseball for two years at Appalachian State University (which was then Appalachian State Teachers College).

After starring at halfback for Morganton, Jaynes moved to fullback, then eventually to end (the modern-day wide receiver position) at App State. He also played end on defense (modern-day linebacker position) and was an all-conference and all-state selection as a Mountaineers senior, when he recalls games in which he never came off the field for a single play, according to a 2020 Watauga Democrat article.

Jaynes was named to the “Who’s Who among students in American Universities and Colleges” list in 1962.

After graduating, he started a coaching career that lasted from 1962 until 1980. He first served as an assistant coach at Myers Park High School in Charlotte.

“We won the conference championship both years I was at Myers Park,” Jaynes told the Watauga Democrat in 2020. “We lost in the state championship game my first year. We really had a great group of players. The two years I was at Myers Park, we had 13 of our players go on to play major college football. Five of them played in the NFL.”

Butch McSwain, a current Morganton city councilman who for years served on the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame committee alongside Jaynes, said Jaynes never forgot a name or face, even from those early years.

“I grew up in Rocky Mount,” McSwain said, “and back in the ’60s, there were only six or eight 4A schools in the state. He had gone to Myers Park as an assistant coach at that time, and that was one of (the other 4A schools).

“They ended up playing each other in the football playoffs just about every year. I was in junior high at the time, and my mother taught P.E., so I knew a lot of the coaches and players at Rocky Mount. And he remembered them all and had kept up with them, knew where they were. His recall was unbelievable.”

Jaynes then was a graduate assistant at the University of North Carolina before becoming offensive coordinator at Wake Forest University, where in 1970, the Demon Deacons celebrated an ACC championship.

Jaynes then accepted the position of associate coach at the University of South Carolina, and his next job was his only college head coaching role, at Gardner-Webb College (now Gardner-Webb University) from 1975-77.

In those three seasons, Jaynes guided a Runnin’ Bulldogs squad that had just one previous winning season all-time and was 1-7 in his first year to records of 5-5 in ’76 and 7-4 in ’77.

Spanning his time on the sideline, Jaynes served on coaching staffs for teams that played in the Citrus, Sugar, and Cotton bowls most notably.

After his time in Boiling Springs, Jaynes left for an assistant coach position at the University of Wyoming, where his path first crossed Pat Dye.

When Dye left to take the Auburn head coaching position in 1981, Jaynes went with him, starting a career in athletics administration as Tigers assistant athletic director that year.

During Jaynes’ five years at Auburn, two-sport phenom Bo Jackson was suiting up in baseball and football for the Tigers. Jackson would go on to win the 1985 Heisman Trophy before playing professionally in both sports, rushing for nearly 3,000 yards in just under 40 NFL games and becoming a Major League Baseball all-star outfielder.

“Bo Jackson was a source of incredible stories,” McSwain said. “I think every sports fan knows what Bo Jackson did. (Jaynes) was there the day the home run was hit out over the big scoreboard and then saw him go straight to spring practice in football after that.”

In 1986, Jaynes took over as AD at Colorado State University, a job in which he flourished until 1991. His tenure with the Rams was highlighted by his hiring of new football and men’s basketball coaches who turned those respective programs into winners, the renaming of the basketball arena, and the establishment of a CSU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Upon Jaynes’ passing, the CSU athletic website released a lengthy tribute to him.

“Fans may have forgotten Jaynes or never even knew about him at CSU,” the article reads, “but looking back on those five years he spent guiding Rams athletics, it is impossible not to see how impactful he was to CSU athletics.”

The full tribute can be found online at shorturl.at/Y9Azf.

After his time in the Rockies, Jaynes helped the University of Pittsburgh out of a rough period following NCAA probation in the 1990s as its AD, then became AD at the University of Idaho (1996-98), and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga (1998-2003), where he also served as a special assistant to the chancellor.

His final AD title came at Jacksonville State University from 2008-11. (JSU also posthumously honored Jaynes, and that article can be found at shorturl.at/N9kdA.)

Jaynes bookended those final full-time years in collegiate athletics by being inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Hall of Fame in 2012.

McSwain, who said he first became formally acquainted with Jaynes in 2008 at Jaynes’ local HOF induction, marveled at Jaynes’ memory and even at his agility in his later years.

“He was in his 60s then, and we were walking out of one of the meetings, and he fell on the porch. It scared me,” McSwain said. “I jumped over there to help him up. Well, that rascal rolled that shoulder in, just like he taught football players to fall for years, rolled right around and came up sitting up. And he said, ‘Hey, I can still do it,’ and he was not hurt at all. I hurt watching him.

“And then I was eating lunch with him some time in the last three or four months, and he started talking about a football game when Wake Forest had a really good season and was playing (N.C.) State when he was there. He did a play-by-play of the second half, and he remembered all the plays they called, who made what tackles, State and Wake players. It was a lot of fun to talk to him and hear things like that.”

Among Jaynes’ other myriad of career honors and accomplishments, he served on boards or committees of the NCAA, NACDA, American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), Southeastern Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Big East Conference, Big West Conference, Southern Conference, and Ohio Valley Conference.

He is a former chairman of the AFCA, received the General Robert R. Neyland Award for Lifetime Achievement from the All-American Football Foundation (AAFF) in 1999, received the Bill Wade Unsung Hero Award from the AAFF in 2012, received the Spirit of Giving Award from the AFCA in 2013, received the App State distinguished alumni award in 2014, and received the special service award from the App State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.

Jaynes also served on the Denver organizing committee to host the 1990 NCAA men’s Final Four and was a longtime United Way volunteer, an active fundraiser for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and a volunteer and host for the Special Olympics.

In his half-century in college athletics, he worked alongside or under 40 future college or NFL head coaches — including Urban Meyer, Skip Holtz, Jon Gruden, Mike McCarthy, Marvin Lewis, and Chuck Pagano — and 61 of his former colleagues became NFL assistant coaches.

“I had some good mentors throughout my career,” Jaynes told the Watauga Democrat. “I have been very blessed, that is all I can say. It is hard to believe that a guy can grow up in a small town like Morganton and have the opportunities that I have had, and some of the perks that I have had. And that includes being around some of the best athletes ever in college athletics and some of the best sports minds. It is a wonderful country we live in and a wonderful life I have had.”

Jaynes’ funeral was held May 31 at First United Methodist Church in Morganton, where he was a member. He also lived in Blowing Rock for years and was a member at Blowing Rock Methodist Church before spending his last several years at Grace Ridge in Morganton following his wife’s passing.

McSwain said Jaynes was 100% class personified.

“He was a gentleman in every sense of the word. That stands out in athletics,” McSwain said. “He didn’t have any of that ego that gets developed along with the accomplishment. He was very humble, enjoyed telling stories, and enjoyed talking about mutual acquaintances. And he knew just about everybody, so he would stumble across someone you knew too eventually.

“As he grew older, his voice was getting softer and softer, so you had to get right in there to be able to hear him, but I did it. You just always wanted to hear what he had to say.”