Jules Verne "Siki" Sikes was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He was a graduate of Texas A&M University where he was a three-sport star, lettering three years each in baseball, basketball and football. He played end for Dana X. Bible's Texas A&M football teams from 1925 to 1927 and was All-Southwest Conference and mentioned as All-American. He played minor league baseball with Shreveport, Louisiana of the Class A Texas League after college. Sikes was an assistant coach for ends at the University of Georgia in Wally Butts first year as head football coach in 1939 until leaving for Kansas after the 1947 season, interrupted by service in World War II. He coached the Kansas Jayhawks from 1948 to 1953, compiling a 35–25 record. He succeeded George Sauer who left Kansas for United States Naval Academy. From 1954 to 1963, he coached at East Texas State University, amassing a 63–34–4 record. The Lions won five Lone Star Conference championships during his tenure and won both the Tangerine Bowl twice, at the end of the 1957 and 1958 seasons. He was a proponent of the T formation.

James Wallace Butts Jr. was an American college football player, coach, and athletics administrator. He served as the head coach at the University of Georgia from 1939 to 1960, compiling a record of 140–86–9. His Georgia Bulldogs football teams won a national championship in 1942 and four Southeastern Conference titles. Butts was also the athletic director at Georgia from 1939 to 1963. He was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1997.