How many of you are Vol fans for a reason other than…

#3
#3
Well when I was 12 aeons ago, I got grounded for 4 straight weekends no TV, nothing, my dad one Saturday came into my room while my mom was getting her hair done. My dad came in and said "boy if u want to watch TV while your mom is gone u can. I was like efff yeh, he then said don't get too happy, you can only watch Tennessee football. I was like ok whatever but hey it's tv. It was the uf downpour game. From that point on after I left tennessee and moved to az in 2000 and bleed orange. My dad was shot and killed 11yrs ago in Dallas. When my son was 16 in 2016 he sat down and watched the Florida game, and then the hail Mary. After he saw those two games and how jacked I got he slowly did what I did when I was young, he just kept reading about Vol football and learning from me. Same as my dad did to me telling me the history, players, and tradition since there was no internet back then. My son would spend hrs and hrs googling, watching YouTube. Now he gives me a run for my money with knowledge and recruiting etc...its a joy to see how it gets passed onto future generations. My son has never even lived in Tennessee like I did for 22yrs,i brought him to the 22 Florida game and he had goosebumps from the atmosphere, I looked at him and said now you're a VFL, it was a tearful moment.
 
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#5
#5
UTblood4life said:
Well when I was 12 aeons ago, I got grounded for 4 straight weekends no TV, nothing, my dad one Saturday came into my room while my mom was getting her hair done. My dad came in and said "boy if u want to watch TV while your mom is gone u can. I was like efff yeh, he then said don't get too happy, you can only watch Tennessee football. I was like ok whatever but hey it's tv. It was the uf downpour game. From that point on after I left tennessee and moved to az in 2000 and bleed orange. My dad was shot and killed 11yrs ago in Dallas. When my son was 16 in 2016 he sat down and watched the Florida game, and then the hail Mary. After he saw those two games and how jacked I got he slowly did what I did when I was young, he just kept reading about Vol football and learning from me. Same as my dad did to me telling me the history, players, and tradition since there was no internet back then. My son would spend hrs and hrs googling, watching YouTube. Now he gives me a run for my money with knowledge and recruiting etc...its a joy to see how it gets passed onto future generations. My son has never even lived in Tennessee like I did for 22yrs,i brought him to the 22 Florida game and he had goosebumps from the atmosphere, I looked at him and said now you're a VFL, it was a tearful moment.
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Great story! Sorry about your Dad.
 
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#6
#6
Freak said:
How many of you are fans of Tennessee NOT because of: living in Tennessee, attending the university, or having family that are Vol fans?

I bet there are some interesting stories out there on how some became Vol fans.
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Nothing exciting here. My father lettered at Tennessee in 1931, brother played basketball here in 1941 before volunteering for the Army Air Corps , and my son lettered 1995-1998. I have 6 generations of my family who attended Tennessee. I never considered going anywhere other than Tennessee.. " Born and bred" a Tennessee VOL.
 
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#7
#7
I grew up in north Georgia. My father was a Vol fan, but that's not why I became one. Growing up, I was an NFL kid. I became a huge Oakland Raiders fan at a young age and only cared about the NFL. I paid zero attention to college football. It wasn't until I was around 18 or so that a buddy of mine had an extra ticket to go see Georgia play Tennessee at Neyland. I had never been but I had heard stories about how great the experience was, so I tagged along. It was the electric GameDay experience I had that day that made me a Vols fan! I had never experienced anything like it! From that day forward I was a VFL.
 
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#8
#8
I grew up in west Texas, and in that area college football isn’t that popular. I watched the Cowboys on Sundays and went to high school games on Fridays, they were huge in that area (Odessa Permian, Cooper, Abilene High, Midland Lee, etc,). My dad retired and we moved to middle Tennessee, where he is originally from. HS football in this area in the late 80’s was a bit of a culture shock comparatively speaking from where I came from and there wasn’t a pro team in the area. Everyone was into college ball, and it was either UT or VU. VU sucked and UT was pretty good at that time so I chose them.

Still a die hard Cowboys fan, don’t hate.
 
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#9
#9
Brave Volunteer said:
I grew up in north Georgia. My father was a Vol fan, but that's not why I became one. Growing up, I was an NFL kid. I became a huge Oakland Raiders fan at a young age and only cared about the NFL. I paid zero attention to college football. It wasn't until I was around 18 or so that a buddy of mine had an extra ticket to go see Georgia play Tennessee at Neyland. I had never been but I had heard stories about how great the experience was, so I tagged along. It was the electric GameDay experience I had that day that made me a Vols fan! I had never experienced anything like it! From that day forward I was a VFL.
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That's unusual, I think. You're in North Georgia and attending a home game in Athens.

Why didn't the experience translate to UGA for you?
 
#12
#12
Born, raised, and still live in BBN. Majority of every single person I know is a Kitty Cat fan. I even attended many UK football games growing up because my grandfather had season tickets. They sucked and I wasn't a fan at all. The Hefty Lefty (RIP) was fun to watch, but he never made me a fan of them...

It was actually Chris Lofton and Bruce Pearl that made a fan of the Big Orange! Strangely, I grew up only liking basketball. It was later on that football became my favorite sport, and strangely enough it was during our dark years... the Dooley and Butchie era is where my obsession with football started.

So in essence, I didn't get to even enjoy 98'. I was under ten and I wasn't a fan yet. So, I have yet to see us win one sadly. I do take honor that I'm certainly not a bandwagon fan though lol.
 
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#13
#13
I didn't know, or care about Vols or any other college team despite being born and raised in middle Tennessee. Then a high school classmate, who was an avid Vols fan, dragged me to a game at Neyland. Ho-hum, a bunch of guys running around bumping into each other and chasing someone carrying a pumpkin. Being high in the nosebleed area of the stadium, that's what it looked like to me. But, my classmate wouldn't shut up. He pointed out players, talked about the plays being called, the referee hand signals, and so on. Thereafter, he talked about the team's history, some guy named Neyland, third Saturday in October, blah, blah, blah. I didn't give a darn. GROAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A few years later, that darn Vols-freak was in the same dorm as I. A game on TV featured the citrus clad lads fighting with some ugly dogs. IIRC, that Georgia team's coach was whining about not being considered for the national championship. They were supposed to be one of the best in the country, but injures had severely weakened them. My annoying Vols-freak bud started telling me how SEC teams often knock each other out of such chances. SEC? REALLY, I thought it had something to do with sex, so I said nothing. On account, he didn't mention it involving girls. Otherwise, I would have paid attention.

Anyway, as the close game wore on, it looked like Tennessee was getting the worst of it. Then with eight seconds remaining, the Vols tied the game, scoring 8 points in that time frame. So? I found myself on the edge of my seat. Then cheering the tangerine team. To this day, I suspect my bud clandestinely jabbed me with an orange tipped syringe and infected me with Volsitis bacterium. Cause from that day on, I was a Vols fan.
 
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#14
#14
Venn I vas a leetle boy growing up in Bavaria, I tried to vatch die fussball in Deutschland, but I vas alvays falling asleep! Dann vun day my Amerikan neighbor vas vatching someding on der television. “Vas ist das?” I asked him! He said “Das ist die “University of Tennessee Volunteers” fussball!” Vell, I vatched ein leetle bit und bevor you know it, I vas in love mit dem team!

True story.

😉
 
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#15
#15
VolnGermany said:
Venn I vas a leetle boy growing up in Bavaria, I tried to vatch die fussball in Deutschland, but I vas alvays falling asleep! Dann vun day my Amerikan neighbor vas vatching someding on der television. “Vas ist das?” I asked him! He said “Das ist die “University of Tennessee Volunteers” fussball!” Vell, I vatched ein leetle bit und bevor you know it, I vas in love mit dem team!

True story.

😉
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Lmao!!! Is it wrong that I am reading your post while hearing Christoph Waltz's voice from Inglorious Bastards?
 
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#16
#16
London Vol said:
Well I think I qualify for this :)

Plain and simple the colors, so please only play in Orange/White and White/Orange (I dont see Alabama in Green/Yellow or Brown/Cream to attract players, its the tradition and sadly the size of the NIL)
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I love London! Other than Heathrow airport that place sucks lol
 
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#17
#17
Stoked said:
Born, raised, and still live in BBN. Majority of every single person I know is a Kitty Cat fan. I even attended many UK football games growing up because my grandfather had season tickets. They sucked and I wasn't a fan at all. The Hefty Lefty (RIP) was fun to watch, but he never made me a fan of them...

It was actually Chris Lofton and Bruce Pearl that made a fan of the Big Orange! Strangely, I grew up only liking basketball. It was later on that football became my favorite sport, and strangely enough it was during our dark years... the Dooley and Butchie era is where my obsession with football started.

So in essence, I didn't get to even enjoy 98'. I was under ten and I wasn't a fan yet. So, I have yet to see us win one sadly. I do take honor that I'm certainly not a bandwagon fan though lol.
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You in Mason Co?
 
#18
#18
1980 Alabama game was the ABC game of the week. I was 8 and had never paid attention to UT football because I was obsessed with the Steelers (NFL was all over antenna TV and UT football was not yet). My friends at school were mostly Bama fans and talking smack about UT, and I bucked up because I could not conceive being a fan of the state 30 minutes drive south. Who is actually a fan of the neighboring state's school?

I watched the game with my Dad. It was a slaughter because Bama was really good (#1) and UT was down that season. I decided that cannot continue, so I started listening to John Ward for every football game and learned to listen for Willie Gault and Reggie White's names, because that meant something big was happening or going to happen.

I fell in love with TN Orange because it was so distinct. I learned to hate Bama, not because their teams tended to be better than ours, but because of the people who loved Bama. They made me really dislike them and their team.

I felt redeemed when Johnny got us over the top in 82 when we beat the Bammers. My classmates who were Bama fans were pretty shocked that I got bragging rights for once. Ya'll know how well they handled that.
 
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#21
#21
Freak said:
How many of you are fans of Tennessee NOT because of: living in Tennessee, attending the university, or having family that are Vol fans?

I bet there are some interesting stories out there on how some became Vol fans.
Click to expand...

I have always been a basketball fan first and watching the Bernie and Ernie show with the promoting that Ray Mears did started my blood pumping orange.
 
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#22
#22
VolnGermany said:
Venn I vas a leetle boy growing up in Bavaria, I tried to vatch die fussball in Deutschland, but I vas alvays falling asleep! Dann vun day my Amerikan neighbor vas vatching someding on der television. “Vas ist das?” I asked him! He said “Das ist die “University of Tennessee Volunteers” fussball!” Vell, I vatched ein leetle bit und bevor you know it, I vas in love mit dem team!

True story.

😉
Click to expand...
If you grew up in Bavaria, why do you have a French accent? C'mon, quit BS-ing us!

You actually grew up in Alsace-Lorraine. Am I right or am I right?
 
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#23
#23
When I was a kid my Dad was in the U.S. Army and stationed in Vilseck, Germany as part of the M1-A1 development program (cool side story, he actually instructed BOTH Norman Schwarkkopf and Colin Powell and on the ins and outs of the main battle beast !!!).
Back then, Vilseck only got a couple of TV stations, one ABC and one NBC, and one radio station - Armed Forces Radio.

So come Saturday you only had a couple of choices...cartoons first then typically Wide World of Sports or whatever Big Ten game on the ABC station and ND football on NBC.
That left us to primarily tune into Armed Forces Radio, which carried mostly SEC games on Saturday afternoon and transitioned to Pacific coast games later in the evening.
My Mom was born and raised in Bluff City and Dad from Bristol (the TN side just off the Williams Street extension), so anytime Tennessee was on the radio it was tuned in - I think it filled that space inside them that was caused by homesick.

That golden, melodious voice coming from that tuner and out of those speakers on a fall afternoon sent chills through me and left me craving for more...hearing 'give him six', 'it's football time..', and 'to the statehouse' are very large, very meaningful parts of my childhood.
It was a time when our little family (only 5 of us) would sit and listen to the radio and talk, listen, cheer, cry, scream, and grow closer to each other as we shared the experience.

After returning stateside, Dad was stationed at Fort Knox in the heart of Big Blue country and Card country...imagine the disdain suffered when I strolled into school that first donning a bright orange ball cap.
But, then my two brothers walked in behind me and most people let us past without much excitement.
I've had the fortune of living the remainder of life not more than a few hours drive from Knoxville and have caught several games, but I will always remember those days in that living room wiht the old man sipping on a PBR, Mom writing a letter to her Mom, and us three boys in the floor with our eyes closed and seeing the imagery that John Ward eloquently prosed.

That's it...that's how I become a Vol For Life
 
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