OneManGang
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Tennessee vs The Maxims vs Missouri
Author's Note: I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere thanks and deepest gratitude to all our veterans. It is your sacrifice, your willingness to leave hearth and home and serve our nation that gives the rest of us the freedom to sit here and whine about coaches and other things that are truly meaningless in the Grand Scheme. Know that this Old Vol salutes you.
(Back to our regularly scheduled silliness.)
I am NOT a Vol fan. I AM a Vol.
I was sitting with one of my closest friends in this world Friday night at a Knoxville establishment known for cold adult malt beverages and a brace of televisions tuned to whatever sports programming happens to be available. As we quaffed products of the brewer's art and covered a variety of topics ranging from current events to the attributes of various members of the fairer sex wandering by, my friend mentioned that he had responded with the above quote to a question posited on another sports board: Are You a Vol Fan?
I pondered his statement and realized that my friend had uttered a profundity.
I am a Vol.
In professional football I follow Green Bay. I am a Packer fan. My younger son attends the University of Dayton. I am a Flyers fan.
The attachment I feel to the University of Tennessee transcends that.
I am a Vol.
It was that attachment which led me to send a ballistic missive in 2003 to then-Governor Phil Bredesen after the near-disastrous terms of Wood Gilley and John Schumaker as Presidents of UT stating, Dammit, Sir, I want MY university back! It was the passion expressed that led the Governor to respond with a very nice hand-written note saying he shared my feelings and promising to do better on the next hire.
I cannot put an exact date on when I became a Vol. Maybe it was while mowing Mrs. Cowan's yard in the late 60s listening to John Ward's call of a game through a cheap transistor radio with an earpiece. Maybe it was 20 September 1969 when your humble scribe entered Neyland Stadium for the first time to watch the Vols play the University of Chattanooga. Or perhaps it was that day in June 1975 when I stood in line at Stokely Athletics Center to pick up my first schedule as a UT student.
It doesn't really matter.
I became, and I still am - and will forever be - a Vol. It is an immutable fact as unchanging as the Sun rising in the East.
The realization has built over the years. One day I took my boys to the UT store in Stokely. I wandered out of the shop and found one of the old portals into the arena open. I went in and looked around. I stopped and just stood there, stock-still as I literally HEARD the echoes of games from long past. I SAW Ray Mears in his signature Orange blazer. I saw Bernard King blowing past bewildered Kentucky Wildcats as the assembled multitude chanted Sit, Joe, SIT! at then Cat Head Joe B. Hall. I was also there when John Majors was introduced as the new Head Vol to a thunderous ovation in 1977. Good times, good times.
I know my University. I treasure her in spite of all her failings and foibles. In some cases I treasure her BECAUSE of the failings and foibles. I cannot make it all the way through the Alma Mater without choking up. I must admit I did mortify my eldest at his orientation when alums were invited to stand and sing it. I sang the second verse, which really sums up a lot of how I feel:
What torches kindled at that flame
Have passed from hand to hand
What hearts cemented in that name
Bind land to stranger land.
My heart is cemented in that name. It transcends any itinerant coach or down season. I admit it, I'd be back if they hired Richard Simmons.
The curtain would appear to be coming down on the Dooley era. There are markers when one just knows it is over. In 1992, Little Man Stewart was stuffed on a two-point conversion against South Carolina in Columbia. At that point it was clear John Majors would not be coach much longer. I felt a similar vibe as Tyler Bray's pass on 4th-and-three in overtime fell to the greensward of Shields-Watkins field.
This is when the General stands tall. He left us a legacy, a roadmap if you will, of how to fix things. Despite the fact he was a Texan who played at West Point, the General showed us all what it means to be a Vol. Go and shake hands with a man who played for him and you will understand.
All together now:
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE!
3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
7. Carry the fight to the opponent and keep it there for sixty minutes.
Seven Maxims.
Nine sentences.
It is that simple.
And it is that complex.
I know not how many more seasons I will be privileged to witness on The Hill. None of us do. But if I live forever or if I die today one thing can be said:
I am a Vol.
MAXOMG
Author's Note: I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere thanks and deepest gratitude to all our veterans. It is your sacrifice, your willingness to leave hearth and home and serve our nation that gives the rest of us the freedom to sit here and whine about coaches and other things that are truly meaningless in the Grand Scheme. Know that this Old Vol salutes you.
(Back to our regularly scheduled silliness.)
I am NOT a Vol fan. I AM a Vol.
I was sitting with one of my closest friends in this world Friday night at a Knoxville establishment known for cold adult malt beverages and a brace of televisions tuned to whatever sports programming happens to be available. As we quaffed products of the brewer's art and covered a variety of topics ranging from current events to the attributes of various members of the fairer sex wandering by, my friend mentioned that he had responded with the above quote to a question posited on another sports board: Are You a Vol Fan?
I pondered his statement and realized that my friend had uttered a profundity.
I am a Vol.
In professional football I follow Green Bay. I am a Packer fan. My younger son attends the University of Dayton. I am a Flyers fan.
The attachment I feel to the University of Tennessee transcends that.
I am a Vol.
It was that attachment which led me to send a ballistic missive in 2003 to then-Governor Phil Bredesen after the near-disastrous terms of Wood Gilley and John Schumaker as Presidents of UT stating, Dammit, Sir, I want MY university back! It was the passion expressed that led the Governor to respond with a very nice hand-written note saying he shared my feelings and promising to do better on the next hire.
I cannot put an exact date on when I became a Vol. Maybe it was while mowing Mrs. Cowan's yard in the late 60s listening to John Ward's call of a game through a cheap transistor radio with an earpiece. Maybe it was 20 September 1969 when your humble scribe entered Neyland Stadium for the first time to watch the Vols play the University of Chattanooga. Or perhaps it was that day in June 1975 when I stood in line at Stokely Athletics Center to pick up my first schedule as a UT student.
It doesn't really matter.
I became, and I still am - and will forever be - a Vol. It is an immutable fact as unchanging as the Sun rising in the East.
The realization has built over the years. One day I took my boys to the UT store in Stokely. I wandered out of the shop and found one of the old portals into the arena open. I went in and looked around. I stopped and just stood there, stock-still as I literally HEARD the echoes of games from long past. I SAW Ray Mears in his signature Orange blazer. I saw Bernard King blowing past bewildered Kentucky Wildcats as the assembled multitude chanted Sit, Joe, SIT! at then Cat Head Joe B. Hall. I was also there when John Majors was introduced as the new Head Vol to a thunderous ovation in 1977. Good times, good times.
I know my University. I treasure her in spite of all her failings and foibles. In some cases I treasure her BECAUSE of the failings and foibles. I cannot make it all the way through the Alma Mater without choking up. I must admit I did mortify my eldest at his orientation when alums were invited to stand and sing it. I sang the second verse, which really sums up a lot of how I feel:
What torches kindled at that flame
Have passed from hand to hand
What hearts cemented in that name
Bind land to stranger land.
My heart is cemented in that name. It transcends any itinerant coach or down season. I admit it, I'd be back if they hired Richard Simmons.
The curtain would appear to be coming down on the Dooley era. There are markers when one just knows it is over. In 1992, Little Man Stewart was stuffed on a two-point conversion against South Carolina in Columbia. At that point it was clear John Majors would not be coach much longer. I felt a similar vibe as Tyler Bray's pass on 4th-and-three in overtime fell to the greensward of Shields-Watkins field.
This is when the General stands tall. He left us a legacy, a roadmap if you will, of how to fix things. Despite the fact he was a Texan who played at West Point, the General showed us all what it means to be a Vol. Go and shake hands with a man who played for him and you will understand.
All together now:
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE!
3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
7. Carry the fight to the opponent and keep it there for sixty minutes.
Seven Maxims.
Nine sentences.
It is that simple.
And it is that complex.
I know not how many more seasons I will be privileged to witness on The Hill. None of us do. But if I live forever or if I die today one thing can be said:
I am a Vol.
MAXOMG
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