Tennessee Football Is A Tradition
| | | Largest NCAA Division 1-A Football Stadium in the South 104,079 |
8/30/00
By Tom Mattingly
Highlights of article in Smokey's Tale
|  | | A new tradition in 1990. The walk down Yale Ave was rename to Peyton Manning Pass Dec of 97, to honor Peyton's achievements. The walk allows fans to get up close and personal with the team as they walk from Gibbs Hall to the stadium, two hours prior to the game. It has become a fan favorite. |
As we enter the 2000 season, there's really nothing better than Tennessee football, nothing better than the sight of Orange and White on Neyland Stadium or on gridirons across the south.
There's nothing better than hearing the "Pride of the Southland Marching Band's" pregame show or the "Vol Walk" or Bobby Denton saying "It's Football Time in Tennessee." It's something we eagerly anticipate each August and, when it finally arrives, there's no place any of us would rather be than somewhere near UT football.
Tennessee football is a tradition, a way of life. It dominates the life of Tennessee people in and out of season, whether it be the prospects the next week against Alabama or the current state of recruiting or the newest developments in spring practice.
|  | | Vols to enter the field just before the opening kickoff through a giant "T" formed by the "Pride of Southland" Marching Band. |
It's a 365-day a year proposition that, with the advent of the dot-coms, has become a 24-hour-a-day, 365 days a year proposition. Why is that?, you ask. The answer is simple. The fans have an investment in their team. They've followed the team for years, almost, in many cases, from their youth. They've watched the players grow up and have followed their careers closely.
|  | | The official mascot is Smokey, a rather pleasant blue tick coonhound that has been on the job since 1953. After a student poll revealed a desire to select a live mascot for the University of Tennessee, the UT Pep Club held a contest in 1953 to select a coon hound, a native breed of the state. |
Vol football is for the fans, the people who buy the tickets, make the donations and travel wherever the Vols play. And I mean wherever, coast-to-coast, border-to-border. It doesn't matter, Boston, Syracuse, the Meadowlands, the Rose Bowl, and venues associated with the SEC. Vol fans are passionate about their team.
It's literally amazing. There's something about hearing Tennessee songs, like "Rocky Top" the "Spirit of the Hill" on a hot August morning in Anaheim or outside a hotel in Springdale, Ark.
I enjoy the barbershop conversations, the talks on the steps of churches on Sunday afternoons before lunch, the countless talk shows and even chat rooms, whatever they are. No one wouldn't have it any other way.
Vol football is part of our lives. No doubt about it. That's why Vol fans under the age of 40 can talk cogently about Gene McEver, who played before they were born, or about Hank Lauricella's run against Texas in the 1951 Cotton Bowl.
Think about that when you make your way to Neyland Stadium this fall. When the stadium is full, when the band is playing, or when a young man in a Orange jersey finds his way to the Orange and White checkerboards of either end zone, there's no place you'd rather be.
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