Knoxify

For peo­ple who don’t bleed orange, the fierce, irra­tional loy­alty of Ten­nessee foot­ball fans is per­plex­ing. You might think we’re unbal­anced and over-the-top in our alle­giance to the Vols. You might think we’re blithely unaware of big­ger issues and that we ought to get our pri­or­i­ties in order. What we need is a real­ity check, right?

Well, let me explain that this is real­ity in Big Orange Coun­try. And it’s big­ger than foot­ball. It has to do with our core val­ues, our self-awareness and our very iden­tity. There’s some­thing almost mys­ti­cal about our con­nec­tion to Team. Eric Berry, Mon­tario Hard­esty and Jonathan Cromp­ton are fam­ily. When Lane Kif­fin dis­re­spects UT, he dis­re­spects us all.

A his­to­rian once explained to me that because of our shared Scots-Irish her­itage, peo­ple of Appalachian descent are clan­nish, sus­pi­cious of out­siders and deeply devoted to kith and kin. Although the Vol Nation is more cul­tur­ally diverse now, per­haps some of this clan­nish­ness remains. We aren’t just fans – we’re blood broth­ers and sis­ters. Pat Sum­mitt embod­ies this the­ory. Her loy­alty to the Vols is part of her DNA. When she went into labor with Tyler in a plane on a recruit­ing trip, she refused to land. “This baby is not going to be born in Penn­syl­va­nia,” she famously insisted. “My baby will be born in Ten­nessee.” And so he was.

The fact that Knoxville’s loy­al­ties were divided in the Civil War is a painful chap­ter in our his­tory, because fam­i­lies were lit­er­ally split down the mid­dle, with sons fight­ing in dif­fer­ent uni­forms on oppos­ing sides. They say time heals all wounds, but those scars are espe­cially deep. That’s why our shared alle­giance to UT Foot­ball is so impor­tant in East Ten­nessee. It goes across polit­i­cal lines and is not defined by race, creed or socio-economic dis­par­i­ties. If you can sing “Rocky Top,” you’re part of this great her­itage that goes back to 1891.

Accord­ing to Wikipedia, our beloved Vols have amassed a suc­cess­ful tra­di­tion for well over a cen­tury, with a com­bined record of 783 – 332-53 rank­ing us ninth on the list of all-time win­ningest major col­lege pro­grams as well as sec­ond on the list of win­ningest SEC pro­grams, just behind Alabama’s Crim­son Tide and ahead of South­ern California’s (USC) Tro­jans, I might add. Our all-time rank­ing in bowl appear­ances is third (tied with USC), and we’re fourth in all-time bowl vic­to­ries. We boast six national titles with the last national cham­pi­onship in 1998. How ‘bout them Vols!

Photo © 2009 Gar­rett Craw­ford, All Rights Reserved.

Johnny Majors is part of it. So is Phillip Ful­mer. It’s easy to under­stand why these Ten­nessee born and bred play­ers and coaches are loyal to UT. But so is Bruce Pearl. He absolutely gets the impor­tance of our tra­di­tion. The way he asked Coach Mears’ per­mis­sion to don the sacred orange jacket touched our hearts. And when he apol­o­gized for tar­nish­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of our Uni­ver­sity after the recent New Year’s Day arrests of four bas­ket­ball play­ers, we loved him for it.

I’m a third-generation alumna of the Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee, where I received both my under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees. I’m proud to have grad­u­ated Phi Beta Kappa from UT. I’d put my finance pro­fes­sors, Harold Black, John Wachow­icz and Jim Wans­ley, up against any­body in acad­e­mia. I’ve done post-graduate work under Ron Tay­lor, Eric Haley and Margie Mor­ri­son, inter­na­tion­ally respected schol­ars in their field of qual­i­ta­tive research in adver­tis­ing. I’ve even taught as an adjunct instruc­tor in UT’s Col­lege of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Information.

But my alle­giance to UT begins with foot­ball. My mother’s child­hood home on Tem­ple Avenue was where McClung Tower now stands. She remem­bers walk­ing across the grass to attend games as a child. Even fur­ther back than that, my great-uncle, W.K. McClure, played right end for the Vols from 1912 – 1915. He had a seat on the 50-yard-line the rest of his life and never missed a home game until his death in 1986, the old­est liv­ing let­ter­man at the time. Grow­ing up, my brother, sis­ter and I would watch our par­ents leave on foot­ball Sat­ur­days, dressed to the nines, while we stayed home, glued to the radio broad­casts of John Ward.

I was at Ney­land Sta­dium in 1984 when we ended an 11-game series los­ing streak with a 28 – 27 win over Alabama. I was there in 1992 when we beat 4th ranked Florida 31 – 14 in a down­pour, light­en­ing streak­ing the sky as we did the mock chomp to cel­e­brate. I attended every one of Pey­ton Manning’s home games. And my then-7-year-old son stayed up well past mid­night for our six-OT win against Arkansas (41 – 38) in 2002.

So when Lane Kif­fin behaved like a boor­ish ingrate, tram­pling the sacred orange ban­ner with which we entrusted him, it hurt. I’ll admit he always looked like he was chew­ing nails on the side­line, never smil­ing until his recent USC press con­fer­ence. I was fond of Monte Kif­fin, with his endear­ing stoop and comb over, not to men­tion his inci­sive grasp of defen­sive strat­egy. But I have to say, I hope my own son grows up with more integrity and char­ac­ter than Monte’s son did.

My heart goes out to our play­ers who, like us fans, bought in to what Lane Kif­fin said. They believed in and trusted him. Now they’re con­fused and angry, won­der­ing what the future holds for them and for the team. To those young men I say this: UT foot­ball is big­ger than the coach, big­ger than bricks and mor­tar, pads and hel­mets. UT foot­ball embod­ies courage and per­se­ver­ance and dreams. Being a Vol­un­teer means being part of some­thing larger than self. It’s a shared con­scious­ness, a greater good that you will take with you for the rest of your life.

My brother, Randy Mans­field, has lived away from Knoxville for the past 25 years, in LA for part of that time. He has a move­able shrine of UT sports mem­o­ra­bilia he takes with him wher­ever he goes. Peo­ple who aren’t from here don’t get it. I do. “Like a bea­con shin­ing bright” UT is his con­nec­tion to his child­hood. His alma mater rep­re­sents home, hearth and hap­pi­ness. Just as Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey pines for home no mat­ter where life’s jour­ney takes him, my brother craves that sense of belong­ing he can only find here in Ten­nessee.

So here’s to you old Ten­nessee, our Alma Mater true, we pledge in love and har­mony our loy­alty to you.

Photo © 2009 Gar­rett Craw­ford, All Rights Reserved.