by Roy Exum
posted March 3, 2008
 Roy Exum |
Now comes the new line that the big-orange ‘T’ in “Tennessee,” as in Volunteer football, stands for “trouble” and the difference here is that once it is in print, it is also not nearly as funny for a far-different reason. UT’s football program has developed quite a reputation and it isn’t about winning.
I bring this up because last Tuesday the long-time sports editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, John Adams, came out with a scathing column that was headlined “UT football needs a change at the top” and, in the wake of eight different player arrests in the last six weeks, suggested head coach Phillip Fulmer should be removed because “his program is out of control.”
As one who has studied sports in the South for the past 50 years and, more particularly, Tennessee football for what seems like forever, when the sports editor of the city’s largest newspaper calls for a coach’s head that’s a pretty big thing.
On Friday, three days later, Coach Fulmer had a “guest column” in the same newspaper and the headline cited his “first job is as an educator, a mentor.” The coach also said it was the first time in his career that he had ever responded to a “negative column” in writing and, by the time Coach Fulmer got to the paragraph where he defended his “integrity, my sense of fairness, or values as a man,” it was hard to tell if the “T” stood for “tempest” or “turmoil” or “madder than spit.”
Ever since the two opposing views have been presented, “The Big Orange Nation” has gone nuts and it is the talk of the town. To hear some or to read the faceless blogs on the Internet, you’d think a figurative glove has been thrown on the ground and Knoxville’s heralded chapter of “The Legion of the Miserable,” a catch-all phrase for those who enjoy wallowing in life’s muck, is working overtime with three shifts a day.
To me, it is nothing more than business as usual in Knoxville. There is something about Smokey Mountain water that includes some sort of hyper-active ingredient that stirs the crazies to a higher level than in other places and I have watched it for long enough to testify in a courtroom to the East Tennessee phenomenon.
When I first started going to Neyland Stadium’s press box the News-Sentinel sports editor was Tom Siler, who was one of the best ever, but the UT zanies were always on him about something. Then Marvin West was the sports editor – a very gifted guy - and they hanged him in effigy several times.
Al Browning, one of the greatest friends I ever had, endured a couple of threats every day before he was finally run out of town in much the same manner a moving van was once dispatched to former coach Bill Battle’s house, and now John, who has been at the News-Sentinel helm for many years, has them in such a fine froth they are threatening to blow up his double-wide.
One time after I predicted Auburn would beat Tennessee the next day I traveled to LSU to cover the SEC “game of the week” and my wife called me to frantically say she’d gotten several calls from some lulu who was going to burn down our house. I laughed, telling her those types always forget to bring matches, but the police watched the house just the same before Auburn won by three touchdowns or something the next day.
Since then, the world has changed dramatically. The advent of sports call-in shows, where some buffoon going only by the name of “Louie in Lewisburg,” can make an outlandish statement that all the other listeners will then swear under oath is true, was bad enough.
But the Internet, with all these rah-rah sites where you can post any lie you wish, is still unfathomable to me and, to the hatemongers who walk among us, it is better than the day South Central Bell connected the KKK to a party line.
The most unbelievable part of the whole thing is these people are today the very same ones who are gleefully pushing a picture of their own coach, superimposed in police garb, across the Internet with the words “Fulmer for Sheriff” and the vow, “So He Can Be Near His Players.”
There is even a national competition on a website called “fulmercup.com” where college football teams across the country are awarded points when players are arrested for off the field incidents. At the end of the season that site, too, names a somewhat dubious national champion.
Are you kidding me, if I am making over $2 million a year I’d have a mandatory milk-and-cookies party every night before the police dogs would roam the halls after lights out. No immature kids, no matter how fast they run or how hard they tackle, are gonna’ bust up me and momma’s playhouse.
I’m not saying keep the UT players under total lock-and-key, but I would take an iron-fisted approach until everyone in the program realized playing football is a privilege. Trust me, you wouldn’t hear a peep out of my babies. Remember too, this isn’t about the eight who have just been arrested, it is about the others who do the right thing, be it score touchdowns, are prompt to class, or visit the kids in the hospitals.
I don’t think Tennessee football is out of control and, let’s face it, the boo-birds aren’t nearly as loud as they were after the Florida or Alabama games, but just as we have ignored the “Legion of the Miserable” for almost 50 years, there must be a rigorous accountability to those much quieter and loyal faithful who buy those season tickets and adore their Big Orange for the right reasons.
When a grade-school boy knows that starter Britton Colquitt, just suspended again after a fifth alcohol-related offense, won’t be able to play until this fall’s Georgia game or can name “The Nine Wives Of Travis Henry,” we aren’t teaching him the same lesson UT football has forged within the rest of us down through the years.
I don’t think UT should fire Phillip Fulmer, but, brother, I also believe he should darn sure do something about that.
Royexum@aol.com
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