Dan Fleser
Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava can’t wait to run through the Neyland Stadium tunnel on Saturday with teammate Bru McCoy and take the field together with him for the football season opener versus Chattanooga.
The Vols quarterback made a point last week of distinguishing the veteran wide receiver in that fashion. In doing so, Iamaleava was saying much more about their relationship.
“He has brought me along a long way,” Iamaleava said. “Learning from Bru how to carry yourself on and off the field, I feel like I’ve learned a great amount.”
Iamaleava’s sentiment recalled a quote from the late Don Meyer, who coached basketball and had a great influence on, among many others, Lady Vols coaching legend Pat Summitt. Meyer coached for 38 seasons and amassed 923 victories. His big career numbers could be distilled to such nuggets of wisdom as the following: “Plays are not as important as players and players are not as important as teammates.”
Along with Iamaleava’s testimony, big numbers related to Tennessee athletics also were news last week. Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello signed a five-year extension that made him the highest paid coach in his sport at $3 million per year. The Tennessee Fund, meanwhile, set a fund-raising record for a third consecutive fiscal year, reaching $332 million. The two announcements were, to some extent, related.
“Our continued self-generated revenue growth is vital to building the best athletics department in the nation,” said Tennessee athletic director Danny White. “The historic fund-raising total is a prime example of our aggressive efforts to generate resources for reinvestment in our student-athletes and coaches.”
NIL is another of the pistons that powers this ever-growing machine at UT. As part of his latest deal, Iamaleava supplied his teammates last week with Vol-themed headphones.
One of the biggest values associated with this commerce and those numbers boils down to the camaraderie it helps engender and how that impacts actual competition. Iamaleava and McCoy are a good example.
Their relationship might not have flourished if McCoy hadn’t suffered a severe ankle injury that ended his 2023 season prematurely and delayed his professional career. McCoy underwent four surgeries and spent 10 days in the hospital. The prospects of playing with Iamaleava powered him through his rehabilitation.
“You want to be available for a guy like Nico, especially since I didn’t get a chance for those reps in the spring with him,” McCoy said. “It was the motivation for me to keep pushing it.”
UT offensive coordinator Joey Halzle has noticed how much time the quarterback and receiver spend together watching football practice video, sorting through the particulars to forge a shared perspective.
“They watch (and say) ‘How did you see this?’” Halzle said, “and they can get synched up.”
In discussing a particular play, the two players become better teammates. Along with being important, the progression – even in today’s context of burgeoning, big-money athletics – remains priceless.
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who has covered University of Tennessee athletics since 1988. He is a member of the Tennessee Sportswriters and the U.S. Basketball Writers Halls of Fame. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.