It's Great to be a Tennessee VOL!

Usually in the fall, there’s nothing better than some good ole Tennessee football. This year is a little different than the others. Cuz we friggin’ suck. Aw but I do still love my Vols more than anything.

I’ve been going to Tennessee games for as long as I can remember. And man, were we terrible back then. Thanks, Johnny Majors. For showing up drunk and doing nothing.

I remember my mom and I went to see Tennessee play Florida one year. I was really little, and it was a home game. We lost, of course, like we still do to those rotten Gators, but we lost bad – got shut out I think. All the UT fans were sullen and sad, shuffling quietly back to our cars, while the Florida fans were shouting and taunting us. I didn’t understand why they were being so mean. They should be happy they won. So I asked my mom why they were doing that. She said, “Cuz they're a bunch of assholes.”

Yes, no matter what, we love our Tennessee Volunteers. Glorious or hideous, we’ll always love em. And that’s why we dragged our 1-3 asses down to Neyland Stadium Saturday in hopes that we could beat a team we’d never even heard of. We tried to give them the game, but they didn’t take it so we won 13 to 9.

Q: How would you compare Tennessee’s defense, offense and special teams?
A: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Q: What are UT’s chances of returning to the Georgia Dome this year?
A: Gone With the Wind.

Q: What do you think about Vanderbilt being the only undefeated team in the SEC?
A: Revenge of the Nerds.
(This one could apply to Duke’s football team too. Sorry, Blue Devils, but we need our coach back.)

I think the best thing about going to a UT game is the rednecks. I love rednecks. I’m not even trying to be mean or make fun of them. I'm serious – I really love Tennessee rednecks. A man dressed in camo (besides orange and white, camo is Tennessee’s third color that only true fans wear) gave us directions on Saturday. Once I went to a game and parked in a yard where the guy taking the money offered me a swig of one of the surrounding counties’ finest. That’s moonshine, y’all. And you know I took it.

To tell the truth, I think I like the Yankees so much because going to Yankee Stadium reminds me of Neyland Stadium. Turns out New Yorkers are not that different from rednecks. They have a lot of spirit. They get really into the game, shouting and yelling all the time. They even boo their own team because they demand absolute perfection. The loudest shouter in all of Neyland has seats near ours. "Dadblammit, REF! Open your EYES!" He’s also a deacon at our church. And everyone, from the smallest kids to the girliest girls, knows the players’ names and the team's stats.

Q: How many UT fans does it take eat a 'possum?
A: Two. One to eat and one to watch out for traffic.
(The funniest thing about this joke is about ten years ago a State Rep. from Knoxville sponsored a law making it legal to eat roadkill in the Great State of Tennessee.)

I think I love fireworks so much because fireworks mean Tennessee scored. Even the air above the stadium celebrates in orange and white. Seriously - look at that picture. Literally every person in the stadium is wearing orange. You really have to love your team to wear Big Orange. It doesn’t look good on anyone and is so bright it reflects sunlight. It’s blinding.

Q: Why did fans choose orange as Tennessee’s color?
A: So we could go huntin' on Friday, go to the game on Saturday and pick up trash on the highway Sunday.

I got my master’s at the University of Georgia. A school in the Old South nestled inside the Classic City. I loved it, but be clear on this – my two favorite teams are Tennessee and whoever plays Georgia. Those fans are nasty mean. A five year old yelled “Fuck Tennessee!” at me while his dad laughed. One guy called me a stupid bitch. I told him he was a sore loser, which you know is true. Though I hear it’s worse in Gainesville. One girl I knew had bricks thrown at her car. SEC Football = Full Scale War

And my belief that all girls in the SEC knew their football was totally obliterated. Most of those Georgia girls don’t even know what team their school is playing next weekend. But they do love their little red and black sundresses. A confusing tradition. How can you walk up concrete steps and stand on bleachers in heels? More importantly, why would you?

In Tennessee, we wear jeans and the aforementioned Big Orange. We leave our heels at home for church Sunday morning, where we go to pray for next weekend's game. Our purses are not cute for their sole purpose is to stash Jack Daniels. We shout as loud as the boys. We cuss when we get mad at the special teams (cuz it’s always special teams' fault – the only thing special about them is they should ride a short bus to games). For all good boys and girls, football is life.

Q: Why aren’t there any prostitutes in Tennessee?
A: Cuz they’re all VOLUNTEERS!

That’s a terrible joke.

Rocky Top is the single greatest anthem of all time. I think it’s even better than the national anthem, and I don’t care if a Republican calls me unpatriotic for saying so. It’s got everything. Moonshine, wild women, mountains, rocks, dirt. We love our fight song so much, we sing it incessantly. We sing it in the car on the way to the game. We sing it at the tailgate. We sing it while walking to the stadium. It’s our ringtone, our ringback tone, our personal theme song.

We play it when we get a first down, a field goal, a touchdown, a good call or when Fat Phil finds the last Krispy Kreme. I was trying to explain how much we love Rocky Top to a friend once and decided to count just how many times we played it in a single game. 33. And that was a game against South Carolina when South Carolina was bad (pre-Spurier, Carolina Girl!).

When we finished the upper deck onto our stadium after winning the NCAA National Freaking Championship in 1998, fans that sat up there were disappointed with their seats because it was too hard to hear the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. Which meant it was too hard to hear Rocky Top all 33 times per game. The band listened to the people, and now there’s a traveling mini-band whose entire purpose is to make their way across the upper deck playing Rocky Top.

Rocky Top you'll always be
Home sweet home to me
Good ol' Rocky Top (woo!)
Rocky Top Tennessee,
Rocky Top Tennessee

GO VOLS!

We'll always love you. Even when you’re bad.

* I wanna give a big "Go Vols" shout-out to govolsxtra.com for linking to this little blog of mine. Visit that site for all the latest updates about how the Vols will resuscitate the football program. And if any of the powers that be are reading (eh hem, this means you, Mike Hamilton!), please get Fulmer to retire so we can bring David Cutcliffe back home to be our head coach. Fulmer's a good coach and a great vol, but it's time to say goodbye. We want Cutcliffe!!! NOW!