Metro Pulse/Sports/The Orange Sea

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It's hard to swim when everyone's green around the gills

by Tony Basilio

John had a bit of culture shock a few weeks back. He was away for several years in active duty with the U.S. military. The last game he witnessed in Neyland Stadium was the classic '85 Tennessee win over Bo Jackson and Auburn. Out of the military and excited to see the Vols play, John had a chance to come home to Neyland Stadium last week. Only the home he came home to had lost its hominess.

For the first time since '74 our football Vols enjoyed a season opener a couple of weeks back while playing to a less than capacity crowd. As temperatures cooled a week later, the Marshall game also failed to sell out. Where's B.B. King when you need him? It seems that when it comes to the spark and fervor around Tennessee football, the thrill is gone. The days of the scalped Vol tickets going for a week's wages is a thing of the past. These days, you are lucky to command a decent meal at a local dive with a pair on the fifty in Neyland Stadium.

Admit it! Tennessee fans aren't as passionate and excited to cheer for their team as before. Perhaps a trip inside Neyland Stadium reveals why. Like most major sports, the fan experience in Neyland seems to have little to do with the actual contest on the field. At least that's the opinion of those who facilitate these contests. In the house the General built, we must sadly admit that the game day experience is no longer about football.

It's about the spots and the presentation of product. Please don't get offended by this, but here's the truth. Commercialism has ruined Neyland Stadium. Give me the old days when I could see the Hill and not Bi-Lo Commercials. Nothing against Bi-Lo, they are cited here because that annoying sounder that runs during their jumbo-tron spots goes right through me. In fact, there are nights in January where that shrill is still reverberating through my bones.

Why aren't people as excited about UT football as they were 10 years ago? Doug Dickey's plan worked to perfection. They built it and we came. Members of the Tennessee family (of which I'm a proud member) paid mightily for the Dickey Plan as well. It seemed like such a great idea. The Dickey Plan was simple. UT's football program needed dough for facilities that would attract top talent, and then UT would take its rightful place in the pantheon of college football. For Dickey and his troops, congratulations are in order!

Tennessee's athletic department is a standard bearer for excellence when it comes to solvency. The lords of UT sports even delivered their national championship to the starving Vol faithful. Yet, five years later it seems some folks are finding other ways to spend fall Saturdays. Why is Big Orange Fever subsiding? I believe the trace of apathy rearing its ugly head has little to do with the win-loss record. It has everything to do with the fact that a disconnect has been created between the living Vol fan and the team they love.

Poll any 10 Vol fans and ask them who their favorite team was in the past 20 years. Most will tell you the '85 team. Why? Because that team played hard and did the unexpected. But even more toward the point, Tennessee was the underdog at that time, with the dilapidated facilities. It was an ugly duckling, blue-collar football team that had the gall to line-up with Jimmie Johnson's mighty Miami Hurricanes and just say no. It was also a football team comprised of players who today probably wouldn't even be invited as walk-ons to Tennessee.

East Tennessee in general and Knoxville specifically connects with underdogs. Why? Because we are a community and region of underdogs. We are viewed by the rest of the state as a stopping off point between Nashville and Asheville. And we know this and revel in the disdain that people in other parts of the state feel for us. Here's the dirty little secret: Tennessee's football program can never be the underdog again.

That Volunteer spirit of the Biblical David has been replaced by huge buildings, fulfilled promises and crass commercialism. The spirit of the marketing Goliath never ceases from the moment you walk into Neyland Stadium. It never ends. A far cry from my first trip into those now overly commercialized confines.

The first time I walked into Neyland Stadium, I was so enthralled by its simplicity. It was a clear, crisp fall afternoon in '87, UT against Auburn. There were a few signs in the stadium, yet nothing obtrusive. You could feel the game. There was actually silence during time-outs. You could collect your thoughts and prepare for a thrilling ending. That game ended in a tie. A tie! Ties were so college football! Here was the largest stadium in the nation, and yet it had a Wrigley Field aura about it. Neyland Stadium had soul! It had a purpose. Something that was hard to put your finger on. It was an unrefined, un-mined treasure. Now amid the constant bombardment of something called sports entertainment it is being exploited.