Holding forth to rename the arena floor
by Tony Basilio
University of Tennessee men's basketball coach Buzz Peterson has a tough task in front of him. He's trying to win at a program that has no soul.
He's trying to instill a sense of self in a program that has for too long suffered without one. He's attempting to do so by fostering awareness of the program's history; by instituting an open-door policy for former lettermen, even going so far as to organize get-togethers and reunions for players past. Coming from the North Carolina Family, Peterson understands the importance of tradition.
That said, it's time for the university to take a long-overdue step by recognizing the man who is the very soul of basketball tradition here at Tennessee. It's time for Athletic Director Mike Hamilton and the Tennessee brass to honor a legend among us, one of college basketball's all-time greats, former Tennessee head basketball Coach Ray Mears.
Ray Mears is Tennessee basketball. At least he was. An innovator of Big Orange proportions, Mears saw the game as an event. He coined the phrase Big Orange Country and birthed a nation of believers. His was a Big Orange Basketball Revolution.
He is Tennessee's all-time winningest coach with 278 wins and a 71.3 winning percentage. He won three outright SEC conference championships. And he amassed his record in 15 years, a feat rendered all the more remarkable when you consider that only two other coaches in the 80-plus year history of Tennessee basketball have presided for more than 10 seasons.
And not only did Mears develop Tennessee into a program with an identity, he also put the university on the map at a time when its football program floundered. Tennessee historian Walton Kaley put it best when he noted that Mears' run in the '70s provided Vol fans with "some of the most memorable times in UT sports in the past 40 years"— the Ernie and Bernie Show, packed houses, unprecedented national exposure in broadcast and print media alike...
By now, it's been well documented how Mears' run at UT was cut short by recurring bouts of depression. It's also been widely noted that for the last 20 years under former Athletic Director Doug Dickey, Tennessee hasn't seen fit to associate with him; this despite the fact that UT men's hoops have been but a Little Orange Shadow of the program he left behind in 1979.
Hamilton and Sports Information Director Bud Ford recently took an appropriate first step toward remedying that long-standing injustice, reserving a courtside space for Mears and his wife Dana at every home game this season. An obviously very touched Mears expressed to me recently how much the gesture meant to him.
But let's go a step farther. Back in 1996, then-state Rep. Tim Burchett led a movement to have the floor at Thompson Boling Arena renamed Ray Mears Court. Since the UT administration at the time was opposed to any association with the former coach, the measure was squashed in committee.
But today is a new day. North Carolina has its Dean Dome; Kentucky has its Rupp Arena; let me resurrect the notion that Tennessee's own home basketball games be held on Ray Mears Court. I'm not suggesting that we alter anything, just that we add his name to the court so that he will be forever honored in the hearts and minds of the Tennessee faithful.
Mike Hamilton, please repeat after me: Ray Mears Court at Thompson-Boling Arena. Can we do any less for the man who has meant so much to basketball in Tennessee?
Tune in and talk sports with "The Tony Basilio Show" each weekday from 3-6 p.m. on the network (670 WMTY-AM, 850 WKVL-AM, 1140 WLOD-AM, 1290 WATO-AM, or 1400 WGAP-AM).
January 8, 2004 * Vol. 14, No. 2
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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