That was a VERY special time. At that time my youngest son was stationed at Offutt .... the Air Force base in Omaha. Also, my vacation just happened to fall within the week of the College World Series. We we all elated. The Vols had made the Series and we were going to go see them as a family along with my son stationed in Omaha.
Then, the phone call came that stunned me....left me speechless. Eight businesses, or entities, in the Omaha area each take a team and hosts them while they are in town. Offutt took Tennessee. My son was walking by the office of the officer that was in charge of hosting the Vols. As he walked on down the hall he heard someone from in the office say, "Hey! That guy that just went by knows Delmonico!" They called for him to come back into the room where the person in charge asked if it was true he knew the head coach. "Rod? Yeah, sure, I used to work out with a couple of the coaches and some of the players would watch". Both of the officers looked at each other with big, wide eyes and looked at my son with big grins. "Well, Airman Burress, how would you like to host the Tennessee baseball team?"
Wow! Can you believe that? He was all for that...bigtime. As he was walking on down the hall after the meeting he heard someone shout, "There he goes!" He turned to see two television crews running all over each other in a dead heat to run him down. The local Omaha stations wanted to interview him. It was a good story.....Tennessee boy from the Knoxville area hosts his own baseball team. I almost cried when I saw the television interview. During the interview all you had to do was look at his face....it was beaming with pride!
He stayed with the team for several days.....showing them all over the base and answering the hundreds of questions they threw at him. They looked for him at the game and after each game came to the end of the dugout and insisted he come down onto the field with them....which he did. I want to thank the team for being so nice to my boy. They truly were grateful to my son for being their host. This was a lifetime experience for him, the team, and my family as well. By the way, he called me today while flying over Pakistan on his way to Afghanistan.
Thanks Vols!