Tennessee vs The Maxims vs South Carolina

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OneManGang

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#1
Tennessee vs The Maxims vs South Carolina

Over the last twenty-five years or so there has been a recurring theme in UT athletics. In all too many cases, a coach's tenure has ended with one particular play or incident that left no doubt they were “done” even if the coach in question stayed through the end of the season.

In 1992, Johnny Majors' fabled career at Tennessee truly ended when James “Little Man” Stewart was stuffed attempting to dive for a game-tying two-point conversion. Majors coached the rest of the year but was let go after the Vanderbilt game. Few remember that the Vols made it to a bowl game that year.

In 2001, this writer was sitting in a hotel room in Lexington watching the Vols under Jerry Green take on UK in nearby Rupp Arena. A prickly character at best, Green did little to endear himself personally to the VolNation but he did win games – a LOT of games. On this particular evening, star UT point guard and resident drama queen Tony Harris had what was described as an “ankle injury” and sat out the match in street clothes at the end of the Tennessee bench scowling and glowering whenever the cameras focused on him.

Sometime in the second half a scuffle broke out after a close play near the end of the Kat bench. Harris jumped up and ran, with no apparent difficulty, full tilt down the sideline and jumped into the melee. Your fearless scribe remembers thinking, “Green is DONE.” And so he was. He was excused from the premises at the end of the season despite having won 89 games with four straight NCAA tournament appearances in his four-year stint in Knoxville.

More recently, in 2012, the curtain rang down on Derek Dooley's problematic time as HeadVol when a Tyler Bray pass fell to the greensward on 4th and 3 in overtime against Missouri.

On Saturday, a Jarrett Guarantano pass sailed through the outstretched hands of Brandon Johnson with no time left from the USC 2. A touchdown and successful PAT would have secured a much-needed win for the Big Orange. Vol fans can be forgiven for wondering if history was repeating.

This writer refuses to add his voice to those calling for Butch Jones to be dismissed forthwith. I wish him and the Vols success and will stand back and let people who make a heckuva lot more money than I do make the decisions we pay them to make.

* * * * * * * * *

One does not rise to the highest reaches of Army command without becoming adept at reading entrails and tea leaves to discern the eddies and currents of Army politics. So it was on 18 February 1944 that Major General John Lucas, commanding VI Corps at Anzio received a message from his boss, 5th Army commander Mark W. Clark that effective immediately, Major General Lucian K. Truscott was named “Deputy Corps Commander.” Lucas quickly grasped that the innards involved in this missive were his own.

The Mediterranean Theater of World War II is very much the “forgotten” theater of the European Campaign. Many, many books and movies have been made about the campaign in northwest Europe from D-Day to the end in May of 1945. Very, very few have seen the light of day in this country about the bitter fighting up the “boot” of Italy. While the Italians had surrendered shortly after the fall of Sicily the Germans saw a chance to tie up significant Allied forces at minimal cost to themselves. The Germans forced the American Fifth Army on the west and British Eighth Army on the east to fight for every hill, mountain, river, and village along a series of defensive lines. By the beginning of 1944, the two armies had been battering against the Gustav Line and others like it suffering crippling casualties for minimal gain for well over six months.

Winston Churchill had sold the entire Italian Campaign to his American allies as a decisive strike against the “soft underbelly” of German-controlled Europe. It proved to be a war of mud, mules, mountains and frustration.

Like his opponent Adolf Hitler, Churchill was a combat veteran, had served in the trenches in the Great War and – most importantly – each considered himself a far superior strategist to any of the generals running the respective armies. But while Hitler was focused on minutia – maps in his headquarters showed unit positions down to battalion and company level – Churchill waged war with a broad brush.

Churchill groped for a solution to the deadlock in Italy. His gaze fell on a pair of small towns about equidistant between the Gustav Line and the ultimate prize in Italy, Rome.

Thus it came about in January of 1944 that 54 year-old John Lucas found himself in charge of landings at Anzio with his VI Corps reinforced by several British units. Anzio sits in a coastal plain that extends back about dozen miles to the Alban Hills crossing a malarial swamp bisected by only two roads leading to the interior. The attractive part was that those two roads intersected with the main north-south highways and rail lines the Germans were using to supply the Gustav Line.

General Clark met with Lucas on the eve of the landings where Lucas restated his reservations about the operation. Clark to Lucas not to worry but then told him, “don't stick your neck out.”

The landings on 22 January 1944 were a complete surprise to the Germans. Lucas' men stormed ashore against scant resistance and soon had carved out a good-sized beachhead. Lucas' subordinates figured their next objective would be the Alban Hills which towered 3000 feet over the plain and marshes. However, Lucas refused to move until he felt he had been properly supplied and enough troops had landed to completely secure the beachhead. Nine days later VI Corps finally moved out only to find that in the interim, the Germans had massed a near-equal number of units in the hills and the advance soon dissolved into a bloody whelter.

For another month, VI Corps sat where it was. Frustration mounted at every headquarters above Lucas'. But Lucas had his own problems. From the Alban Hills the Germans could literally see every movement in the beachhead and direct artillery fire or air strikes with devastating accuracy. The day before Clark's message arrived, the German struck. Gray-clad Panzergrenadiers marched alongside tanks and armored cars and came damned close to breaking the American lines.

Truscott came to VI Corps HQ and immediately began to change how the entire mission would be conducted. Acting under Lucas' name he essentially took command and found a way to mass the fires of the American artillery to blunt the German attacks and stave off disaster.

For Lucas, though, the die was cast. On 22 February Clark and a host of other higher-highers came to Anzio, toured the battlefront, had dinner and told Lucas his services as Corps commander were no longer needed.

No blame should attach to General Truscott. He was one of the most highly-regarded generals of the war. No posh headquarters for him. When he wanted to find out what was happening at the front, he would summon his Jeep and driver and set off to see for himself. Many a battalion or company commander was stunned to find himself talking to a three-star general outside a mud-encrusted HQ tent so far forward the Germans could hear them light cigarettes.

The Gustav Line was finally sundered after appalling casualties (US Fifth Army suffered 92,000 casualties in February ALONE) in June and Fifth Army linked up with VI Corps and headed for Rome. Mark Clark had to feel this was his moment in the sun. Surely now, his men would get the recognition they deserved and that glory would reflect well on one Mark W. Clark. Army photographers gleefully sent images of American tanks clattering past the Colosseum to be printed in Extra editions of American newspapers. Those editions reached the streets on 5 June 1944.

After the liberation of Rome the Allies encountered yet another German defense line and the war of mud, mules and mountains went on.

* * * * * * *

So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?

1.The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.

A perusal of the post-game summary shows a depressing number of false-start penalties on the Vols. Great Day, boys, if you can't remember the snap count watch the freaking ball! That, and nobody has yet come up with an adequate explanation of just how this “deep and talented” offense we were told of pre-season can go ten quarters without scoring ONE touchdown.

2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way … SCORE!

There has been no, none, zero, nil, zip, nada “killer instinct” displayed so far. Like Lucas at Anzio, the Vols seem content to wait on someone else to make the play. Unfortunately that player has not shown up yet.

3. If at first the game – or the breaks – go against you, don’t let up … PUT ON MORE STEAM!

At some point in a tight ball game a team has got to reach down and find that extra “something” that will carry them through to victory. Two Vol legends present at Saturday's debacle epitomize this. Al Wilson and Jason Witten brought the steam with them on every play and earned their status. If knowing that Al Wilson, who once challenged Peyton Manning during halftime of the 1997 SEC Championship Game for not giving his all, is watching you, how, in the name of All That Is Holy can you FAIL to give maximum effort?

4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.

The “protect the quarterback” part of this does not apply just to the offensive line. Receivers and ends have GOT to help out by working free and improvising to present their quarterback with a timely target.

5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle … THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.

“L'audace! L'audace! Toujours l'audace!” (Audacity! Audacity! Always audacity!) - George Smith Patton, Jr. quoting some French revolutionary.


6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.

Field goals do not equal touchdowns, no matter how good the kicker is. In the end, the kicker has to be in a position to win the game as well.

7. Carry the fight to South Carolina and keep it there for sixty minutes.

Frustration mounts.

Next up is the Mighty Integral of college football, the Alabama Crimson tide. A strong showing against the Pachyderms would go a long way toward showing us that, just maybe, better days are ahead.

As stated earlier, maybe we fans need to take a deep breath and tone down the rhetoric a bit. Napoleon once stated that, “in war the moral is to the physical as ten is to one.” So it is with football teams. The Vols desperately need a shot of confidence and hearing endless callers to radio stations and seeing posters on chat boards all whining “Jimmy, when we gowin' get a cowitch?” ain't helping.

Brick by Brick, Baby!

On a personal note, your scribe came to know a local veteran of the Italian Campaign. Dr. Elvyn Davidson was simply “Doc” to everyone who knew him. He was a proud veteran of the 92nd Division and was decorated for actions in the latter stages of the campaign. In 2006, Doc was named an
Honorary Prelate to His Holiness Benedict XVI in recognition for his services to his country, his community, and his church. Doc was a good friend, a fine doctor and a better man. He is missed.

MAXOMG

© 2017 Keeping Your Stories Alive


Suggested Reading:

Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle

Martin Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino (part of The U.S. Army in World War II series)

Carlo D'Este, Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome

An aerial view of the Anzio beachhead with the Alban Hills in the distance. (National Archives)
 

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#2
#2
At least your writing is a bright spot during a dim time. Thanks OMG.
 
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#4
#4
Thanks OMG. My dad fought in Italy. He never told us much and he’s gone now. I grew up listening to the Vols on the radio with him via John Ward. My proudest moment was when I snuck Dad into his first UT game on a student ticket!

He did so love the Tennessee Volunteers - and the United States of America.
 
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#7
#7
“L'audace! L'audace! Toujours l'audace!” (Audacity! Audacity! Always audacity!) - George Smith Patton, Jr. quoting some French revolutionary.

Heh, OMG, "some French revolutionary"...named Napoleon.* :)

Thanks as always for an entertaining write-up!




* You may be thinking of Georges Danton, who wrote, "Il nous faut que de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace" (We only need audacity, and again audacity, and always audacity) ... but it was Napoleon who took that sentence and shortened it into the more memorable line we cherish today. Napoleon's words were on the cover of my GDP battle book when I was a lieutenant, both the Audacity quote and a longer one that went something like this: "Go man, gallop! And remember, the world was made in seven days. I'll give you anything you ask of me but time." :good!:
 
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#9
#9
Again, another good article.

And again, another poor showing by the Vols.
 
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#10
#10
To Hell and Back
Anzio to the Alps
See Naples and Die
The Black Devil Brigade

The Italian campaign was a defenders dream. The narrow boot neutralized the allies material strength. The valleys and draws forced large units into chokepoints. A couple MG’s and a mortar team could stop a company. The fighting was protracted and bitter until the end.
 
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#11
#11
"My God. There we wuz an' here they wuz."

img341.jpg
 
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#12
#12
Heh, OMG, "some French revolutionary"...named Napoleon.* :)

Thanks as always for an entertaining write-up!




* You may be thinking of Georges Danton, who wrote, "Il nous faut que de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace" (We only need audacity, and again audacity, and always audacity) ... but it was Napoleon who took that sentence and shortened it into the more memorable line we cherish today. Napoleon's words were on the cover of my GDP battle book when I was a lieutenant, both the Audacity quote and a longer one that went something like this: "Go man, gallop! And remember, the world was made in seven days. I'll give you anything you ask of me but time." :good!:

In the movie, Patton said it came from Frederick the Great.
 
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#13
#13
Always a great read... especially like your stepping back and avoiding becoming entangled in the "lynch mob" atmosphere... I am doing the same. VFL... Go Vols!!
 
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#16
#16
Those movie script writers, what a bunch.


[because the German, Frederick, always went around saying pithy things in French, heh]

Actually, Ol' Freddie disliked the German language and preferred to speak and write in French. Part of the reason was that French was considered the "language" of The Enlightenment and Frederick wanted to be an "enlightened" monarch.
 
#17
#17
Actually, Ol' Freddie disliked the German language and preferred to speak and write in French. Part of the reason was that French was considered the "language" of The Enlightenment and Frederick wanted to be an "enlightened" monarch.

"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse."

Frederick was a character, for sure. But then, so was Georges Danton, who said (just before being guillotined), "Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing."
 
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