As I read the article on our new coach and his family, I couldnt help but have a flashback to my dad. To hear him tell it, my dad was a dyed-in-the-wool Vol fan from the day he was born in the small town of Butler in upper East Tennessee. As a teenager he joined the army and served as a rifleman with the 4th Division that landed on Utah Beach on D-Day. In spite of the heavy casualties incurred by the Allied forces on that fateful day in history, most of his unit fought its way past the beach defenses and advanced deep into France and on into Germany. My dads personal involvement in the bloody conflict was cut short somewhere near St. Lo when he sustained a wound in battle. The bullet that felled him took him out of the war as an active participant, but my dad would say that the men who survived WWII never really got out of it completely. Since the bullet was too deeply embedded near his spine for the doctors of the day to remove without risk, they had to leave it in place. That infernal slug remained with my dad until the day he died.
As he lay slowly recovering in the army hospital, my dad was anxious to put the horrors of war behind him and get home to his beloved Tennessee where he could return to some semblance of normalcy. On that long journey home aboard the troop ship, he began to put some of the nightmares of combat behind him and to dream again of watching his beloved Vols play football. Not long after arriving back in East Tennessee, he got married, settled down, and set about producing what he said world could never have enough of - more Big Orange football fans.
Whenever my dad and I would watch that movie where Lou Gehrig gives the speech about being the luckiest man on the face of the earth, my dad would say, That may be true, but youre looking at the luckiest Tennessee Vol fan on the face of the earth. More than once, I think I caught the glimmer of a tear in his eye.
Despite what he had gone through, my dad never expressed any regrets over his decision to serve his country (and the world at large) or his condition. He never came right out and said it, but I sensed that he would have felt it selfish to bemoan his own infirmity when so many of his comrades came home with much more devastating wounds (both physical and mental), or didnt come home at all.
My first memories as a child revolve around watching the big game with my dad on the black and white TV in the living room of our small house and looking up from my viewing position to see this fine man celebrate, with all the exuberance he could muster, every touchdown, every field goal, every defensive stop, and every victory over a dreaded opponent, especially arch-rival Alabama. Just seeing the man who was responsible for me being in this world smile from ear to ear all through the day and into the night put a big grin on my own face and left an indelible impression that time cannot erase.
In spite of the recurring pain that often was so excruciating that he had to take to his bed and endure the agony till it passed (in his day, the pain killers that were safe to take without becoming addictive werent all that effective). My dad wasnt a great man by most measures. You wont find any statues honoring him. You wont see his name etched on any plaques in the hallowed halls of the University of Tennessee. The only symbol youll find bearing his name is a modest grave marker in the cemetery at the local veterans graveyard in Johnson City. But, he taught his children by example what it meant to be a loyal fan of the Tennessee Vols - to take the good with the bad, to exult in the good times. Mostly, he taught us to endure the bad times, because, eventually, things will be set right again.
I wasnt born until a couple of years after General Neyland won his last national title at UT, so I wasnt able to share that bright, shining moment with my dad. My dad passed away just a couple of years before the UT football team would claim the 1998 title, so I just missed another opportunity to share that glory with him as it happened. My dad wasnt perfect, but he had a good heart and a good soul - the kind of heart and soul that every Vol fan would be lucky to have. If a man like my dad could never give up on the Vols in the rebuilding years, how could I?
As I said before, I liked Coach Dooley from day one, but as I made my way through this article, I could feel a growing sense of assurance that we had landed the right man. When I finished reading, I couldnt help but smile. If my dad could only be here to see what good hands the Vols are in now, hed be wearing the smile that I recall so vividly.
