VFL-82-JP
Bleedin' Orange...
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2015
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Welcome Aboard, Coach Mike DeBord! Come in, take your coat off, it's generally warmer down here than up at your olympic synchronized swimming school -- but not right now, right now we have some yankee weather, but that too shall pass and before you know it, it will be Football Time in Tennessee again!
So here are a few things we want you to know about Tennessee football, the program, our history, and us fans. We think you should pay attention to this part.
We are ferociously loyal. Although there are a few stupid sons a birches (birch is a tree that grows pretty widely in the East Tennessee hills, you'll see a lot of these birches and sons a birches in the coming years), okay so although there are a few stupid sons a birches (I will call them SoBs from now on), so although there are a few stupid SoBs in Tennessee who say Alabama is their favorite team, these SoBs were dropped on their heads as babies or maybe they have no class and just go to whatever neighboring state is having the most success lately. Did you know Tennessee is surrounded by 8 other states? Yep, most in the nation tied with Mizzou, who we kinda like except that we hate those bass-tards (they are real bass fishermen up in the Ozarks, but not too smart, so we call them bass-tards, and since 'tard' isn't a very nice thing to call someone I'll just shorten this to basses, but you know what I'm really saying, ok?). Anyway, we mostly like the Mizzou basses, but not lately because they have won a lot too much the past three years in the SEC East. We are about to take those basses down a notch when we leap over them with a karate-like HEE-YAH attack in 2015. Anyway, we don't like the SoBs in the state who root for Alabama or whatever the other flavor of the year is (sometimes it's Auburn, and honestly we don't mind War Giggle as much as the stupid red-colored elephant-shaped oceanic phenomenon that has been a pain in our nether regions since beloved Coach Neyland went to the great checkerboard gridiron in the sky, leaving Bear Bryant free to run amok in the candy shop for a number of years). So that's the first thing, we are mostly orange-bleeding awesome and devastatingly handsome (or beautiful, for our Lady Vols) fans with a few SoBs and Basses thrown in.
Now that we have the trees and fishes covered, the second thing we need you to know about us is -- by the way, the SoBs are easy to spot, they mostly work in the lumber section of Home Depot and are named Roddy -- the second thing we need you to understand about Tennessee football is that, wherever Steve Spurrier goes, we have an ankle collar on him and are keeping track of him. See, in 1902 or thereabouts, Steve grew up in east Tennessee but couldn't get hired by Coach Neyland as a quarterback, so he hopped on a southbound coal train and when he woke up the next morning he was in Gainesville. Not knowing any better, the community college down there took him on as QB, and -- have to give credit where credit is due -- the guy did pretty good at the job. Since then, it's all been about some kind of a cult following him through a whole long coaching career. Here's the problem: he likes to crack him a joke or two at Tennessee's expense, stuff about Citrus Bowls and whatnot, so we really like to give it back to him on the field. We had a rough time of that at Florida for the longest, but I think we have his number now at the chicken-fighting emporium south of North Carolina. Anyway, in a very loving way, we hate him. And because of him, we hate Florida too. And might as well throw the chicken school into the mix. But mostly Florida.
So now you know almost all you need to know to be a Tennessee Volunteer, just need you to learn this: Vanderbilt sucks. Yes, they are just sort of like our little brother in the state, but no one really likes them here because they think they are Harvard replanted in the south. Well, we never liked Harvard either, even back when they had a real football team, and we don't see any reason to go liking schools with pretentions like trying to talk ivy into growing up the walls of their buildings down here in the south. We have kudzu for that.
There's a lot more you'll learn over the years, like how we laugh pretty much every day at the ESPN homers who singlehandedly ruined Peyton's chances at the Heisman in '98, or how to eat Memphis barbeque and drink a beer and walk from boat to boat in the Vol navy yard all at the same time without spilling anything, or how Rocky Top, the Tennessee Waltz, and Lil Jon do all make sense together ... but there's time for all that in the coming weeks and months.
For now, you just know those three most important things, and that's good. Welcome to Big Orange Country, coach, we have our hopes set on big things starting these next two years, so don't let us down!
Very Best,
VolNation
So here are a few things we want you to know about Tennessee football, the program, our history, and us fans. We think you should pay attention to this part.
We are ferociously loyal. Although there are a few stupid sons a birches (birch is a tree that grows pretty widely in the East Tennessee hills, you'll see a lot of these birches and sons a birches in the coming years), okay so although there are a few stupid sons a birches (I will call them SoBs from now on), so although there are a few stupid SoBs in Tennessee who say Alabama is their favorite team, these SoBs were dropped on their heads as babies or maybe they have no class and just go to whatever neighboring state is having the most success lately. Did you know Tennessee is surrounded by 8 other states? Yep, most in the nation tied with Mizzou, who we kinda like except that we hate those bass-tards (they are real bass fishermen up in the Ozarks, but not too smart, so we call them bass-tards, and since 'tard' isn't a very nice thing to call someone I'll just shorten this to basses, but you know what I'm really saying, ok?). Anyway, we mostly like the Mizzou basses, but not lately because they have won a lot too much the past three years in the SEC East. We are about to take those basses down a notch when we leap over them with a karate-like HEE-YAH attack in 2015. Anyway, we don't like the SoBs in the state who root for Alabama or whatever the other flavor of the year is (sometimes it's Auburn, and honestly we don't mind War Giggle as much as the stupid red-colored elephant-shaped oceanic phenomenon that has been a pain in our nether regions since beloved Coach Neyland went to the great checkerboard gridiron in the sky, leaving Bear Bryant free to run amok in the candy shop for a number of years). So that's the first thing, we are mostly orange-bleeding awesome and devastatingly handsome (or beautiful, for our Lady Vols) fans with a few SoBs and Basses thrown in.
Now that we have the trees and fishes covered, the second thing we need you to know about us is -- by the way, the SoBs are easy to spot, they mostly work in the lumber section of Home Depot and are named Roddy -- the second thing we need you to understand about Tennessee football is that, wherever Steve Spurrier goes, we have an ankle collar on him and are keeping track of him. See, in 1902 or thereabouts, Steve grew up in east Tennessee but couldn't get hired by Coach Neyland as a quarterback, so he hopped on a southbound coal train and when he woke up the next morning he was in Gainesville. Not knowing any better, the community college down there took him on as QB, and -- have to give credit where credit is due -- the guy did pretty good at the job. Since then, it's all been about some kind of a cult following him through a whole long coaching career. Here's the problem: he likes to crack him a joke or two at Tennessee's expense, stuff about Citrus Bowls and whatnot, so we really like to give it back to him on the field. We had a rough time of that at Florida for the longest, but I think we have his number now at the chicken-fighting emporium south of North Carolina. Anyway, in a very loving way, we hate him. And because of him, we hate Florida too. And might as well throw the chicken school into the mix. But mostly Florida.
So now you know almost all you need to know to be a Tennessee Volunteer, just need you to learn this: Vanderbilt sucks. Yes, they are just sort of like our little brother in the state, but no one really likes them here because they think they are Harvard replanted in the south. Well, we never liked Harvard either, even back when they had a real football team, and we don't see any reason to go liking schools with pretentions like trying to talk ivy into growing up the walls of their buildings down here in the south. We have kudzu for that.
There's a lot more you'll learn over the years, like how we laugh pretty much every day at the ESPN homers who singlehandedly ruined Peyton's chances at the Heisman in '98, or how to eat Memphis barbeque and drink a beer and walk from boat to boat in the Vol navy yard all at the same time without spilling anything, or how Rocky Top, the Tennessee Waltz, and Lil Jon do all make sense together ... but there's time for all that in the coming weeks and months.
For now, you just know those three most important things, and that's good. Welcome to Big Orange Country, coach, we have our hopes set on big things starting these next two years, so don't let us down!
Very Best,
VolNation
