A Small Apology to the Lady Vols …
April 10th, 2008 | 
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As my post yesterday made clear, I am a fan of the Lady Vols. This is hardly a new thing for me. I have been following the Lady Vols for almost 20 years now.
Of course, if you read Gate 21 this past season, you might not realize that.
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I was a student at the University of Tennessee during one of the most legendary periods in Lady Vols history: 1994-1998. (Actually, when it comes to the Lady Vols pretty much any time during the program’s history is “legendary.”) During my 4 years at as a student at Tennessee, the Lady Vols went to 4 Final Fours, and won 3 National Championships. I was lucky enough to be present at almost all of their games during this time period, including 2 of their National Championships.
That is one of the benefits of being a member of the Pride of the Southland Band…
Since we Pep Band “weirdos” were always at the games — including the tournament games — we had the opportunity to interact with the team on a regular basis. In the overall pecking order, the Pep Band is fairly low. We were never the reason why people came to the games, and if we didn’t show up, people would notice but the game would go on without a hitch. We were the wrapping paper on the package — sure, we make it look a little nicer, but we really did not substantively change things. The thing that amazed me most about those teams was that — in the end — it was the team that reached out to us. The Lady Vols always took steps to reach out to us and get to know us. I was, admittedly, somewhat surprised that the Lady Vols were so very humble off the court. They were amazingly appreciative of the fact that the Pep Band was always there, and always supported them. What’s more, Coach Pat Summitt and the rest of the coaching staff also reached out to us — just to show that they appreciated our efforts. I sincerely appreciated that.
Those interactions with the Lady Vols and the coaching staff are some of my dearest memories as a Tennessee fan. I can honestly say that, by the time I left Tennessee, I considered several of the members of the team to be personal friends, and one a dear friend. Thus, it is fair to say that I am a huge fan of the Lady Vols.
Again, if you looked at Gate 21 over the past few months that would be hard to tell…
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I have always supported the BasketVols but, let’s be honest, for a long time there hasn’t been much to cheer about. This year that changed. This year, I was completely overcome with my enthusiasm for the BasketVols. Bruce Pearl — in one fell swoop — made me a huge fan of men’s basketball once again. I gave 100% of my support to the BasketVols, and in the process became a card-carrying booster of the men’s basketball program at Tennessee.
I make no apology for that.
What I do want to publicly apologize for is the fact that, in the process of supporting the BasketVols, I completely neglected the Lady Vols. Prior to the National Championship game, I think I wrote a grand total of 2 articles discussing the fortunes of the women’s program during the season. That just plain stinks.
When you are running a blog like Gate 21 on your own (while still trying to maintain your life, family, and day job), just getting one good … halfway-decent … semi-crappy … new post up everyday can be a challenge at times. While I would love to be able to write non-stop, that’s just not feasible (unless some kind benefactor would like to start funding my efforts…). As a result of my limited time, resources, and complete lack of skill, I focused almost exclusively on the BasketVols throughout the season.
I do not believe that there is any reason whatsoever why any member of the Orange Nation cannot — and in fact should not — be an unqualified fan of both the BasketVols and the Lady Vols. In this case, “Fandom” is not mutually exclusive. That said, next year (God, I sound like a Bama fan) I plan on spreading the wealth a bit more. Adding another writer to Gate 21 would, of course, help (wink, wink, nudge, nudge to all of you out there in the Blogosphere who ever wanted to publicly speak your piece). Either way, my goal is to do a better job of being loyal to both of the basketball teams at Tennessee.
The future is so very bright for both of these programs, and that is immensely gratifying to me, as a Tennessee fan and alum. I intend to support both of these programs with reckless abandon.
I hope the rest of Orange Nation will do the same…
– Go Figure ….gif "A Small Apology to the Lady Vols ...")
About the Author: "Lawvol" -- I'm just a guy living in North Carolina who has an unnatural fascination with the color orange. Just because I'm a Tennessee alum and die-hard Volunteer fan doesn't mean that I can't poke a little fun at the Big Orange and anybody else for that matter.
Feel free to complain all you want. >> Read more from this author
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Posted in Blogging, College Basketball, No Pass Out Checks, SEC Basketball | 
Tags: Basketball, BasketVols, Blogging, Bruce Pearl, Championship, College Basketball, Gate 21, Lady Vols, Mea Culpa, NCAA, NCAA Basketball, Orange Nation, Pat Summitt, Pride of the Southland, SEC Basketball, SEC Fans, Tennessee Basketball, Tennessee Volunteers, Tournament, University of Tennessee, Vols
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Well lets just be honest, it was hard to get crazy excited for the lady vols in the *gulp* 9 year drought of title games. It seemed as though UConn was nipping at our heels with their 5 title games and we “just” had 6 and we were the pinnacle of Women’s Basketball.
My big thing was that I felt women’s basketball was getting progressively better and harder every year with more and more girls playing high school basketball and more and more good players coming out of high school, yet we weren’t winning the big game. It was frustrating for me because I felt we weren’t able to deal with the more and more competitive teams that were playing out there, as opposed to when we were winning titles when there were only 3 or 4 teams that could really compete with us.
And then last year’s women’s tourney went down. This years tourney aside, last year was a huge step for women’s basketball with a lot of the lower seeds advancing and showing that there were a lot more teams that could compete with the elite teams. And then the lady vols win it and put an even bigger wedge between the national title count with Geno. Winning it again this year was just the icing on the cake and has planted our feet down as THE pinnacle of women’s basketball for a longwhile.
Anyways, so it sounds as though I am a fareweather fan, but that’s simply not the case. Yes I did attend every single home game in our undefeated ‘98 season but I still watched every single Uconn Debacle in the early ’00’s and have never missed a lady vols tourney game from the Sweet Sixteen and on. It’s just nice to be able to breath easy again and know that there is no longer even a debate on who owns women’s basketball, Pat or Geno. I think our 8 national titles, with integrity feels much better then Geno’s 5 apparently “tainted” titles.
To wrap this whole little shpeal up, I would just say I don’t really blame you for not having many lady vols articles but I think we can proudly say we are back, and its time to get ready for no.3 in the row.
I wouldn’t beat myself up over it. It’s not like some of didn’t provide a reasonable amount of coverage of the Lady Vols.
Not to mention, it’s been so long since the men’s team has been consistently good one can’t help but be overly enthused.
To address Graham C’s comment, I’d tend to offer this argument. Even though you may have had a hard time getting excited about the Lady Vols, who kept fan interest active during basketball season?
Without the Lady Vols consistent success, Thompson-Boling would have been a grave yard. They helped generate much needed revenue when the men’s team wasn’t successful.
Name a sports program, college or professional, that has been as successful as the Lady Vols. And they’ve done it the right way. No probations, no off the field incidents. The players go to class and graduate.
You sound like you got spoiled with success and forgot how hard it is to maintain that level.
Anyway, I’m very proud of both programs and the baseball Vols are looking decent. I need to check up on the Lady Vols softballers too.
Later.
Moondog I don’t disagree that I was a lil spoiled, but I was spoiled in a time where there wasn’t that much competition. There still really isn’t a great amount of competition in the girls game. (although the girls game did provide the only 16 seed over a 1 seed) And another thing is that we were having recruiting classes that consisted of 5-6 mcdonalds all americans. If any men’s team had a recruiting class like that then you would expect them to maintain that level of success, like I did.
On another note I am not a fareweather fan. I have supported the men’s basketball team for as long as I can remember and have still continually supported the lady vols. The lady vols still required a curtain to be put up for most games over the past 15 years in thompson boling arena and don’t generate near as much revenue as I think you assume. Granted, they are one of the few women’s programs that make profit, but it’s not as much as you probably think.