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.

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.

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.