Wiedmer: Will excitement turn into titles?

Dean Lockwood has been in and out of University of Tennessee athletics for more than 20 years. A member of Don DeVoe’s basketball staffs in the late 1980s, he returned to a few years ago as a key assistant for Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols.

So he’s experienced more than a few highs and lows in Volsville. In town for Tuesday’s Big Orange Caravan stop at the Choo-Choo, Lockwood said, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this level of excitement for all three sports at once.”

Those three sports, of course, are football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball, basically the wholly trinity of UT athletics’ money-making machine.

And there’s no question that the Big Orange Nation has never more enthusiastically embraced the caravan than this year. Despite knot-tight economic times, the Choo-Choo was overrun with Volniacs plunking down $20 a person for the privilege of listening to new football coach Lane Kiffin, Lockwood and men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl discuss their programs.

Pearl cut short a recruiting trip to Atlanta to make sure he reached the Scenic City in time for his turn at the podium.

“Last time I checked, the ride from Atlanta to Knoxville went right through Chattanooga, so we worked it out,” Pearl said. “This city’s always been incredibly supportive of us, so it’s important to me to be here for this whenever possible.”

But it hasn’t just been Chattanooga. More than 400 showed up in Atlanta on Monday night, much to the delight of the Voice of the Vols, Bob Kesling.

“When you look at the attendance at the Orange-White game and the number of tickets they’re selling to these (caravan) events, I’d have to say excitement is at an all-time high,” said Kesling, who’ll begin his 11th season helping broadcast Big Orange football this autumn.

“I think Lane Kiffin has energized the fan base in a way we haven’t seen in awhile. We had a great crowd in Atlanta. Everybody laughed in the right spots, and there were more young people there than I’d seen before. You’re seeing a lot of that same energy tonight.”

The odd thing is, perhaps never before have all three programs — especially the football team and the Lady Vols — completed such mediocre seasons in the same school year.

The football Vols were 5-7 and out of a bowl game for the second time in four seasons, which led to the departure of Phillip Fulmer as head coach. Summitt’s young team was 22-11 and knocked out of the opening round of the NCAA tournament for the first time in her tenure. Even Pearl’s group, despite winning the SEC East, fell in the opening round of the NCAA tourney for the first time in his four years on the job.

“But we finished ahead of Kentucky for the fourth straight season,” Pearl added. “And that’s something that’s never been done before in this conference.”

Something else that’s never been done anywhere else is to dominate the attendance statistics the way the Vols do in their three marquee sports.

“All three have been ranked in the top four or five in attendance nationally in the same year,” said Pearl assistant Jason Shay, who was filling in for his boss in case Pearl got stuck in traffic. “No other school’s done that once, and Tennessee’s done it six times.”

And barring an economic tsunami of unthinkable proportions, UT should accomplish that goal a seventh time this coming school year when all three figure to improve on last year’s win totals.

An interesting side note to that was Pearl’s comment to Talk 102.3’s “SportTalk” gang. Asked about the inexperience on this past season’s roster, Bruce Almighty chuckled, “They hadn’t even swapped girlfriends yet — no, I’m not going to go there.”

Who needs Facebook and Twitter when you’ve got Pearl?

But where the UT athletic family is quickly going is to the top of the economic ladder when it comes to fan support.

Said Kessling: “I’ve never felt a buzz like this before.”

And that was before Pearl’s line about swapping girlfriends.