NASHVILLE - The story, as Jeremy Pruitt told it during the Big Orange Caravan's stop in Memphis on Tuesday, begins with Pruitt killing time in the Houston airport shortly after he was hired as Tennessee's head football coach in December.
"Down there recruiting, and I was sitting there waiting on a plane," Pruitt said. "I looked and there were like 10 men that walked by me and said, 'Coach, can we get a picture?'"
That moment was Pruitt's introduction to his new reality.
During years as a high school and college assistant and defensive coordinator, he rarely was required to speak publicly, schmooze boosters or be the face of a program. That day in the airport, he realized things had changed.
One of the men in the airport noticed the surprise on Pruitt's face as he was recognized that December day more than 900 miles away from Knoxville.
"He said, 'Coach, there's Tennessee fans everywhere,'" Pruitt recalled.
As Pruitt travels the region during the Big Orange Caravan, his approach to the public responsibilities of his new job and the nature of his budding relationship with the Volunteers faithful have become more clear.
"At the end of the day, this is still a people business, so as much personal contact as you can have with people that love Tennessee, probably the better off we are," Pruitt said in Memphis.
What Pruitt intended as a challenge to the fan base in his news conference after Tennessee's spring game last month became the subject of articles and talk-radio segments across the state and beyond. His question about where some fans were for the game spawned headlines such as "Tennessee football fans blasted by Jeremy Pruitt."
But during caravan stops in Chattanooga, Memphis and in Nashville on Thursday, the coach with a reputation for being brutally honest has shown the interpersonal skills that impressed Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer and also make Pruitt an elite recruiter.
At Tuesday night's event, a young boy in the crowd named Carson had a question for Pruitt, who at first had trouble hearing the boy.
"Come up here," Pruitt said to the boy in his Southern drawl as fans clapped. Pruitt then leaned forward, glaring intently at the boy, who asked the coach what his advice to Tennessee's defensive backs would be.
"What would my advice be for our safeties and corners to improve?" Pruitt repeated back. "OK, good. We can talk about this for a while."
Pruitt, still looking directly at the boy - no more than 8 years old - proceeded to explain the intricacies of playing in the secondary.
A young fan got called up on stage to ask Pruitt a question. It was about what safeties and corners. “We could talk about that for a long time,” he says as he begins to explain the intricacies of playing the secondary. pic.twitter.com/3uxVxHyPKZ
— David Cobb (@DavidWCobb) May 16, 2018
"Does that make sense?" he then asked the boy as if he were back in northeast Alabama teaching K-3rd physical education, as he did from 2001 to 2003.
A few minutes later, Pruitt stood and took command of the show, pacing purposefully across the stage while holding the microphone with one hand and pointing with the other as he talked to the fans about making Tennessee "great again."
There was no chiding them for failing to drive across the state for the spring game and no apologizing for what he said last month, just a plea to get onboard and push ahead.
Jeremy Pruitt’s message to the fans tonight in Memphis on making Tennessee great again. pic.twitter.com/Ip7sW8CILC
— David Cobb (@DavidWCobb) May 16, 2018
Inside a muggy Nissan Stadium concourse in Nashville on Thursday night, Pruitt sat at a plastic table as a line of hundreds trickled past, getting autographs. Pruitt seemed to have a smile or a polite effort at small talk with each one.
"It's good to get out, get a chance to meet people," Pruitt said. "There's lots of folks that have a lot of passion about Tennessee football and just the University of Tennessee, so it's good to meet as many people as we can."
Each stop for the caravan also has featured an exclusive event with alumni and donors. Pruitt, hard-nosed and football-focused as he may be, has been present along with Fulmer at each of them with smiles and handshakes for everyone.
When he recognized a few reporters from Knoxville who followed the caravan to Memphis on Tuesday, Pruitt suggested that, instead of driving across the state, "ya'll could have just come over to the house."
"The glad-handing, the getting out and seeing the boosters and those kinds of things, it's an important part of it," Fulmer said. "But it's not the most important. Him managing his team and his staff and his program is the key. And we've got plenty of people to do the media and do the other stuff, although that is important for him. On a scale, that's down a ways right now. But he's done it. He does fine.
"He has no shortcoming that I've seen that way."
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.