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Big (Orange) goals: Fans want more wins; Jones focused on effort
The ballroom at The Chattanoogan hotel had long ago filled up with Tennessee orange for Wednesday evening's Big Orange Caravan stop. The clock approaching 7:25 p.m., Bob Kesling, the Voice of the Vols, motioned for new UT men's basketball coach Rick Barnes to join him on stage for an interview.
In order to keep with the program schedule, athletic department officials already were telling a dozen or so fans still waiting in line for Barnes' autograph that there wouldn't be time to receive one.
But the coach, who has already guided three other programs to the NCAA tournament, was having none of that.
"I'm not done yet!" shouted Barnes, much to the delight of the final few Volniacs who'd plopped down $25 each for such individual attention, as well as much of the rest of the crowd. "Get (UT athletic director) Dave Hart up there for a few minutes."
And so Kesling did. And Barnes went right on signing and posing and sweet-talking the masses, sending a handful of UT fans home far happier than they would have been if the school had cut them off.
But what may have been equally remarkable was that Barnes was there at all. He's spent the day in Birmingham, Ala., at a mandatory Southeastern Conference coaches meeting. He could easily have skipped the Caravan stop, citing prior commitments.
So why make the uncommon effort?
"I just love the people, getting to know them," he said right before joining Kesling. "That's a big part of what my job is about."
People are what the Big Orange Caravan always has been about. People such as 55-year-old Brian Washington, who brought his 14-year-old grandson Vincent McColley -- a promising running back and linebacker at Central High School -- to hear football coach Butch Jones and Barnes because, at least regarding the basketball coach: "He has a track record of winning and a Christian attitude."
As for McColley, who'll be a sophomore in the fall, "I want to meet Coach Jones."
Asked if he wanted to play for Jones one day if given the chance, McColley broke into a wide smile and said, "Oh, yes, sir."
It's also people like the Johnsons from Soddy-Daisy -- husband Doug, wife Laura and son Jeremiah, who said his grandfather breaks into the Three Dog Night classic "Joy to the World" and its memorable line "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" each time the two get together.
Yet the first time Laura and Jeremiah saw the Vols play football, Doug was stationed in Iraq with the 212th Transport Co. The tickets came through a military family support group program.
"It was the Mississippi State game in 2003," Jeremiah said. "Tennessee won easily (59-21)."
That was also the year Tennessee beat Florida 24-10 in Gainesville, a win so sweet Jeremiah burned a copy of it on a disc and sent it to Doug.
"My sergeant was from Florida," recalled Doug, who moved to Soddy-Daisy in 1971 as a 12-year-old. "I kept asking him if he wanted to watch it, but he never did."
Doug watched Condredge Holloway quarterback the Vols in those days, and he got Holloway's autograph at the Caravan.
"He'll always be my favorite," Doug said. "He's why I love Tennessee football. I still can't believe the moves he made when I watch old game tapes."
But the rest of the family didn't fall hard until that Nov. 15 day in 2003 inside Neyland, watching the Vols vaporize the Bullies.
"After that game," Doug said, "All I heard was UT this and UT that once I came back from Iraq."
It shows. Laura showed up at The Chattanoogan dressed head-to-toe in pale orange, including a checkerboard-themed purse. She even had her nails painted orange and white, including a Power T on two fingers and a checkerboard on two more.
"I do them that way before every big game," she said.
She also owns a 2014 Sunset Orange Ford Edge, one of the only ones in this area.
"I like to have everything orange," she said.
And this coming season, for the first time ever, the Johnsons can drive their UT Orange SUV to Knoxville for every home game, the family having acquired season tickets.
"I just hope we go to a bowl game again," Doug said. "I just want us to keep winning."
Cleveland resident D.W. Hogan has been watching the Vols win and lose at Neyland Stadium since 1951. His good friend, C.A. Dockins, agreed to drive him to the Caravan stop, where he hoped to speak to Jones for a minute or two.
"I've watched Butch coach since he was at Cincinnati," Hogan said. "He's got that football team moving in the right direction."
Kesling believes Barnes, who directed Texas to 16 NCAA tournament appearances in 17 years, already has UT basketball moving in the right direction as it adjusts to its fourth coach in six years.
"There's a maturity level with Rick," he said. "He knows adversity's coming, but he knows he can handle it. He takes everything in stride."
Including taking care of the people who matter most at these caravans, the Big Orange fans, regardless of whether it slightly alters the program schedule. Too bad not all the UT brass seemed to appreciate that as a big part of their job Wednesday.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com