KNOXVILLE – Derek Dooley spent part of his Friday morning in Neyland Stadium, but it had nothing to do with football.
Tennessee’s second-year coach, along with his wife, Allison, and Variety of Eastern Tennessee, presented a $220,000 check at the stadium’s West Club level to eight area children’s charities.
The Dooleys partnered with Variety, a worldwide multimillion-dollar philanthropic organization for children’s charities, for a series of events in April that raised the money.
“It starts with you want to do something because you have an ability to, a lot more so than others,” Coach Dooley said. “You want to try to parlay your position into trying to help out the community, and it’s important to me that I don’t go on a worldwide cause, that I put all my energy into trying to help East Tennessee because that’s our community. With that, I’ve always just had a great interest in young people, and it’s the business I’m in and I think that’s the group that gets shorted the most and needs the most.”
The fundraising activities – which were sponsored by a handful of corporations including Regal Entertainment Group, Pilot Corporation and Disney Studios – included the Orange and White game, an event the Dooleys hosted at their home and a golf tournament and luncheon. The eight charities are Play it Smart, Jason Witten’s Score Foundation, two Boys & Girls clubs, the Knox County Imagination Library, In Full Motion, the Cerebral Palsy Center and Camp Koinonia.