Tennessee’s head coach Derek Dooley watches his team as they play against Montana in this file photo.Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley had just finished his speech at the Orange Grove Center’s annual “A Breakfast for Champions” on Friday morning when a Big Orange fan approached a member of the media.
Said the fan: “Dooley must have been up there for 20 minutes, and he didn’t say one word about football.”
And that’s a good thing.
Make no mistake: Dooley ultimately will be retained or released from his seven-figures-a-year job mostly on the strength of wins and losses. That’s the Southeastern Conference and that’s probably the way it should be if the third-year coach’s won-lost record doesn’t soon shoot north of its current sub-.500 mark (11-14).
But when your 18-year-old nephew Matthew has struggled his whole life with cerebral palsy, you also haven’t come to Orange Grove for the sole reason of grabbing a check you can quickly turn over to charity.