KNOXVILLE – When the University of Tennessee football team exits its locker room inside the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center, there’s a large mural surrounding the door that leads out to Haslam FIeld, where the Vols practice.
The mural features second-year coach Derek Dooley’s favorite motto: “Relentless pursuit of continuous improvement.”
The Volunteers, however, didn’t take that sign with them on the field for this morning’s practice.
“That’s our sign, that’s what we stand for and I told the players, there’s not a parentheses under it that says, ‘When I feel like it,’ unless somebody wrote it this morning,” Dooley said. “But that was about the mentality today: ‘I don’t feel like it, so I’m not going to do it.’ It was not the start that we needed mentally.
“We are a very immature team when it comes to working, and we have to learn that nobody really cares how you feel. When you’re in the fourth quarter and you’re tired and you’re hurting, the 102,000 [fans] that paid money to come see you doesn’t really care how you feel, nor does the guy lining up next to you. The only way to be able to perform in those circumstances is when you don’t feel good, you’ve got to overcome it mentally. We’re still working on that.”