KNOXVILLE – To Colton Jumper, she will always be “Gan Gan.”
But for those who knew her as Ann Jumper, or by her maiden name of Ann Weeks, she was not only the valedictorian of Ringgold High School as a 16-year-old, but later a University of Georgia cheerleader and a lifelong Bulldogs backer until her death in 2011.
Fortunately for the University of Tennessee, her children and grandchildren became Big Orange fans, especially sons Jay and Joe, and Jay’s sons Colton and Will.
“Whenever we’d go to family gatherings on my grandmother’s side of the family, it was all Georgia, all Bulldogs,” Colton said Monday afternoon from the Tennessee football complex, where the junior linebacker had just finished discussing his significant role in the Volunteers’ 38-28 comeback win over Florida, as well as this Saturday’s road game against Gan Gan’s Dawgs.
“We had to stay strong,” he said of those family members who rooted for Tennessee. “We knew we’d chosen the right side.”