Tennessee athletic director John Currie, right, speaks to media at the Big Orange Caravan's stop at the First Tennessee Pavilion on Saturday, June 3, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn. The event gave fans the chance to meet Tennessee Athletics coaches and new athletic director John Currie.Four or five years ago, longtime University of Tennessee football fan Charles Claypool made a special request of his wife, Carole. He wanted her to get a "Power T" tattoo.
So there they were Saturday afternoon at UT's much-modified Big Orange Caravan stop at the First Tennessee Pavilion, the 60-year-old Charles proudly displaying his roughly three-inch-high "T" tat on his left calf while his 69-year-old wife rolled up her pants high enough to display her quite similar "T" tat a couple of inches above her right ankle.
"I did it because he asked me to," she said with a slight smile.
A few weeks ago, new Tennessee athletic director John Currie asked this region's Volniacs to give a fair chance to a Caravan stop modeled after a county fair rather than the longtime meet-and-greet-dinner model. Gone was, in Currie's words, "a rubber chicken dinner." In were door prizes, free popcorn and bottled water, autograph stations featuring both former Volunteers talents such as Gerald Riggs Jr., Pat Lenoir and Mark Holland and current Tennessee coaches, and Currie shaking the hand of every fan he could when he wasn't signing an autograph or posing for a picture.
And the praise for these changes was almost universal from the 500 or so Big Orange fans who attended.
"Oh, I love everything about this," said Carole Claypool, who often attended the Caravan dinners that took place at various local hotels or the convention center. "The whole thing is so positive. There's lots for kids to do, and it's so nice to be outside but under a roof."
Richard Agnew, who was there with his niece's daughter, Emma Castings, agreed.
"This is a lot better," he said. "You can get a picture made with the coaches. It's great to see (UT men's basketball coach) Rick Barnes mingling with the crowd. And Emma loves the bouncy house."
Added Cleveland radio personality Doc Hollywood, a frequent past Caravan attendee who went to Bradley Central High School with former Vols stars Dale Jones and Chris White: "This is much improved. A lot more fan-friendly. It's like being under a circus tent."
Some might say college athletics has become a dysfunctional circus, the elephant in the room trampling education in favor of entertainment. Whether it's the shocking academic scandal at North Carolina, the deplorable culture of might makes right that existed among too many of Baylor University's football players when it came to matters of the opposite sex, or the ridiculous movement that says we need to pay athletes a salary because their free college education and perks aren't nearly enough, there's sense we've all lost our way.
But at storied athletic programs such as Tennessee, Currie sees at least one problem he doesn't have to address.
Speaking to the media as the Caravan was just beginning, he said of the fan base, "Nobody needs to put their arms around (these fans) and tell them they're needed. We just need to hold hands and pull together."
Of the best way to accomplish that, to make everyone feel as if their input matters, he added, "You hear people say there are two sides to every story. No. Sometimes there are as many sides as you see on a Rubik's Cube, and you need to listen to all of them."
Because of that, given that football coach Butch Jones is generally believed to be on the department's hottest seat, it's also worth noting that he received by far the loudest ovation from the crowd when he, Barnes and women's basketball coach Holly Warlick were formally introduced.
If there was one legitimate complaint, it came from Charles Claypool regarding the noise level, which was jet-engine level for much of the early afternoon thanks to former Vols quarterback Sterling Henton - "Sterl the Pearl" he likes to call himself now - serving as something of a host and DJ by shouting into a sound system for the first 90 minutes of the two-hour event.
"My granddaughter doesn't like all the noise," Claypool said of 5-year-old Caroline Craig.
And it would be nice not to have to shout over such noise in the future. A half-as-loud Sterl the Pearl would be plenty noisy enough.
But that's a minor complaint. The Caravan as a whole, with all its vast changes, deserves high praise.
It's 9-year-old Jakob Moses - a rising fourth-grader at North Hamilton County Elementary - holding tight to the football he'd just had signed by UT assistant coaches Robert Gillespie and Tommy Thigpen and predicting that the Vols "are going to do great."
It's Whitwell resident Denise Pickett bringing her 11-year-old son Samuel to the Caravan and noting, "I love it. It's so great for a kid. They get to meet these coaches and get their autographs."
As the Caravan came to a close, Pikeville resident and longtime Vols fan Chris Hailey placed his 2-year-old son Avery atop his shoulders and asked him his favorite two words. The youngster said, "Go, Vols." His wife and Avery's mom Jessica was asked if she was a similarly passionate Vols supporter.
"I've never been that into sports," she said. "But this was nice. I'm going to start following UT more."
His hiring and firing decisions following the upcoming seasons of Barnes, Jones and Warlick _ especially Jones and Warlick - ultimately will define Currie's popularity with Big Orange Nation. But the words of Jessica Hailey at the close of the Caravan was a very big reason Currie got the job.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com