KNOXVILLE - The freshman basketball team at Germantown High School in the Memphis suburbs was on the brink of a county championship in 2012 when the squad suddenly lost one of its stars.
Head coach Wesley Crump was away from the team one afternoon, and a few players decided to take it easy as an assistant led practice.
Jauan Jennings was not one of them. As his University of Tennessee football teammates and just about anyone who knows him can attest, there is no such thing as taking it easy when it comes to Jennings and his competitive drive.
At 14, Jennings was no different than he is now as a redshirt junior receiver for the Volunteers.
Nonetheless, his teammates' antics at that practice landed them all outside on the school's track to run sprints in the winter chill. Told he could not retrieve a jacket from inside and frustrated with his teammates' lack of regard for their upcoming shot at a title, Jennings walked away from his team.
"The kids were screwing around," Crump recalled in a recent phone interview. "He was so super competitive that he didn't want to have all that going on, because he knew that we were getting ready for our tournament."
Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Bennie Jennings leaned back and chuckled inside his Murfreesboro office as he started telling this story about his son on a recent July morning. It's one tale that came to mind as he reflected on raising an intense young athlete.
"He's so competitive, and sometimes that gets in his way," Bennie said.
Those words rang true again last November when Jauan broadcast a profanity-laced video tirade directed at the Vols' then-interim coaching staff on social media, leading to his dismissal from the program.
Once again, his competitive nature led to an emotional reaction that resulted in him no longer being part of a team he loved.
Once again, Bennie had no control over whether his son would be granted a second chance. As a father, his role was simply to teach and model the perseverance that is emerging as a defining characteristic of Jauan's college football career.
"I've wanted him to hang in there no matter what," Bennie said. "You just don't quit things. Once you start something, you continue it. That's something all my kids, I've tried to instill in them. Don't give up."
Jauan never has.
Tennessee receiver Jauan Jennings leaps over Nebraska's Lamar Jackson during the Music City Bowl in December 2016.Vandy and vitriol
The return from a wrist injury that cost Jauan nearly all of the 2017 season was the first hurdle in a stressful year. He rehabilitated the injury in time to be healthy enough for the season finale against Vanderbilt, a team he strongly disliked - as revealed in the infamous Instagram video that resulted in his dismissal.
The interim coaching staff apparently did not want to jeopardize a medical redshirt by allowing him to play in a game that would have no sway on the Vols' bowl eligibility. So the coaches backed away from what Jauan thought had been a pledge to let him play.
He broadcast his displeasure live as he drove away from the football complex - and jeopardized his future when he did. The video's content spread through the internet in minutes. That evening, then-athletic director John Currie and then-interim head coach Brady Hoke dismissed him from the team.
A few days later, he released another video. This time, blinking back tears, he apologized.
"My passion for this game and this team cannot be described in words," he said in the video. "All season, all I could think about was being on the field and helping my team win. It was painful for me to be sidelined by this injury and effectively put me in a place where I feel like I cannot help the team since I wasn't on the field. So when the opportunity came and I was cleared to be able to help this team, I wanted to be out there.
"All that being said, I'm a man and I take full responsibility for my actions. I'm a Vol for life and I bleed orange and white."
Jauan Jennings apologizes for his actions, says he's going to work to try to get back on the team. pic.twitter.com/8zx7o2k2D2
— Chierstin Susel (@ChierstinSusel) November 26, 2017
Jauan said he planned to work with the athletic director and the new coaching staff to do "whatever" to get back on the team.
A return to the team seemed improbable at first, but Tennessee's wild coaching search led to a transition at AD, giving Jauan a clean slate with the people in control of his future with the program. A meeting with new AD Phillip Fulmer and a set of stipulations given by first-year head coach Jeremy Pruitt meant Jauan would have an opportunity - no guarantees - to return.
"He's done exactly what I've asked him to do," Pruitt said in July. "I really like Jauan. I like his competitive edge. He wants to be good. He wants his team to be good."
Jauan's return included an apology to the team in a meeting without Pruitt or any of the other new coaches around.
"Jauan came and spoke to us," redshirt junior linebacker Quart'e Sapp said. "It was a player-led meeting, and also, just another veteran guy, just having his experience and his leadership, we're really happy to have him back."
That journey back has been further complicated by a knee operation that left Jauan unable to participate in spring practices. Instead, he pedaled a stationary bike, hit a tire with a sledgehammer and swung ropes for conditioning purposes while his teammates practiced.
The procedure kept him limited early in preseason camp. At one practice, he used his down time to carry a water bottle around to other receivers and to demonstrate proper execution of a drill to a student manager.
His recovery encountered another diversion when he dove for a football in one practice and "got a little hyperextended," Pruitt said. That problem forced him to miss the team's first scrimmage of this preseason.
But as Bennie Jennings examines his son's arduous path back to the field, he believes that "his whole attitude has changed."
"And I attribute that to, number one, Jauan," he said. "He knew he had to be more focused. Some of the off-the-field stuff, he had to leave that behind, because I know he's got two years of eligibility, but his dream is to play in the NFL. So he had to be more focused this time. A lot of that is a tribute to Jeremy Pruitt and the coaching staff for, I guess, sort of making him realize that his dream is closer than it was a year or two ago. So he's matured a lot.
"Of course, he just turned 21 a couple of weeks ago. You're going to mature when you get older, so some of the things he's had to let go."
Tennessee receiver Josh Malone leaps on teammate Jauan Jennings' back in celebration after Jennings made a last-second touchdown catch to lift the Vols to a 34-31 win at Georgia two years ago.A father's footsteps
Bennie can speak with firsthand authority on the maturation process of young athletes. He quit the football team at the University of North Alabama his sophomore year and went to visit his dad in rural Alabama. Bennie's father, the owner of a construction company, was about to leave to work a job in North Carolina.
"And he made me park my car and put my stuff on his truck," Bennie recalled. "So I had to go to work. And, you know, that taught me. I ended up getting hurt. I got electrocuted working for him, and they told me that I'd never play ball again."
After the stint working for his dad, North Alabama granted Bennie his scholarship back, and the medical staff cleared him to play. He became a three-time All-Gulf South Conference tight end and was named a team captain as a senior in 1990. He parlayed his second chance into a short stint with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before embarking on a successful career in law enforcement.
Now he's in the athletic hall of fame at North Alabama.
Does Jauan, embarking on his own second chance, have that same persistence and drive for success?
"He's more so than I was," Bennie said. "A lot of things came easy to me. But I didn't have that extra drive that he has."
The Jennings family moved to Middle Tennessee in time for Jauan to enroll at Murfreesboro's Blackman High School as a sophomore. He became a standout quarterback and basketball player, winning a basketball state championship and coming close in football.
After a Blackman loss in the football state playoffs, Jauan once lamented to Bennie that the defeat meant he wouldn't be able to surpass Bennie in number of high school state championship rings.
"Our whole family is competitive," Bennie said.
Bennie's oldest son Kendal is a former standout basketball player at Columbia State Community College, and his daughter Alexis plays basketball at the University of South Carolina.
Whether it's fishing, riding horses or ATVs or taking target practice on the gun range on Bennie's farm, it's a competition - especially when Jauan is around.
"That's just him," Bennie said. "He's 100 miles an hour. It's good. He just needs to channel that. Where he is now, he just needs to channel that more towards football. And he's getting it, because he's getting older."
Bennie is also challenging Jauan to channel some of his intensity toward academics by making it a competition to see who can finish their degree first. Bennie said he is pursuing an online graduate degree from Tennessee Tech while Jauan continues coursework in Tennessee's business administration program.
Tennessee receiver Jauan Jennings outruns Florida's Marcell Harris on a touchdown catch that gave the Vols the lead for the first time during their September 2016 game in Knoxville. Tennessee trailed 21-0 late in the first half but rallied to win 38-28, ending an 11-game losing streak to the Gators.Mixed memories
Junior receiver Marquez Callaway said in July that "we try to move on for him," speaking of Jauan and the ordeal that placed his future with the team in jeopardy.
"Because we know that he hears that all the time, everywhere he goes," Callaway said. "So we try not to bring it back up. We just bring him back in, and we're moving forward to this season."
Even as the season nears, moving forward could still have its struggles for Jauan. He has played one football game in the past 20 months. It was last year's season opener, and he got hurt during the game. His limitations during practices this preseason meant even more delays in resuming a high volume of full-speed repetitions.
Pruitt used the word "slowly" on Aug. 9 to describe Jauan's progression toward full strength.
"He needs to take licks," Pruitt said this past week. "When you have a black jersey on, it's obviously no contact. If you look, those are the guys traditionally at camp that turn the ball over because they are not used to getting beat on and tackled, so it is good to get him back because he needs some of that."
Tennessee receiver Jauan Jennings, a redshirt junior, takes part in a drill during practice this month in Knoxville.Jauan has taken his licks. Now his shot at redemption is coming, and with it the chance to write a new ending to a mixed legacy.
He secured his place in the annals of Vols football history in 2016 with his leaping grab on the Joshua Dobbs desperation pass that lifted the Vols to a 34-31 win over Georgia, the 43-yard Hail Mary catch in Athens coming with no time on the clock after the Bulldogs had scored on their own long pass with 10 seconds to play. He also made a juggling touchdown grab that helped propel the Vols to a comeback victory over Florida that same year, snapping an 11-game losing streak to the Gators.
Those moments have secured his eternal glorification among many Tennessee fans. A profanity-laced tirade has skewed his perception among others.
Jauan has been in a similar situation before, albeit without the intense public scrutiny.
Weeks before he walked off the track at Germantown High School in 2012, he wrestled the basketball away from a freshman-team opponent near midcourt and threw down a thunderous dunk that turned the gym on its head.
His combination of ability and competitive drive was making a legend before he had a driver's license. Then the same competitive drive got in his way on the track.
He was willing to admit his mistake, though, and had the persistence to make it right. After a discussion about expectations, Crump allowed Jauan to return to the freshman basketball team.
He led the Red Devils to a county championship.
Again, Jauan has apologized and been granted a second chance.
"And now," his father said, "it's up to him to take that chance that he's been given and fulfill his dream."
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.