Planes, trains, automobiles - Recruiting edition
A week ago tonight evolved into one of the wildest, most demanding, exhilarating and exhausting 24 to 30-hour stretches of work covering Tennessee athletics since I joined the Rivals/VolQuest team several years ago.
Here, I’ll give a glimpse into that window of time:
Around 6:35 to 6:40 p.m. on Tuesday, or Christmas Eve for recruitniks as most folks in the South know, I roll into Thompson-Boling Arena where I immediately am harassed by longtime usher and overall nice guy Ted McCloud, before catching up with former Vol and current Jacksonville Jaguars employee Tyler Wolf. Then Ryan Robinson informs me he’s “got a good feeling” about the Vols and Wildcats. I roll my eyes, unimpressed.
Some 10 minutes before tip-off, the Tommy Bowl crowd wouldn’t have filled venerable old Stokely Athletics Center. Mostly, though, it’s a late-arriving crowd and not a never arriving group. I had been worried about traffic on Neyland Drive, and I’d arrived later than normal for Vols-Cats because I was packing an overnight bag to hit Nigel Warrior’s Wednesday morning announcement at the College Football Hall of Fame with fellow road warrior Austin Price, the Hawk to my Animal. I’m as oblivious to the impending doom forecast as I am the Auburn optimism surrounding Warrior’s announcement. The forecast, of course, turns out to be correct. But this nonsense from the Plains? Click-bait? I don’t know.
But a few minutes into the game, the groans are loud and plenty wonder how bad it might get when Tennessee trails, 34-13. I’m looking for Robinson, but don’t see him. Some fans and UT folks ask me about how the Vols might close on the football recruiting trail. The game’s bad enough that I’m tweeting about Alex Poythress nearly having as many points as the Vols midway through the first half and the imminent news on four-star and soon-to-Tennessee signee Tyler Byrd.
No one sees a Tennessee comeback coming. Not from a team that could make a chart on vanquishing leads. Even Rick Barnes will joke post-game that his Vols have had the “wrong formula.”
The rally, though, is gradual. Tennessee trails by six at halftime, 42-36, after scoring more in the final five to six minutes of the frame than the first 14.
Moments into the second half, well-respected Chattanooga Times Free Press columnist and artist extraordinaire Mark Wiedmer --- who especially knows hoops --- turns to me on press row and says, “Kentucky will lose this game by 10.” I shake my head and say I wouldn’t go that far. Weeds only barely went too far, as the second half shows.
The Vols can’t miss free throws, hitting their first 20, until some idiot tweets that Tennessee is 20-for-20 at the stripe. The next attempt is a miss, and yes, I’m that idiot.
It matters none. Tennessee is hot from distance and clutch at the stripe. It rallies to the point that records are checked --- for the Vols’ largest-ever hoops comeback and Kentucky’s biggest-ever Calipari collapse.
I’m writing an Admiral Schofield sidebar post-game after the freshman has energized his team with an 11-point, eight-rebound debut in the border series. Austin has a pair of lovely daughters that thankfully take after their mother, but on this night they’re not cooperating for bedtime. He implores me to take my time on deadline.
I remind him that a storm’s coming and we’ve got an unfortunate drive to Atlanta after I get him at WVLT.
We don’t quite realize how unfortunate until we both are pretty certain, somewhere around Ooltewah, that we’ve passed Noah’s Ark. Former colleague Grant Ramey texts us “safe travels, Boss” as we roll south on I-75. It’s miserable driving conditions, but we’re not wearing potato sack shoes, aka Toms, as Ramey does on this night. Shouldn’t have eschewed the rain boots, dude.
By the time we fuel up, roll through a drive-through and check into our hotel near Buckhead, it’s after 2:30 a.m. Alarms and wakeup calls are set for 6:30.
I drop off A.P. In front of the Hall at 7:24; it’s raining so hard we worry about the camera being exposed even for literally a couple seconds.
We barely beat Warrior and his family to the event; I speak to Nigel and chat about visiting him at his high school in the spring while also making an introduction to his mother, Tangie. We’re struck by the class and grace with which she handles a highly emotional day.
Warrior pulls the Tennessee hat from his suit at 8:07, and obliges every interview request, including multiple ones from us, before we hit the road at 9:16.
My day is truly just getting started and will feature stops in Maryville, Knoxville, Nashville, Denver and San Francisco by midnight PST.
We get gas and some Chick-Fil-A in Kennesaw --- which turns out to be crucial, because the chicken minis breakfast combo will be my lone meal of the day. A.P. does two things when he travels: sleeps or communicates. No middle ground. He wants to Periscope. We do, and we both keep working the Jonathan Kongbo angle. He’s the only mystery left in the Vols’ class.
We roll straight to my house so that I can change for my sit-down interview with Butch Jones, his first comments with local media after Jones secures a third-straight top-15 signing class, that airs Wednesday evening on WVLT during the hourlong Extra Point. As we’re heading to campus, we start getting word out of the Magnolia State that Ole Miss has abandoned hope of landing Kongbo. “They were always counting on the dad,” we’re told, “because the kid wants to be at Tennessee.”
Soon, the VQ group text shares this info and we start confirming with folks from here to Arizona that King Kong intends to be a Vol.
I get to campus in time to catch up with Mike Keith, who’s crushed the day’s proceedings, and Bob Kesling, who had the call on the Vols’ huge hoops win. I get to chat with veteran UT ticket man Danny Burnley, who’s seen too many signing days to count. Nobody, however, loves the Vols on that campus more than Burnley.
The interview is done by 3:25, moments before Jones ventures into the Ray and Lucy Hand Digital Studio to greet the masses, and I’m off. I grab my buddy Ronald and drop off Austin at WVLT.
Ultimate destination on this day? San Francisco. Still left? Driving to the Nashville airport and then flying Nashville-Denver-San Francisco. Plus, I’ve still got a radio spot coming up with … the boys in Nashville on 3HL.
Naturally, I’m going through security at BNA when J.T. from 3HL calls for my appearance. Fatigue, now, is setting in as I’m operating on roughly three hours’ sleep and prepping for the cross-country flight to some Super Bowl concerts and festivities.
Travel is smooth, but I’m not an eat-on-the-plane guy. So the chicken minis remain my lone meal for the day, and by the time we land in SanFran, it’s midnight PST.
I’ve touched all four time zones in the continental U.S. on this day, and somehow stayed awake enough to take the notes that enabled me to chronicle it here.
It was worth it, of course, but I’m glad signing day only happens once a year.