Tennessee Football

 

Running through the “T”

With the “kickoff” of college football this weekend, many talented athletes will be taking the field.  There are 340 other talented folks who will be on the field as well and need to be recognized.  The Pride of the Southland Marching Band of the University of Tennessee, my alma mater, is one of the most prestigious college bands.  The traditional “running through the T” entrance of the football team has become an iconic performance.  The first time it happened was in 1965 at the season opener against Army.  Head coach Doug Dickey and Band Director Dr. W. J. Julian collaborated on an idea.  Coach Dickey decided he wanted to move the team’s locker room from the east to the west side of the field.  This required a unique entrance to avoid the opposing team.  Creatively, Dr. Julian came up with the formation of the “T” by the band members.  

In 1983, the original east to west formation was replaced with a north to south entrance when the locker rooms were again relocated to the north end zone.  The exhilaration of attending Neyland Stadium with a current capacity crowd of 101,915 in a sea of orange and white, while the Tennessee Volunteers run through the giant “T” is impossible to describe.  The roar of the crowd is deafening.  The charge is led by Smokey, the beloved Bluetick Coon hound mascot and Davy Crockett who represents the Volunteer spirit.  The mascot dressed as Davy Crockett runs onto the field with Smokey and waves a giant Tennessee state flag as the band plays “Down the Field”.  In seasons 1999-2000 and 2000-2021 my brother-in-law, Ron Osbon, was a trumpet player and marched in the Pride of the Southland Band.  At the ripe old age of 40, he was the oldest member of the band on the field.  The other students called him “grandpa”.

The other represented mascot for the University of Tennessee is the one who is dressed up in a Smokey costume wearing a double zero jersey and providing comic relief and energy to hype up the crowd.  This crowd-pleaser Smokey has won three College Mascot National Championships and was inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame in 2008.  The first official costumed Smokey made her appearance in 1973 when Nancy Nelson Wyszynski first wore the costume.  The costume was revised in 1982 when a more realistic version was introduced, however, it was rejected by the students and fans.  Today’s Smokey costume was accepted in 1988.

So why does the University of Tennessee have a bluetick hound as a mascot?  In 1953 the UT Pep Club held a contest to determine their live mascot.  They had already determined it should be a coonhound breed of dog.  At the halftime of the Mississippi game, several dogs were presented to the student body on the cheerleader’s ramp at Shields-Watkins Field.  Each dog was scored by the applause of the crowd.  The winning dog was the last entry, “Brooks’ Blue Smokey” who howled when his name was announced and subsequently howled each time the crowd cheered.  He became the first in a line of Smokeys that is currently, Smokey XI.  The eleventh Smokey ran through the “T” for the first time November 25, 2023.  During game days and while attending official mascot duties, Smokey is handled by members of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity.  Mostly, Smokey lives as a pet for the Hudson family in Knoxville.  The original bloodline was Smokey I-IV.  Smokey IV died of cancer in 1979 without producing offspring which ended the initial line. Smokey V, in 1980, was the nephew to Smokey IV, and thus beginning a new bloodline.  This bloodline continued through Smokey IX, who retired in 2012.  In 2013, Smokey X as the first not to be a descendent of the original lineage, but the first to be born and bred in Tennessee.  Smokey XI, the current mascot, is the son of Smokey X and part of the new, Tennessee-bred lineage.

 Under the sponsorship of the UT Pep Club in the mid-1960’s, a Grand Champion Tennessee walking horse also walked the sidelines of the football games.  That tradition was discontinued in the 1980’s as the new artificial turf presented a fall risk to the horse.  Then in 2023, the tradition was renewed at Homecoming with a world champion youth horse, Labeled A Parolee, ridden by Eliza DeKleyn performed for the crowd.  This tradition is specifically reserved for the annual Homecoming festivities.

Tennessee football is rich in tradition and many Tennesseans bleed orange.  From the checkerboard endzones to Power T, to the trio of mascots, to the blaring of Rocky Top, to the Pride of the Southland, the University of Tennessee has a flare for making a football game an unforgettable experience. 

Tammy Harvey

9/10/2025