Tennessee football is hundreds of victories, the giant stadium, passionate fans, sensational statistics, unforgettable plays, unbelievable stories--Jack Reynolds hacksawing his Jeep in half, Richmond Flowers racing a quarter-horse, Peyton Manning dropping his drawers. Tennessee football is the checkerboard end zone and the Pride of the Southland band and nicknames like Bad News and Wild Bull and Swamp Rat. It is that 1928 con job and the stunning triumph over Alabama. It is the series of miracles that produced the national championship of 1998. Tennessee football is long runs and long passes and long punts and 161 extra points in a row. It is a million memories of pancake blocks, knockout tackles, impossible interceptions, missed calls and fumbles lost and found. Tennessee football is fantastic comebacks and horrendous upsets and the wonderful, awful difference in winning and losing. What is Tennessee football? It's really the men who put on the pads, pull on the jersey and fasten the chin strap. Their names are carved in marble on the Tennessee wall of fame. The are unforgettable. A chosen few are bigger than life. They are the legends. It's easier to be a Tennessee legend if you could get your hands on the football--Johnny Majors, Hank Lauricella, Willie Gault. If you didn't run with it or throw it or catch it, next best thing was to chase it--Doug Atkins, Steve Kiner, Reggie White. The deck is stacked against offensive linemen. To qualify, they must be extra legendary. Generally speaking, legends, like good wine and cheese, need a little age. It is often said that the best football players get better and better at Tennessee, beginning about 10 years after eligibility expires. Thatsaid, three are in this book as young legends, so ordained without benefit of gray beards or rocking chairs. There hasn't been and may never be a more memorable quarterback than Peyton Manning. Al Wilson was the heart and soul of the national championship team of 1998. John Henderson was America's best defensive lineman in 2000. Three cheers for the legendary Volunteers, hip, hip, hooray...

Authors Harris and Manning span the decades that weave together the story of University of Tennessee Vol history and tradition.

You step out onto the field. The crowd roars and shouts your name. You're about to play your first game at Neyland Stadium. Are you Tennessee's biggest fan? Then this story is for you!

"It wasn't a team. It was a tent revival." So says Pat Summitt, the legendary coach whose Tennessee Lady Vols entered the 1997-98 season aiming for an almost unprecedented "three-peat" of NCAA championships. Raise the Roof takes you right inside the locker room of her amazing team, whose inspired mixture of gifted freshmen and seasoned stars produced a standard of play that would change the game of women's basketball forever. The 1997-98 season started innocently enough. One Saturday in August, four young freshmen--Semeka Randall, Tamika Catchings, Ace Clement and Teresa Geter--arrived on the Tennessee campus to begin their college careers. Welcoming them were a number of players from the previous year, including Chamique Holdsclaw and Kellie Jolly. But that night, in a sign of things to come, a simple pickup game turned into an amazing display of basketball brilliance--freshmen against established players, and with barely a shot missed by either side. Suddenly Pat Summitt glimpsed the future: fast, aggressive and hugely talented. This might be the team she'd worked her whole career to coach. As the season got under way, other dramas unfolded. After one emotional team meeting, Summitt realized that many on the team were playing for something more than just the glory of the game: all four freshmen, for example, came from single-parent homes, and the tough circumstances of the majority of the other players seemed to add an extra edge to their desire to win it all. Further, Chamique Holdsclaw, widely regarded as the greatest female player ever, was being dogged by questions about turning pro--and she seemed reluctant to rule it out. Meanwhile, another member of the team began to notice the unwelcome attentions of a fan, who soon turned out to be a full-fledged stalker. All this was behind the scenes; out on the court, the win column was swelling with every game: 8-0, 15-0, 21-0. As 1997 turned into 1998, Pat Summitt began privately to admit that this team had changed her: these kids were so lovable, funny and eager to please that she simply had to let them into her heart. Along the way, the Lady Vols were redefining what women were capable of, trading in old definitions of femininity for new ones--in short, they were keeping score. And by the time they entered the NCAA Final Four tournament in Kansas City, Summitt found herself believing the impossible: despite all the distractions, the 1997-98 Lady Vols could go undefeated, and, in doing so, raise the roof off the sport of women's basketball. Packed with the excitement of a season on the brink of perfection and filled with the comedy and tragedy of one year in the life of a basketball team, Raise the Roof will have readers cheering from the bench for a team of all-conquering players and their astonishing coach.

The band blares “Rocky Top” and the crowd roars as the University of Tennessee football team storms out of the tunnel and onto the field through the giant “T,” their beloved mascot Smokey leading the way. The iconic Bluetick Coonhound has been part of the pageantry and tradition at the University of Tennessee since 1953, delighting fans both young and old. For this entertaining and enlightening book, UT sports historian Thomas J. Mattingly has teamed up with longtime Smokey owner Earl C. Hudson to tell the stories of the nine hounds that have been top dog on campus for more than half a century. It was the Rev. Bill Brooks, Hudson’s brother-in-law, whose prize-winning dog “Brooks’ Blue Smokey,” became the first mascot by winning a student body-led contest at a home football game in 1953. The Coonhound breed was selected because it was native to the state, and several (no one remembers exactly how many) were brought onto the field at halftime to compete. But Smokey stole the show when he threw back his head and howled. The crowd cheered, and Smokey howled again. The raucous applause and barking built to a frenzy. The enthusiastic hound won the hearts of the Volunteer faithful that day, and he and the dogs that followed have remained among the University of Tennessee’s most popular symbols ever since. The authors have interviewed Smokey’s former handlers, university archivists, sports journalists, and local historians as well as legions of longtime fans. Their recollections provide not only the background of the mascot but a history of UT athletics as well. Vol fans will enjoy reading about Smokey’s adventures throughout the years, from his kidnapping in 1955 by mischievous Kentucky students to his confrontation with the Baylor Bear at the 1957 Sugar Bowl to the time he suffered heat exhaustion at the 1991 UCLA game and was listed on the Vols’ injury report until his return later in the season. Filled with photographs and memorabilia, including vintage game programs, football schedules, letters, cartoons, and more, this book brings to life the magic of UT football and the endearing canines that have become such an indispensable part of the experience. THOMAS J. MATTINGLY is the author of Tennessee Football: The Peyton Manning Years, The University of Tennessee Football Vault: The Story of the Tennessee Volunteers, 1891-2006, The University of Tennessee All-Access Football Vault and The University of Tennessee Trivia Book. He writes about Vol history on his Knoxville News Sentinel blog, “The Vol Historian.” EARL C. HUDSON’s family have cared for the Smokeys since 1994.