Rocky Top

“Rocky Top you'll always be; Home sweet home to me; Good ole Rocky Top, Rocky Top, Tennessee; Rocky Top, Tennessee.” Rocky Top, the fight song for the University of Tennessee, has been an ironic representation of this past school year for the Volunteers. A few of the things that have been “rocky” for fans in Knoxville include the ups and downs of this past football season as well as the current basketball season.
The controversial school year actual started on a high note when Tobias Harris, one of the top high school basketball players in the country, signed with the Vols for next season. Harris, who was considered one of the top 10 seniors in the nation by many, is an incredibly talented power forward who helped make Tennessee’s 2010 draft class one of the best in the country so far. The 6’8” power forward with good ball-handling and decent perimeter shooting said that he liked the passion of the coaches in Knoxville, especially head coach Bruce Pearl.
Things started to head down hill on Christmas Eve. In fact, everything fell apart at once. Tennessee’s football team suffered a 37-14 blowout loss to Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl game, but was hit much harder with what happened right after the game. Quarterback Jonathan Crompton was sent to the hospital immediately after the game with an undisclosed injury, and star junior safety Eric Berry confirmed that he would skip his senior season with the Vols to enter the NFL Draft, where he is predicted to be a top 10 pick. Early the next morning, to literally add more insult to injury, several Tennessee basketball players were arrested for weapons charges and marijuana possession, including All-SEC forward Tyler Smith, who had lead the team in scoring the previous season. The three other players were later reinstated to the team, but Smith was suspended for the whole season.
Amazingly, the basketball team recovered, and did it in large fashion by knocking off unbeaten No. 1 Kansas a little over a week after the incident. But the prosperity in Knoxville only lasted a few days as head football coach Lane Kiffin bolted for the head coaching job at USC after just one season as Tennessee’s coach. Even though some say getting rid of the tumultuous Kiffin will be good in the long run for the Vols, his departure will seriously set back both recruiting and team chemistry at a school with a tradition of winning. Meanwhile, over on the hardwood, the boys basketball team seems to be in good shape being ranked 14th in the nation, but they have struggled of late and have dropped their last two games. The Lady Vols basketball team has had a better than anticipated season under legendary coach Pat Summit, currently sitting at No. 5 in the country and No.1 in the SEC.
Regardless of the good or bad reputation Tennessee receives from these events, their school pride and spirit has remained one of the strongest. Fans, players, and coaches know that they have a rocky road ahead of them if they want to find their way back to being near the top in the realm of college sports. The one thing we know for sure is that no matter what the people in Knoxville go through, at the end of the day, they will always be singing “Home sweet home to me, good ole’ Rocky Top Tennessee.”