University of Tennessee Athletics
Inside The T - Another Special Week
June 08, 2015 | General
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
Tennessee is a special place, a fact that we are reminded of all the time by just walking the halls.
Every day last week there was another reminder. A Super Bowl head coach, a couple of Tennessee legends, some potential future legends starting their careers and the opportunity to honor one of the people that makes the place run behind the scenes, the week had everything.
Tuesday, UT honored Kim Milligan , the person who greets everyone that gets off the elevator on the top floor of the Anderson Training Center. Her duties go much deeper than simply rolling out the welcome mat for the department, but it is the smile and the attitude that earned her UT's Most Courteous Employee of the Month award. It is a campus-wide honor that fit Milligan to a T.
"It was just unbelievable," Milligan said after seeing the reception set up for her in the lobby. "After 30 years here at the University of Tennessee, I just felt so loved. I love the people here, I love my job, I love working here and I just couldn't believe it."
Wednesday brought VFL Inky Johnson back to campus to kick off the football program's Fourth-and-1 Wednesday series. Each week, Butch Jones and his staff bring in speakers on topics that go much deeper than just football.
No speaker could have been more appropriate to start the summer series than Johnson, who suffered a life-threatening injury in a game against Air Force in 2006. He spoke from the heart with an impassioned message on what it means to wear the Power T and to represent the tradition of playing football at Tennessee.
"A lot of people worked hard for this, put sweat and blood into this," he said. "You have to understand that this program is a lot bigger than you. That T will never leave. While you are here, you have to understand what you represent."
He reminded the players that it doesn't end when a playing career is over. In fact, that is when the real work actually begins.
"Who you are as a man is far more important than who you are as a ballplayer," Johnson said. "Live that. That's representing this T to the fullest."
Also on Wednesday, the members of Team 119 rolled through the photo and video studios to take headshots and record jersey countdown promos for the 2015 season. As the returners took their shots, we were able to compare the new photos to their old headshots and it's amazing to see how players grow and change from year to year.
Seeing the freshmen take photos as one of their first activities as a Vol is just as stirring to me. It is the start of something that they have dreamed of all their lives. Now, with one click of the shutter, it all becomes very real.
Thursday was another day of seeing VFL Chris Lofton walking the halls. Lofton was in town to appear at a series of youth camps, but stopped by the complex several times over the course of the week to get workouts in and, of course, get a few shots up. No word if he recreated his famous shot over Kevin Durant for Rick Barnes.
On Friday, Butch Jones welcomed back Jon Gruden to speak to the Volunteers before leading UT's passing camp on Saturday.
"Grudenmania" has swept Knoxville before, fueled by Gruden's deep love for the University of Tennessee, where he started his coaching career as a GA for Johnny Majors in the 1980s. He met his wife here and he revealed that his son will be a freshman here in the fall.
His love of Tennessee extends to its current head coach, who Gruden said was cut from the same cloth as he was.
"He desperately wants to win, he wants to bring it back to Tennessee," Gruden said of Jones. "I get emotional thinking about it. He's a fiery guy that inherited a tough situation, but when you look around and see what he's been able to do, it's got to be exciting."
It is exciting for Vol fans. And all of it is just another week in the life at Tennessee.
