University of Tennessee Athletics
Inside The T - Seeing #OneTennessee
January 30, 2015 | General
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
January is peak time for One Tennessee. If you need evidence of that, just look out on the field at the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex pretty much any time of day.
This is the time of year where all of our sports are doing some type of organized activity, and most of them are out on the indoor practice field. Looking across the field, the range of athletes and activities goes from full team practices to conditioning to throwing a football around to get a little more timing down.
Baseball and softball each opened full team practices on the indoor field while rain and occasional cold temperatures kept them off of their normal basepaths at Lindsey Nelson and Lee Stadiums.
While watching the softball team go through one of their first team workouts on the north end of the field, I saw part of the football team stretching on the other end after completing one of their initial offseason lifting sessions. Next to them, sprinters from track and field burst across a checkerboard end zone at full speed. Later, footballs went in the air as players worked on timing and technique all on their own.
It applies at all times of day as well. A morning walk through the building well before time for classes to begin will find the cheer team on one end polishing routines while soccer rolls through conditioning on the other.
Though there is not much basketball being played on the indoor practice field, many of our teams and athletes have been honored in front of the big crowds that have gathered at recent games.
Members of the softball team interacted with fans as they entered the Lady Vol basketball game against Georgia on Sunday, signing autographs and handing out schedule cards for another excellent home schedule. The team was introduced to the crowd at halftime to the usual thunderous applause.
A day earlier, the football mid-year enrollees were introduced to the same thunderous applause at halftime of the men's basketball game against Texas A&M. They were then joined by their teammates to celebrate the Volunteers' TaxSlayer Bowl victory over Iowa.
Tomorrow, the baseball team will get the same treatment during the basketball game against Auburn, greeting fans as they enter the arena before a halftime introduction.
Supporting each other is nothing new at Tennessee. When I started working events as a freshman back in 2001, the stands at volleyball and soccer were always full of athletes from every sport, from football to women's basketball. Our athletes eat together at Smokey's Sports Grill and all have full use of all the facilities that UT has, some of the finest in the country.
But knowing that the support is there and seeing it all in one place are really two different things. The mission statement of Tennessee Athletics is "To inspire and support our student-athletes in the pursuit of comprehensive excellence."
Talking about it is one thing. But take a look across one 120-yard field, and you can see it and feel it happening.
