“So this is the world, and there are almost six billion people on it. When I was a kid, there were three. It's hard to keep up.”
These are the opening lines of one of my favorite movies, Jerry Maguire. To put that in context, when I was a kid Phillip Fulmer was my coach. Now, no one knows.
Take a look at these lines from the recent film We Are Marshall. In that film the coach makes the claim that, “When you take that field today, you've got to lay that heart on the line, men. From the souls of your feet, with every ounce of blood you've got in your body, lay it on the line until the final whistle blows. And if you do that, if you do that, we cannot lose.”
These are ideals: things we like to teach and preach but not necessarily always live by.
Or maybe I took that a little too far. We may like to live by them in our minds, but we recognize that we would be crazy to conduct our business in such a way. From a business perspective, we believe that sport does have winners and losers.
Today we have a new creed (pun soon to follow).
Remember in Rocky II, what Adrian said to our hero?
Adrian: There’s one thing I want you to do for me.
Rocky: What’s that?
Adrian: Win. Win!
Just win. Plain and simple. Everyone just wants Tennessee to win.
If you surveyed Vols fans on the number one thing they want and expect out of the new coach, I promise you 100 percent would say “win” above all else. They would likely add a line about how winning solves all problems.
Well, you know who else wanted Tennessee to win?
Coach Phillip Fulmer. Watch the press conference where he said he wouldn’t let Tennessee be divided. You know, the one where a grown man cried. That man wanted to win just as much as you and I did.
And how does the saying go?
Where there’s a will, there’s a...err, maybe don’t want to preach that one anymore.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe the way is a new coach, as so many people point to the fact that this “had to be done.”
People say he just wasn’t getting the job done anymore. I understand that argument. There are 50 statistics people throw out saying that he was backsliding. I’ve read them all and agree that no one wants to be 4-7.
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