Rocky Top Is Cool
For years, I tried to fight it.
Truly. I had perfectly good reasons to dislike Tennessee. Two diplomas’ worth, actually.
Then I spent Saturday in Knoxville, and the damn place stole my heart.
I grew up in suburban Chicago, where at least among some of the people I knew, the South was treated like one big punch line. When I announced I was going to Middle Tennessee State, you would have thought I had decided to abandon indoor plumbing.
Out came the fake Southern accents. Somebody would hum the theme from Deliverance. A friend of mine especially enjoyed reinforcing the idea that I was leaving civilization behind to attend college somewhere deeply suspicious.
The assumption was that the South was backward, uneducated and undeveloped.
I didn’t have the words for it then, but there was an awful lot of ignorance wrapped up in those accusations of ignorance.
Besides, I had always felt some connection to the South. Deep in my bones.
The Colangelo side of my family was Italian through and through. My grandfather, Tata—Ralph—came over from Italy. The Childers side, though, has deep Southern roots.
There is even a family story that my biological grandfather, Art Childers, raced at Daytona. Supposedly, he was a NASCAR driver.
Is that true? I honestly have no idea.
I have spent years working in sports media, including two seasons doing a show with RFK Racing, and somehow never investigated this potentially useful piece of family history.
Excellent journalism, Childers.
Whatever the genealogy says, the musical evidence was pretty convincing. While kids around me were listening to Metallica and Megadeth, I was listening to Deana Carter and Faith Hill.
Give me “Strawberry Wine” over “Enter Sandman” any day.
So I went South. And when I arrived at MTSU, I quickly learned another expectation: We were supposed to dislike Tennessee.
Fine. I could do that.
But the older I get, the more I wonder why we spend so much energy on that particular comparison.
I love Middle Tennessee. I am proud of my degree. I am proud to be the voice on the public-address system at football games. That school helped shape my life, and being able to give something back means something to me.
On Tuesday, I worked the MTSU game in front of a little more than 8,000 people.
On Saturday, I worked in Knoxville among more than 100,000.
Same sport. College kids wearing their school’s colors. Families in the stands who care deeply about what happens.
Completely different experiences.
MTSU deserves to be appreciated on its own terms. It does not need to spend its existence being measured against Knoxville to justify its value.
I made a similar point recently while talking with Sunderland CEO Tom Burwell about Major League Soccer. Some Premier League fans and Europeans love looking down their noses at MLS.
Why?
Celebrate it for what it is. There are people building traditions, taking their children to games and finding something that belongs to them. That has value.
MLS and the Premier League can both send teams to the Club World Cup. MTSU and Tennessee both play FBS football. Sharing a competition or classification does not mean sharing the same resources, atmosphere or place in the culture.
You can love what you have and still appreciate something extraordinary somewhere else.
And damn, Saturday in Knoxville was extraordinary.
I was there working for SiriusXM’s Morgan Wallen Radio, wandering through the tailgates and interviewing fans about the Vols, Morgan’s music and why college football means so much to them.
As work assignments go, that is a pretty good one.
I got to eat, visit and ask people about things they love. Their team. Their favorite songs. Their thoughts on the game. The reasons they keep coming back.
The hospitality was warm and easy. People welcomed me into their Saturday, and I had a blast being part of it.
When you give somebody room to explain why a place matters to them, you learn a lot more than whether they think the home team will cover.
You hear the affection in their voices. You see how much they enjoy being together. You understand why they have been looking forward to this particular Saturday for months.
I had Morgan’s channel on during the drive to Knoxville to get myself in the right frame of mind. I have pretty much been listening nonstop since.
My favorite song now? “TN.”
Apparently, this assignment came with some lasting effects.
I went there to talk to people about why they love Tennessee. By the end of the day, I understood their answers a whole lot better.
This was my fourth Tennessee game in Knoxville, so it wasn’t as though I had never seen the place.
I went when MTSU played there during my sophomore year at Middle. I watched Tennessee lose to South Carolina with my friend JC Shurburtt in the mid-2000s. I was there when Baker Mayfield and Oklahoma came to town and beat the Vols.
I had seen Neyland. I had heard the noise.
But I had never experienced Knoxville quite like this.
Tennessee beating Alabama on the Third Saturday in October. The cigar smoke after the game. Fans pouring onto the field. That enormous stadium becoming one giant celebration.
The field storm brought a $500,000 fine payable to Alabama. An expensive celebration, certainly, but I doubt many people on that field were thinking about the invoice.
They were having one of those nights they will talk about for years.
And I was standing there admiring all of it.
That is a somewhat inconvenient admission from a man with an Alabama degree.
I am an MTSU alumnus and an Alabama alumnus. On paper, I should have been one of the least emotionally available people in Knoxville.
Instead, Tennessee beat a school I graduated from and somehow won my admiration in the process.
I even caught myself thinking about my daughter.
She is 12. College is still a few years away, but somewhere in the middle of all that orange, I found myself hoping she might consider going there.
We live in Nashville. In-state tuition would certainly help.
See? I hadn’t completely lost my ability to think rationally.
But I was also imagining her getting to experience that place. Finding her friends. Building her own memories. Having a Saturday she would remember long after she forgot which classes she took that semester.
For somebody who arrived at MTSU learning that we were supposed to dislike Tennessee, that felt like a fairly significant development.
Maybe I finally caught Knoxville at exactly the right moment.
The Vols had beaten their rival. The cigars were lit. People were hugging and celebrating, and all felt right in their corner of the world.
I got to see the place as the people who love it always hope to see it.
And after spending so much of my childhood hearing people dismiss the South, I especially appreciated being there. I thought about those fake accents and the jokes about my college choice. How confidently people can pass judgment on somewhere they have never bothered to understand.
I have lived in Tennessee since 2000. I built my life here. I have plenty of reasons to know better.
Still, Saturday gave me something new.
I came home with a little more affection for a school I had spent years rooting against, a Morgan Wallen channel I can’t seem to turn off, and the surprising thought that someday I might be making that drive to visit my daughter.
My MTSU degree is safe. So is my Alabama degree.
But I’m done trying to fight this particular conclusion.
Rocky Top is cool.
Damn cool.
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More college football with me and Rick Neuheisel
Rick joined me Sunday for a special Show Pony Live to break down Saturday’s chaos, the officiating controversies and what it all means for the playoff picture. Plus, more from my Knoxville adventure with Morgan Wallen Radio.
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