Goodbye to a Volunteer

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Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer listens to a question from a member of the media during Tuesday’s weekly media day.

Phillip Fulmer announces he is stepping down

Ask Phillip Fulmer what he remembers from his first official game as Tennessee's football coach.

Ask it because that seems like it would be a memorable day.

"We were really into it," Fulmer said this week, only a few days away from his final game after 16-plus seasons as the Vols' head coach. "We decided we would throw a take-off on the first play of the game. Hit Ronald Davis for the first play. I'm pretty sure it was the first play. That set a real tone for the game."

Does anything still stand out now, nearly 17 years after that milestone Hall of Fame Bowl game in 1992?

"That's a lot of games ago," Fulmer says. "(Heath) Shuler, right? Yeah, Shuler was the quarterback."

Spend any length of time around Fulmer, and it's not difficult to figure out that it's about players more than plays.

And it's about Tennessee football a lot more than it is about Fulmer.

"I think the whole thing will be about people, really," Fulmer said. "The time that you spent with certain people and what was accomplished with those people. Within that, you can't leave out the games or the big plays or the moments with those guys."

Spend 34 years in one place, and they all begin to add up.

Fulmer's run with Tennessee as a player and coach comes to an end with tonight's game against Kentucky in Neyland Stadium.

It's the final game in a career that spans four years as a player, two seasons as a student coach, 13 seasons as an assistant coach and 16 full seasons as the Vols' head coach.

Ten years ago, he took the Vols to the top of the football mountain, claiming the 1998 national championship with a 13-0 record.

This year, though, a 3-6 start led to Fulmer's ouster Nov. 3. A loss to Wyoming five days later on homecoming assured Fulmer's worst record as head coach and UT's second losing season in four years.

But since 1969, when Fulmer played on UT's offensive line, Tennessee has won six of the 13 SEC championships in program history. Fulmer has been on the sidelines for all of them.

As a head coach, he took the Vols to five SEC championship game appearance and two SEC titles. He won 151 games and lost 52, the second best record in school history.

Under his watch, the Vols sent 89 players to the NFL, 16 of whom were first-round selections. Seventeen earned All-America honors.

Each of those players has a story. So do the walk-ons and contributors who never played a down of football after college.

The numbers add up. So do the stories.

Long after the lights go out and the noise fades from Neyland Stadium tonight, the numbers will be there. But the stories - and the people they involve - are what will really endure.

"We've had a lot of great times," said defensive ends coach Steve Caldwell, who has been on Fulmer's staff since 1995. "You got to cherish those good times."

As it turns out, most of those times are about people more than plays. Or, as the saying goes, the Jimmies and Joes, not X's and O's.

But there's some of the latter, too. There's even a story with both.

Back in the 1980s, Fulmer was burning some serious midnight oil with then-offensive coordinator Walt Harris and assistant Kippy Brown.

"Walt Harris and Kippy Brown and I sat up 'til way after midnight just talking about how to run a fade and do a stretch catch and how we wanted it to look with our offense," Fulmer recalls. "Everybody had gone home. Maintenance people were mad because we were still in there and they couldn't clean up.

"That's the way we operated and the reason we were pretty darn good about what we did, because we were pretty detail oriented about the way we did things."

And thorough, especially on the recruiting trail.

The day after UT won the 1998 national championship, Fulmer was up at 5 a.m. with only a few hours sleep, flew to Knoxville, changed planes and hit the recruiting trail.

"I should have taken a couple days, should have given the coaches a couple days to enjoy that win, that moment," Fulmer said.

There's a whirlwind day in the early 1990s that saw Fulmer flying to five different states on the final day of recruiting. An exhausted Fulmer ended his day in Yuma, Ariz., after convincing defensive back Terry Fair to play for Tennessee.

"We got all five of them," Fulmer said.

Fulmer recounts a trip to Jefferson City to recruit Spencer Riley, who signed with UT in 1995 and went on to be a captain. Riley's family had laid out a big spread of food for Fulmer and UT's recruiting party.

"Had a huge country Sunday dinner," Fulmer said. "Wonderful visit."

Then, it was off to North Carolina to visit with Shawn Bryson. And, it turned out, another big meal.

"We get there, and his mother's got a huge dinner prepared. You're three hours from just finishing that," Fulmer says. "You don't want to disappoint her, so you load up again.

"Millions of those kinds of things."

Then there's a one-in-a-million moment.

UT had just clinched a 23-16 victory over Florida State in the Fiesta Bowl for the Vols' first consensus national title since 1951.

As the clock wound down, Fulmer made his way to midfield for a post-game handshake with FSU coach Bobby Bowden.

"It was just like a surreal moment, all the flashes of cameras and people, but I felt my dad," said Fulmer, whose father died in 1989. "We were really close, and he was always very supportive. For whatever seconds, it seemed like a long time. But whatever seconds it was, I know his presence was there in the crowd."

On Tuesday, Caldwell recalled a run-of-the-mill moment.

The Vols were playing at Alabama sometime in the mid-1990s. They had just scored, and Fulmer was congratulating the offense.

"I start saying, 'Oh no, oh no,' " Caldwell said. "And we hadn't even kicked off yet. He always said I was the worst at starting to worry before we'd ever kicked the ball. I used to make him a nervous wreck."

Caldwell finished the story and laughed loudly. Too loudly, maybe. It's the kind of laugh that seems like it's to keep from crying.

It's one of thousands of stories, thousands of moments that come from spending so much time doing what you love in a place you love.

For Fulmer, that was coaching football at Tennessee.

It's where he was born. It's where he grew up.

It's where he won games and lost them. It's where he shared laughs and shed tears.

As the curtain falls today, there's sure to be both.

Drew Edwards covers University of Tennessee football. He may be reached at 865-342-6274.