Big Orange Tipoff Club Report - 1/24/08

This week's meeting, held on Thursday, featured Coach Pearl as the headliner of the day.

For the great portion of the meeting, Coach answered questions from the attendees.

He did mention that Duke would get in the game on Saturday, in all likelihood. I can't wait for the moment that he walks over to that scorer's table. Maybe Wayne will ask Coach to let Duke start, like Duke did when we played Memphis last year. Anyway...I've lost my focus here...back to the report!

Undoubtedly, the highlight of the meeting had little to do with basketball. When Coach was asked about the team's trip to Europe and their visit to a Jewish prison camp, Coach delivered a passionate response.

He spoke of tolerance, and how he taught his players (and us) that differences between people cannot be the source of hate. He wondered aloud how crazy it was that in this lifetime, people allowed the atrocities of the Holocaust to occur unfettered. He demanded that when we are aware of illogical hatred based on differences between people, we must not remain silent and allow it to continue. He boldly called out the old-timers in the room, stating that some people don't like the way his players dress and wear their hair or jewelry, and that those people need to accept and tolerate the differences between people.

He also spoke of war, and how he absolutely hates it. He told us that war for political or economic purposes is intolerable, and that a life in danger is the only reason that is acceptable for war. However, he also told us that once we are in a war, we had better be in it to win it.

After he was done, Coach received a hearty round of applause.

Big Orange Tipoff Club Report - 1/9/08

I attended this season's first meeting of the Big Orange Tipoff Club today at lunchtime at Calhoun's on the River. It was a packed house that was ready to hear the wisdom of Coaches Pearl and Summitt, the seven-time national championship coach being the featured speaker of the day.

It was pretty much the same-old, same-old, though. A nice meeting, but I really like to hear speakers that I don't hear all the time around here in Knoxville. Although both our basketball coaches are fantastic speakers, I don't want to hear them saying the usual coachspeak at an event like this. I was them to reward attendees like myself with something truly insightful or a remarkable story, something like that.

As he's stated before, Coach Pearl couldn't eat anything on this game day due to nerves. He also said that he couldn't be very funny on game day either, although he was, telling the audience a bit of an off-color joke. He did take a moment to defend the perceived lack of rebounding by his team. Although he did state that he is not pleased with the rebounding of the team so far, he said that the numbers look worse than the situation actually is, because 1) our defense plays very far out on people, pulling defensive rebounders away from the rim; and 2) we have a lot of offensive possessions and take a lot of shots, which gives the opponent more defensive rebounds, because they're going to get boards on about 2/3 of our shots.

Coach Summitt spent most of her time praising her assistant coach Dean Lockwood and kidding around with Holly Warlick, who was in the audience.


As far as the game tonight, I truly envision the Vols jumping out to an early lead, then letting the Rebels hang around for a while. Ole Miss may even come back to take the lead. However, the Vols will pull away in the last 8 minutes of the game and finish with a double-digit victory. Chris will make four 3-pointers, Juannie will make three, Jordan will make two, and Chill will make one. That, my friends, is a specific prediction.