KNOXVILLE - There has been much talk lately in the wake of Coach Bruce Pearl’s great success with the rejuvenated University of Tennessee men’s basketball program and the seventh national championship for Coach Pat Head Summitt’s Lady Vols about how basketball has supplanted football as “the” sport on campus. Admittedly, I have gotten caught up in that talk, too, as I’m very passionate about UT basketball, but I remember that Coach Ray Mears, the greatest Vol basketball coach ever, always had a twinkle in his eye about Tennessee football as well, and he knew what it meant on The Hill. So when you make the trek to Neyland Stadium Saturday for college football’s greatest gameday, remember these things…

Tennessee football is the 30-year-old couple coming back to campus for the season’s opening game for the first time since they graduated together from UT, with both their little ones in tow. One of the kids wears her orange and white cheerleader outfit; the other wears his #16 jersey, even though he's too young to understand why.

Tennessee football is the 50-year-old man like me who hopes no one sees tears in his eyes when the “T” is formed by the Pride of the Southland Band. He is too choked up even to sing "Rocky Top." For a moment, he feels foolish, and then he doesn't care, and the tears flow freely down his cheeks, as he realizes how much he loves this place called the Tennessee campus and how special it really and truly is.

Tennessee football is the 60-year-old woman meeting her freshman granddaughter on campus, who now represents the third generation of UT students in the family. Despite her age, she'd strap it on Saturday and hit someone if it weren't for her gender and her blasted arthritis.

Tennessee football fans have always believed they are different, and they are. You can see it when you look up into the 100,000+ seats in the newly-refurbished historic stadium. Our Big Orange is not the same as Florida's or Auburn's. But the differences go much deeper than our colors.

Read the Tennessee football creed. What other school has one? We genuinely believe in those things. To be a real Tennessee man or woman speaks of character, not of geography. All are welcome to walk though our gates, not just the wealthy or the elite.

Georgia and Alabama may have their nations, but we have always been family. Make no mistake, we loathe losing, but even in defeat, we would rather be a Tennessee Volunteer than anyone or anything else.

Tennesseans are family, the sons of Majors and Neyland. We come from a long line of brothers whose names include White, Gault, Wilson, Manning, Shuler, Nash, and Mahelona. It is a great heritage.

So this Saturday, when the warm-ups are over, when the prayers and amen are spoken, something you rarely hear in stadiums anywhere else but always hear at UT, when you hear the thunder growing in the stands above you, when you stand in the tunnel and the smoke begins to form….listen for the Voice of Tennessee football when the gladiators, our players, run onto Shields-Watkins Field. Behind the frenzy of the shakers and deafening roar, Tennessee football’s Voice will tell you something in a whisper that you may miss. It will be telling us that we are its sons and daughters,  and that it is proud of us for the way we wear the Big Orange and White to the stadium and to work and to church and everywhere we go. It will be telling us that we are the beloved sons and daughters of Tennessee football and that we are loved for that.

Tennessee football is so much more than a state or a school or a team or a degree. It’s something that, once you have experienced it, will live inside of you forever and become a part of what makes up who you are.

It’s driving into town on gameday. You may have come from hundreds of miles away, but as you get closer and closer to the Knoxville city limits, you feel it rising inside of you, the emotion of it all. You will see other vehicles on the highway proudly displaying their Big Orange and White flags or magnets or car tags, and you honk and wave at them, because, for that one day, and indeed every day, you are all on the same team.

It’s the smell in the air and the ritualistic act of tailgating...catching up with old friends, making new ones, and the invitations from perfect strangers to try their ribs or watch their satellite TV showing all of the day's important match-ups...of course, all being secondary to the one that will occur in the great cathedral of Neyland Stadium later that day.

It’s the Vol Walk...where you might just see men weighing upwards of 300 pounds overcome with emotion and weeping with pride, because their fans have come there to cheer them on. As they walk by, you might exchange a glance with one or two of them, and you can see it in their eyes...it’s going to be their day.

It’s the students...dressed in their best, because going to a Tennessee game is like going to church for Tennessee people....you show the same respect you would as if you were in God's house. Those students remind us of the days when we were walking in their shoes and the Tennessee campus was our home...but then we realize that, in many ways, it’s still is, and always will be, HOME to us.

It’s that lump that rises in your throat when the band plays Rocky Top as the "T" is formed. That’s after the lump that you’ve already felt when the band marched through the entire campus and culminated that march with its traditional “Salute to The Hill,” before entering the stadium.

It’s walking around on "foreign" and sometimes hostile campuses on the road. We are easily identified, as Tennessee people always are, and the enemy jeers and shouts things at us to mask their feelings of intimidation. But just then we happen upon friends we’ve never met before. We know they’re our friends by the colors they wear or the shakers in their hands. We exchange a "Go Vols!" and a confident grin, because he or she knows what we know.

It’s when our hearts leap with every touchdown, field goal, sack, or interception...because those are our boys. And win or lose, they will always have our undying support. After all, it’s those boys that we’re really there for, not for a coach or a logo or a trustee or a president.

It’s the complete and utter exhilaration of walking away victorious over a worthy opponent...that feeling of pride and accomplishment as if it were our own feet that had crossed the goal line scoring the last points ourselves...that feeling of wanting to scream "Go Big Orange!" at the top of our lungs and hug complete strangers...and then that ultimate high of defeating our most hated foes from across the state or a neighboring state.

No words can truly describe what this feels like. The only ones that know the feeling are those that have really have experienced it themselves.

It’s the sheer agony of defeat as the last minutes tick off of the clock and we realize that all hope of a victory is gone. We feel like crying and maybe we do...then we hear the faint sounds of a cheer that grows louder and louder...."It’s Great To Be A Tennessee Vol!"

It’s knowing that year after year, no matter how things change in our hectic lives, we can always come back to the Tennessee River...the place where we all came from...our home. It will probably look a little different and there will be new names on the backs of the jerseys, but deep down, no matter what, it’s still the same. We still love it as much as we always have, because Tennessee’s as much a part of us as our arms and our legs and the Big Orange blood that runs through our veins.

And, finally, it’s the feeling we each have right now as we read these lines....the anticipation inside of us, because we know it’s almost time...It’s almost THAT time…It’s about to start all over again...but then it really never goes away, does it?

IT’S ALMOST FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE! GO BIG ORANGE!

PRESS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES RUSTY WALLACE RACING HALL OF FAME

Here are Mark Hancock’s remarks at the Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame Press Conference at Holiday Inn Convention Center in Morristown at Noon on Wednesday, August 22, 2007:

“We have developed a winning team in our organizational structure for the Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame. You’ve already met Bill Sanders, our Founder, President, & Chief Operating Officer. It was Bill’s idea to create this Hall of Fame & he has pursued this goal with fierce determination for over 2 years now. As President of the Downtown Morristown Association, he has been a major driving force in helping the city’s central core thrive. He has a 16-year friendship with Rusty Wallace that has been cultivated over time, & that has led to this day.

“Bill & I met on press row at a Lady Vols basketball game several years ago on The University of Tennessee campus at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville. We share a love for athletics in general & have formed a common bond as friends & business associates. Due to my experience in promoting sports events & in business consulting, he asked me to become a major shareholder in the Hall of Fame corporation & to serve as the Chairman of our Board of Directors as well as the Chief Executive Officer, something I was very proud to do. I currently serve on the Board of Directors of the Sertoma Center in Knoxville, as well as the Big Orange Tipoff Club & various other corporations & charities.

“Bill & I took a major tour of the Rusty Wallace headquarters in Mooresville, NC, this month, getting an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of all of his operations & meeting with his top executives. We also toured the Dale Earnhardt Museum & the Hendricks Motorsports complex. I have been very impressed with all of Rusty’s organization. We also visited the Sam Bass art gallery in the shadow of the Charlotte Motor Speedway & will be an exclusive dealer for his legendary NASCAR prints in our gift shop.

“Deborah Aarons, who could not be with us today, is a business executive here in Morristown. She has agreed to serve as our Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer of the corporation.

“Bill Denton is one of the premier architects in the Southeast & we are proud to have him as our designer & planner on this project. He is perhaps best known for designing the Sunsphere for the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville. I have known Bill for many years through his work with various churches & other groups, & he & I attended the 7-year Bible Study Fellowship series together in Knoxville. We have several mutual business associates in East Tennessee.

“Mark Dyer is the new president of MotorSports Authentics of Concord, NC, the company that licenses all of the NASCAR driver & team apparel, die-cast cars, etc. They do a quarter of a BILLION dollars in annual sales currently. I’ve had a close personal friendship with Mark, who was formerly involved with the NASCAR Cafes, for over 30 years. He is a native of Madison, just outside Nashville, & a graduate of UT. When I was in law school & obtaining my MBA as well from UT, after earning my undergraduate degree there, Mark was also in school at UT & we worked together as part-time interns in Sports Information. Our Hall of Fame signed a contract to become a MotorSports Authentics dealer this month, & we will be selling a full-line of NASCAR merchandise to hungry NASCAR fans in this area.

“NASCAR's brand loyalty makes it a marketer's dream. The sport has helped its sponsors secure nearly $5 billion in total exposure, and its 75 million fans show their devotion with their wallets. Its market research shows NASCAR-lovers are three times more likely than all other fan groups to buy products from any company that sponsors their favorite drivers or teams. The sport has more corporate sponsors than any other major sport in the country.

“Advertisers such as Sprint Nextel, Allstate, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Gillette, Office Depot, Home Depot, Sunoco, Toyota, and UPS all premiered TV commercials this year at $500,000 for a 30-second announcement. The new eight-year, $4.5 billion TV deal with ABC/ESPN has helped drive the business to new heights. For the first time, ESPN has given NASCAR its own daily show: ‘NASCAR Now.’

“Rusty Wallace is right in the middle of all of this. He is the face of NASCAR on television every weekend, calling all of the races from the booth on both national TV networks. He will become more famous as a TV personality than he was as a legendary driver in the sport. We are also making him the first NASCAR driver in history to have his own racing hall of fame.

“The Hall of Fame is located right here in the middle of all of Rusty’s auto dealerships as well. He has three in Morristown, one in Newport, & two in Knoxville, with another being developed there. We will take advantage of all of that synergy in marketing.

“This is the largest private tourism project in the history of Morristown & Hamblen County. We anticipate that it will add millions of dollars in revenue for businesses in this area annually.

“One more thing regarding the popularity of the sport in this area….not only are we located right on the main corridor to Bristol Motor Speedway, but we are in the Top 5 TV markets nationally among NASCAR fans. Since the Greater Knoxville market is only 60th nationally overall but in the Top 5 for NASCAR, that means that there are more NASCAR fans per capita in East Tennessee than anywhere else in the world. We know that this will make this Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame a super success for everyone involved in it, & I am proud to be a major part of it.

“In the next few weeks, we will be finalizing interior plans with the architect & developer, discussing our site plan, parking, & road improvements, & getting our construction plan & schedule online with the developer, the city, the county, & the state, which is making major improvements to the interstate exit. We are coordinating everything we do with the Tennessee Department of Tourism & we expect them to be very involved in promoting our project statewide, regionally, & nationally.”

PLANS ANNOUNCED FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE RUSTY WALLACE RACING HALL OF FAME IN MORRISTOWN, TENNESSEE

Morristown, TN, Bristol, TN and Mooresville, NC,– The Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame is proud to announce that Bill Sanders, Founder of the Hall, and Eddie Hurley, Principal of Lakeview Management and Development LLC, have signed a Letter of Intent and reached an agreement in principle to jointly develop the Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame in Morristown, Tennessee. The Hall site will be located north of the I-81/US 25E Exit 8 interchange in south Hamblen County. Only an hour southwest of Bristol Motor Speedway, 40 miles northeast of Knoxville, and 22 miles from the I-40 Sevierville Exit 407 interchange, the site is in the heart of the tourism corridor of East Tennessee and NASCAR country.

NEWS CONFERENCE: A press conference officially announcing this agreement and providing details was held at the Holiday Inn-Conference Center in Morristown at I-81 Exit 8, which is adjacent to the proposed Hall of Fame site, at 12 Noon on Wednesday, August 22, 2007. The founder of the Hall, the developer, area elected officials, and several others who are to be involved in the project, were in attendance at the news conference. They will answer questions regarding it, and made themselves available for media interviews for both print and broadcast regionally and nationally.

Preliminary plans for the estimated $2 million privately owned and operated project will include construction of a 10,000 square foot facility that will include a visitor center, NASCAR-themed gift shop, refreshment center, and the state-of-the-art Racing Hall of Fame display.

Comments from Bill Sanders, Founder of the Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame:

“We are very pleased to make today’s public announcement,” states Bill Sanders. “Rusty has been very involved with this project from the beginning and we are very excited about bringing a new NASCAR-related attraction to our area. His legendary NASCAR career and impact on the sport will certainly be a highlight of the Hall. To our knowledge, he will be the first NASCAR driver to have his own Hall of Fame and the list of his potential inductees is a who’s who of the racing world.”

Other Information:

Morristown and Hamblen County, with their population of over 60,000, is a regional center for industrial, retail, medical, distribution, and educational activity in upper East Tennessee. Just an hour from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it is projected that many of the millions of tourists and NASCAR fans who come to the area annually will visit the site. Wallace, who is now the face of NASCAR as the ABC/ESPN television anchor for the Nextel Cup Series, has many personal and business ties to East Tennessee. The 1989 Winston Cup Series Champion and 55 Cup race winner has six new automobile dealerships in the area. Three are located in Morristown, one in Newport, and two in the Knoxville area. Another is being developed in Knoxville. Bristol Motor Speedway was the venue of his first Cup win in 1986 and he amassed a career high of 9 wins at “his home track”.

Comments from Rusty Wallace:

“Bill announced the idea of a Racing Hall of Fame when he organized Rusty Wallace Day here in Morristown in my honor before my last Bristol Cup race,” recalled Rusty. “After I initially agreed to participate in this exciting project, we met and worked together on numerous occasions on the details of its development. This community and this area have been so good to me, and I have maintained many close friendships over the years. I continue to travel here on business on a regular basis and have a big following of fans that continue to support me and my car dealerships. I am very honored and thrilled that my Racing Hall of Fame will be located in Morristown and East Tennessee.”

WEBSITE AND PHOTO GALLERY: A new website, www.rustywallacehalloffame.com , is now live and will be updated periodically as the project moves forward. It is anticipated that the groundbreaking for the facility will take place this fall and that it will open its doors to the public in the spring of 2008.

As part of that website, we will have a photo gallery. We hope you will enjoy this pictorial record of our ongoing activities. Please feel free to use the captioned photos to accompany any media coverage about our project.

OTHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION: The Hall of Fame is proud to have achieved this milestone in making this public announcement. We appreciate the support of the City Council of Morristown, Hamblen County Commission, Morristown Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Morristown Association, who collectively financed a year-long committee study. The committee also received helpful information from the State of Tennessee Department of Tourism Development and numerous other related agencies. Committee members included Hubert Davis, Ray Potluri, Frank McGuffin, Nick Pollock, Bill Brittain, Deborah Aarons, and Chairman Bill Sanders. Advisors included Jim Crumley, Bill Denton, Casey Anthony, and Dennis Alvis. Chuck Davis, who passed away in April of 2006, was also an important member of the committee. Mark Hancock served as a consultant and personal advisor to Founder, President, & Chief Operating Officer, Bill Sanders. Hancock has been named Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of the Board of the corporation. We look forward to making this a major regional venue for racing sports news and events in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

MEDIA INFORMATION: All media are invited to attend all of our press briefings. We expect each of them to be covered extensively by print and broadcast media, including TV stations and newspapers. Local talk show hosts may have live remote radio broadcasts for some events and we expect national and regional coverage from those that cover NASCAR regularly.

All media are also invited to call or e-mail us to schedule radio, television, and newspaper interviews with various officers and directors that we will be announcing in the future regarding the project, our promotion of NASCAR, and the legendary career of Rusty Wallace. Principals in the Hall of Fame project will be making radio and television appearances and doing newspaper interviews regularly, and are available for speaking engagements to any groups who would like to know more about it.

OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE: The Rusty Wallace Racing Hall of Fame “Victory Lane Gift Shop” will be a one-stop shop for racing apparel for all the major NASCAR teams and drivers. As an official dealer of Motorsports Authentics, Concord, NC., we will offer a complete line of NASCAR licensed apparel and die-cast racing collectables. We have met with their new President, Mark Dyer, a native of Tennessee and UT-Knoxville alumnus, as well, to develop a partnership with them in that regard.

FEEDBACK: We invite you to send us email suggestions and make other comments via email feedback. We are always interested in getting suggestions from anyone to improve our endeavors. To email us, please send to markh@rustywallacehalloffame.com

A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO TENNESSEE BASKETBALL COACH RAY MEARS
By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted – All Rights Reserved

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

When I heard early yesterday afternoon that Coach Ray Mears had passed away into eternity at a nursing home in Knoxville at age 80, my mind raced back over 40 years to the first time I ever met him as a wide-eyed UT fan when I was just nine years old. That was my first exposure to Big Orange basketball, in 1966, the year that his Tennessee Volunteers basketball team beat the Kentucky Wildcats at Stokely Athletics Center to end the season in a rousing way, 69-62.

It was that game that got me hooked on UT basketball. I had no idea at the time that it would come to be such a big part of my life, and that the head coach of that team, his 4^th in 15 seasons at the Vol helm, would come to have such a big influence on me as an individual.

My Dad took me to cavernous Stokely to watch those 1960’s games in which Mears battled the legendary Baron of Bluegrass, Adolph Rupp. Ray became the only coach in basketball history to finish with at least a .500 record against Kentucky that had coached against them as many games as he had (15-15). No one else did better over time challenging UK.

As the years went on, I became at usher in the Orange Tie Club section at Stokely when I was in junior high. I got to meet all of the major supporters of the program Mears was building. When I started school at UT early, after graduating from high school in two years, I worked part-time as a Sports Information intern with men’s basketball, helping Haywood Harris with media days and traveling on the road with the team in the famous Ernie and Bernie days, still the Golden Age of UT basketball.

In those days, the SEC schedule had you go on the road for a Saturday-Monday two-game road trip. We would leave on Friday afternoon on a chartered jet and wouldn’t get back home until early Tuesday morning. I helped John Ward do statistics sometimes on the radio. I especially remember a game in Alligator Alley at Florida that was exciting.

Since there wasn’t much to do in places like Starkville and Auburn on Sundays, I got to know the players, coaches, administrators, etc., very well, spending time with and eating all my meals with them. Coach Mears always insisted that the team go to church on Sundays on the road. He also wanted to find something for them to do to keep busy on Sunday afternoons, too.

Coach had me go scout around town in Starkville one weekend to find an event. When I came back and reported that a rodeo was in town, he ordered the team bus to pick us up and take us there to get everyone relaxed and keep their mind off the intense basketball game they had ahead on Monday night.

Most of all, I remember that Coach Mears was intense. His fiery eyes flashed, darted, and twinkled. He never lost that intensity and never lost those unique eyes as long as he lived.

Ray saw to it that the Tennessee basketball program went first class. He was as classy a man as I’ve ever known. He told us that we would stay in the best hotels, eat at the best restaurants, order the best thing on the menu, and ride in the best transportation.

However, he made it clear that all of us on all of those trips were to conduct ourselves as first class citizens, too. He told us before every trip that we were expected to be ambassadors not only representing ourselves and our families and The University of Tennessee, but also the entire State of Tennessee. He made it clear that if we did anything that reflected badly on any of those things, we wouldn’t be going on future trips.

Another thing that Coach Mears made very clear to us is that we were never to react to the taunting of the crowd at away games. He was a master at firing up the opposing fans.

Perhaps he is best known for parading around the court in his Big Orange blazer before every Vanderbilt game at Memorial Gym in Nashville. There is a story to that one that needs to be told as to how it began. However, he would engender the wrath of the fans everywhere we went.

The key, in his estimation, was to fire up the team, to motivate them to believe it was an “us against the world” situation that we had to overcome. It promoted team cohesiveness. It was the reason UT had such a great road record during his tenure.

He wanted the crowd fired up, and most of all, he wanted us to totally ignore them, to show them that we were totally oblivious to them and above the fray. That frustrated them even more when we wouldn’t look at or even acknowledge them in any way. That was also a part of Ray’s master plan to win games.

I was there when Tennessee won the last UT-UK game at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. That was the game where Mears showed off some excellent coaching skills and gamesmanship, and Ernie Grunfeld may have shot more than his share of free throws. It was Kentucky’s last loss in their venerable old venue. I was also there when we won the first UT-UK game the very next year at famed Rupp Arena. It was the first Wildcat loss in their new place, too.

Once Rupp opened, Mears started the campaign to build an arena in Knoxville. The plans for it languished until Mears suggested that the UT administration should build something bigger than what Kentucky had. Once that decision was made, the entire state, city, and county governments got behind it as a matter of pride to best our rival.

When I was a student at UT, my favorite place to hang out between classes was at the UT basketball offices. I got to know the coaches and secretaries well. It was always a beehive of activity. The phone, by edict of Coach Mears, was always answered with the greeting, “Big Orange Basketball!” I was privileged to answer the phone a few times in relief that way.

I also got to attend what were all closed practices during Mears’ coaching career. Very few people were allowed behind the curtains that stretched across the portals at Stokely Center in the afternoons. It was there that I saw the reasons why and how Tennessee basketball was so special.

The practices were intense, even moreso than many games. However, Coach Mears showed everyone that they were loved and appreciated as individuals. He never used profanity. He was always true to his moral principles.

Many of us knew that Mears had “Big Orange Forever” tattooed in Big Orange ink on his wrist after he retired. That was the way he lived his life, dedicated entirely to the school that made him famous.

I haven’t said much in this piece about Ray’s phenomenal success as a coach. Had his career not been cut short by health issues, he might today be in the Top 5 in wins all-time. As it stands, he is still in the Top 20 all-time among basketball coaches in terms of winning percentage.

He was a master motivator and a genius at promoting the game and the program he built. He was also a brilliant offensive tactician who complemented the brilliance of his top associate all those years, Stu Aberdeen, who was the defensive guru, and who ironically passed away 28 years ago this week.

Perhaps the reason I haven’t dwelt on his success as a coach is that I got to know him as a man. I coached under him at his Camp of Champions in the summer. He was a stickler for detail and made it clear that we were expected to be on time for all our meetings, as well as see to it that our teams followed the rules explicitly.

Much of the self-discipline I have in my life now, over 30 years later, is as a result of the principles that he instilled in me. He will forever be a part of me in that regard. I viewed he and Coach Aberdeen as my mentors and later as my friends.

On one particular road trip, I was flying on a private plane with oilman and pilot Harry Bettis, a friend and big UT donor. We had played Auburn on Saturday afternoon on TV and Florida, the team we were going to play on Monday night, was playing on Saturday night in Gainesville.

Coach gave me some scouting sheets and I was given the assignment of scouting the game for them, since the team plane wasn’t going to arrive until later. That confidence he placed in me to do that was something I’ll never forget and for which I’ll always be appreciative.

I got to know Coach Mears’ sons, Mike, Steve, and Matt, when I attended school with them at UT. I also got to know his wife, Dana, much better during his illnesses later in life. I know the struggles they all had and tried to keep encouraging all of them.

Ray was only able to attend two games this past season, the Texas game, at which I got my photo made with him at his courtside seat that UT Athletics Director Mike Hamilton provided for him, and the Kentucky game, honoring his most famous recruit, Bernard King. Both were big wins for his beloved Volunteers, and I can tell you from my personal talks with him at both games, he was very satisfied and happy.

One of the things that made Coach Mears happy the most is that he was able to live to see those who didn't appreciate him enough pass from the scene, and to be recognized for his unique contributions to the entire Big Orange Nation. Anyone who ever saw him tooling around town in his Big Orange Mercedes, with "Wizard of Orange" painted on the driver's door, knew how much he loved Tennessee.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Knox County Commissioner Larry Smith and I had the good fortune to be his only visitors that day at the nursing home where he was recuperating from his stroke this past November. Larry, who is also the Historian of the Big Orange Tipoff Club and serves with me on the Steering Committee, brought Ray a proclamation from Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, naming that special day "Ray Mears Day" in Knox County. I brought he and Dana a similar proclamation from Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam from the city government. His eyes twinkled and brightened when I read from those proclamations to him all of his accomplishments.

One thing I had almost forgotten about Coach Mears is that he was the inspiration for me taking the Military History 101 class that was offered by the UT ROTC program when I was a student in the 1970's. Of course, I thought it was kind of cool that the class met in Stokely Athletics Center itself, since that's where I liked to hang out anyway. But Coach Mears' lifelong passion for military history, and especially for General George Patton, whose photos he put in the UT basketball locker room just down the hall from the ROTC classrooms, was the reason that I wanted to learn more.

Ray viewed basketball as a war, and he had his troops ready for battle and on the attack for every game. He had SEC Championship rings for his players inscribed with Patton's brand from his huge Texas ranch, which was "Triple A Bar Zero." That signified that he wanted his teams to believe that they could win "Anywhere, Anyhow, Anytime, Bar Nothing." That was the way he lived his life, as a winning coach, as a winning soldier, as a winner in life, until the end.

When I became involved on the Steering Committee of the Big Orange Tipoff Club a couple of years ago, it was to give back a little of my time to a man and a program that has given so much to me. Ray Mears built UT’s basketball program from nothing to something really special. We owe him a debt of gratitude for that, and I also owe him and will be forever grateful to him for what he meant to me personally as a man, far beyond what he did as a coach.

As most of you know, the Ray & Dana Mears Scholarship Fund was started in his honor at UT. I hope all Vol fans will join me in designating their donations to the University to it.

One more unfinished thing that needs to be done is to honor Coach Mears in a more permanent way. I’m campaigning for the Tipoff Club and UT to present a Ray Mears Award to a deserving basketball coach annually, one who not only was a great coach, but who was also a great man who promoted the game as he did.

However, his most lasting legacy needs to be having the UT Board of Trustees rename the building that he alone was truly responsible for having built, “Ray Mears Arena at Thompson-Boling Assembly Center.” It would be just a minor alteration in its name that would mean so much to every Tennessee basketball fan everywhere. It would be an altogether fitting tribute to the man who founded a country, “Big Orange Country.”

Coach Bruce Pearl is the epitomy of Coach Mears. He wears the Big Orange blazer in his honor during the Kentucky and Vanderbilt games every season. He promotes and represents the program well. Some have said that from the upper deck at the arena, Pearl looks just like Mears prowling the sidelines as he used to at Stokely Center.

Pearl respects the tradition that Mears built. Ray is already a Hall of Famer, having been inducted into the Tennessee and Ohio Sports Halls of Fame. However, Bruce is pushing to get Ray inducted into the both the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City. He is most definitely worthy of both honors, having won a National Championship at Wittenberg in his native Ohio before coming to UT, and winning many more championships here on The Hill.

In summary, no matter what you thought of him, Ray Mears was a winner. He provided me with countless hours of marvelous, wonderful memories of great victories in Knoxville and on the road. The 103-98 win over Kentucky at home, billed as the “UT-UK Shootout,” was a classic.

The excitement of going to a game during his era is almost indescribable. The UT Pride of The Southland Band would parade around the court before every game. The lights would dim and the team would burst through the giant “T” at the south end of the floor.

The crowd would be literally hanging from the rafters, as every game saw Stokely Center filled to overflowing with people and excitement for a decade and a half. It was a happening, an event. People came early to see the spectacular warm-ups that Mears initiated. It was better to be there an hour too early than a minute too late, because you didn’t want to miss seeing and hearing what he might do next.

Ray Mears was intense, but he also had a heart of gold. He truly cared about other people. He made you feel special, like you were a part of his family. He made the common man feel like they were a part of the UT family, too.

No matter what is or isn’t done to honor him, and there is much more that should be done by the Governor, as Chairman of the UT Board of Trustees, by the UT President, and others, as I’ve related above, his legacy will live on in the minds, hearts, lives, and souls of every true diehard Tennessee fan, whether they loved basketball or not, as well as his players and everyone he touched in his extraordinary life. He now belongs to the ages as a legend who will never be forgotten.

A Retrospective on World War Two As It Relates to the Iraq War

By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted – All Rights Reserved

KNOXVILLE – Some of you remember that nearly every family in America was directly affected by World War II in some way. Some may remember the rationing of meat, shoes, gasoline, and sugar that took place in the USA during that war. No tires could be bought for automobiles. There was a 35 mph speed limit on all roads. No new automobiles or appliances could be bought by the consumer, because everything was dedicated to the war effort, to stamping out German Nazis and Japanese Imperialists.

We are engaged in a similar cultural war for our very freedoms today in Iraq. Our way of life is literally at stake, as well as that of all others who are free in the world. In order to understand how true that is, we need to understand the historical significance of World War II and how it relates to the 21^st Century conflict in which we now find ourselves engaged in the Middle East.

Over 63 years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America, taking food and war materials. At that time, the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage, Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, too, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey, risky thing to do. We had few allies to count on in that war effort other than Great Britain, very similar to the situation we have in Iraq today.

France was not an ally, as the Vichy French government quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.

Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico as launching pads to get into the United States via our northern and southern borders after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.

America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. All of the European continent, from Norway to Italy, was already under the fascist Nazi heel.

The US was certainly not prepared for war. We had drastically downgraded most of our military forces after World War I because of the Great Depression, so that at the outbreak of World War II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England that was actually the property of Belgium, given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler, a little known fact. Actually, Belgium surrendered in one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could.

Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler first turned his attention to Russia in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse. Ironically, Russia saved America by putting up a desperate fight for two years until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.

Russia lost 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone, 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers. Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, and then America. If that had happened, the Nazis probably would have won the war.

This is to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history. Should we stand and fight in Iraq or cut and run and let the Islamic fascists take over the entire Middle East? Their goal, just like Hitler’s over a half century ago, is to rule the world, to dominate the Middle East, control the oil market, and then bring Europe and Asia, and ultimately America, to their knees.

The liberal Democrats in Congress and the mainstream media want us to tuck tail and run. However, if we do that, we will never be rid of the terrorists. They will follow us to our own shores, and the bombings that are rampant in this war’s front lines now will become commonplace in our country as a result.

Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. We are engaged in a battle that will never end. We simply cannot risk defeat in Iraq. The consequences are too grave. We must win the war there or our way of life will perish forever.

By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved

KNOXVILLE - Dangerous, radical Islamic fascists either have, want, or may soon have, the ability to deliver nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons almost anywhere in the world. These militant Muslims are basically the 21^st Century Nazis. They truly believe that Islam should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, and then the world, including America, of course.

To them, all who do not bow to their way of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish what the Holocaust started, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. Make no mistake that this is their mantra and ultimate goal.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East, not, for the most part, the so-called civil war that exists only in the minds of the mainstream media in Iraq between Sunnis and Shias, but a war of ideas. This war is for control of Islam. If the militants win this war, the Jihadists will control the Middle East, OPEC oil, and the USA, European, and Asian economies.

Basically, our techno-industrial world will be at the mercy of an OPEC not dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the barbaric revolutionaries. Do you want gasoline in your automobile? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything at all? Then you had better hope the Jihadists are defeated.

If moderate, respectful, tolerant Muslims win, they will try to live in peace with the rest of the world, and move their region out of the 10th Century into the 21^st. Only then will the troubles in the Middle East eventually fade away for awhile. A moderate and prosperous Middle East might emerge for a time, rather than the Armageddon that is sure to result otherwise.

We Americans have to help these moderates win, and to do that we have to fight the Jihadists, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorists. We have to do it somewhere specific. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing, in Iraq, not in New York, not in London or Paris or Berlin, but in Baghdad, where we did two important things:

(1) Deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam had been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. He himself was a terrorist! Saddam was a human weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000,000 Iraqis and also 2,000,000 Iranians.

(2) Created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we kill there, we won't have to hunt down and kill here. We also have a chance at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence there for as long as it is needed.

World War II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis over a half century ago, really began with a whimper in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. That was only the catalyst that got the US involved. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for 14 years before the US joined that war. It officially ended in 1945, making it a 17-year war, and it was followed by another decade of US occupation of Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again, making it 27-year endeavor.

World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP. Adjusted for inflation, that would equal $12 trillion today. World War II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action, and 100,000 more still listed as missing in action and also presumed dead.

The Iraq war has so far cost the United States only about $160 billion, barely over ONE PERCENT of the inflation-adjusted cost of World War II. The total cost of the Iraqi war is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York City. We have also lost 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivalent to the number of Americans that the terrorists killed in their 9/11 attack, but again, not even ONE PERCENT of the number we lost in World War II.

The cost of not fighting and winning World War II would have been unimaginably greater to us and the rest of the free world. We would now be living in a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism had we failed to fight in or lost that war.

This is not a TV show or a feature movie we’re engaged in, in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is a messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly war for our freedom. It always has been that way and probably always will be. The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is, if ever. It will not go away if we simply ignore it or disengage from fighting it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like Great Britain is now, in the Middle East, a platform from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is one of the clashes between the forces of relative civility and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world. The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war.

Now however, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons with which to fight…unless somebody prevents them from getting them. We all know that the US is the only nation capable of preventing that from happening.

We have four options open to us:

1. Defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2. Fight the terrorists later, after they get nuclear weapons, which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on developing them is what they claim it is.

3. Surrender to the barbarians and accept their dominance in the Middle East now, in Europe and Asia in the next few years, and ultimately in America.

4. Stand down now, bring our troops home, and pick up the fight later when the fascist extremists are more widespread and better armed, after they have obtained control of France, Germany, and most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be much more dangerous, extremely expensive, and horribly bloodier to choose this option.

If you oppose this war, you must like the idea that your children or grandchildren will live in an Islamic America, an America that resembles Iran today, run by Islamic fanatics. Again, the history of the world is one of clashes between civilizations and cultures. All wars are about ideas, about what society should be like, and the most determined side always wins. Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the warmongers kill them.

Remember that perspective is everything. America’s schools teach too little history for our perspective to be clear, especially in the young, naive American mind. The Cold War lasted from 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 under President Reagan’s leadership, over 40 years! Some believe it has begun all over again with the chilling of US-Russian relations.

Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany! In the aftermath of the 27-year World War II campaign, the US still has troops in Germany and Japan more than a half century later. World War II resulted in the deaths of more than 100 million people worldwide, according to most reliable estimates.

The USA’s 3,000 soldiers that have been killed in action in Iraq in the entire war there don’t even equal the 4,000 Americans killed in one morning of World War II, June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.

In World War II, the US averaged 2,000 killed in action a week…for four years. Most of the individual battles of World War II resulted in more lost Americans than the entire Iraq war has lost so far.

The stakes are at least as high for America and the free world in Iraq as they were in World War II. Will we wind up with a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms, or a world dominated by a radical Islamic movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the their barbaric Islamic law?

It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp these truths. Those who protest the war claim to favor human rights, civil rights, liberty, and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis, and evidently they wish to quit fighting for those rights and freedoms anywhere.

Peace activists always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe to do so. Why don't we, however, see any peace activists demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and North Korea, the places that really need peace activism the most? Why not? Because they would be killed if they dared to protest there!

Liberals and Democrats in Congress and the media and throughout the nation supposedly favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, and diversity, but if the Jihad wins, wherever they win, all civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, and diversity ends. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy! If we don’t win there, we will have lost our own way of life forever.

President Bush understands history. He understands the stakes in this war. He has been vilified and reviled for his stands and his views. However, as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, he has a Constitutional duty to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to provide for the defense of our freedoms, and to stand up to those who would end those freedoms. It’s a shame he has to fight those who hate him at home as much as he does those who seek to destroy us abroad.

 

By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved
Veterans' Day, 2006

KNOXVILLE - In the wake of their electoral defeat, the Grand Ole Party needs to look to principled leadership that won't waffle on the issues, that won't stray from core values. While I disagree with Rudy Giuliani on some social issues, he is a fiscal conservative and a hero in the war on Islamic fascism, which will continue for generations to come. We need his strong leadership to broaden the base of the Republican Party and make it the permanent majority party nationally.

Giuliani is the most Reaganesque of all of the candidates considering a run for the Presidency in 2008 and may very well be the only one that is electable in this political climate. If the party doesn't rally around him, they will wind up with a far left winger in the White House like Hillary Clinton or Al Gore.

Rudy can sweep the GOP back into power in both houses of Congress, too, as his coattails will be longer than any other person in the race. He campaigned for a lot of the candidates that retained their offices against a strong anti-Republican tide.

The choice is ours to make. Evangelical Christians in particular and conservatives in general need a reason to return to the polls if the GOP is to regain its majority in the Congress and retain the Presidency. Supreme Court judgeships are at stake, as well as many appeals court and district court seats.

We are in a cultural war domestically as well as in a war on Islamic fascists worldwide. Make no mistake about either. We must win both of those wars or we will surely perish as a nation and as a world leader.

President Dwight Eisenhower, who won World War II in Europe as our Supreme Commander, warned of creeping socialism in his last address to Congress. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," Ike said.

There is no question that the last half century in America has seen a steady drift toward socialism. Government is seen as the answer to all of our ills, especially by politicians who pander for votes.

We have seen "entitlements" grow to the point that we can no longer afford them, especially with illegal aliens siphoning off tax dollars to provide them with welfare, health care, etc. The growth of government must be held in check.

When you vote for Republicans, at least you are casting your vote for a foot placed on the brake pedal in this drive toward socialism. If you vote for a Democrat, however, you are casting your lot with someone who will put the pedal to the metal with full speed ahead on the accelerator.

You need look no further than Hillary Clinton's proposed socialized medicine plan to see what a disaster her Presidency would be if she is elected in 2008. The weird environmental views of Al Gore may be even more dangerous to America's future.

If we are to preserve our democracy and have a chance to keep at least some of the freedoms that keep slipping away, we must elect a strong leader like Giuliani. No other candidate on the horizon possesses the skills to keep America strong.

By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved
A Special Salute & Thanks to All our Veterans Today!

KNOXVILLE - The mantra in Washington, DC, now is for both parties to come together and form a "centrist" government that fashions compromises and governs from the middle. However, Republicans and Democrats are not supposed to be "centrist". They are supposed to be leaders, who have convictions and stick to their beliefs. If the more popular opinion agrees with them, they win; if more popular opinion differs from them, they lose.

Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who says he is now considering becoming an Independent or Democrat, and several other members of the 109th Congress called themselves Republican, but acted and voted in line with Democrats. They were the epitomy of a RINO (Republican in Name Only). 

Chafee and several others like him ran as Republicans when they saw a move away from Democrat-controlled Congress back in the mid 1990's so that they could be in the majority party. Many of these Republicans, who were just out for themselves and not for principle, lost their individual races, because they failed to do what they promised to their constituents during his last campaigns, which is stand on conservative reform of government.

The Republican Party has not moved any further right than the Democrat Party has moved further left. In fact, the Democrats have far more hardline liberals than the Republicans have hardline conservatives.

Fortunately, most of those liberals are old and tired, as we will see with all of the new chairmen of committees in the House that new Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most liberal Speaker in history, will appoint. The future and the bright stars in Washington are the new conservatives, who have ideas rather than rhetoric.

We shouldn't want leaders of either party to move to the middle; rather, we should laud those who stand up and argue for their own true convictions. When a political leader's convictions align with the population of our country's needs, wants, and desires at election time, he or she will win that election, except in ultra-liberal enclaves like Massachusetts, where Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank will always win no matter what kind of outrageous comments they make or scandals they create.

Chafee was and is a weak politician. He was a Democrat through and through. Why did he accept so many Republican dollars in the late stages of his campaign, only to continue to abandon his supposed party? He is a cheap politician, not a respected statesman. If he was really principled, he would have changed his party affiliation a long time ago.

However, it became convenient for him when the Republicans were in total power to remain a member of the GOP so that he could "use" the system for his own power. Now that the Democrats have that legislative control, he claims to have somehow got religion and that he should quit the the party that put him in power. Good riddance to such weak sisters like Lincoln.

Chafee's only qualification for his position was that his father was a beloved Senator who died in office. Many voters thought he would carry on his Dad's principles. He has done nothing to indicate that his departure from Washington and the Republican party will be notable, and certainly his departure will not be mourned.

The lesson that Republicans should take from the election is that leadership, principle, and conviction are craved by the electorate. Unfortunately, the GOP forfeited the trust of the voters by losing sight of its conservative principles. The people will, however, be sorely disappointed by the Democrat replacements they chose on Tuesday. Look for a return to power of the Republicans in 2008 if they choose the right Presidential candidate, certainly not the wishy-washy John McCain.