If you’ve not been on campus before a home football game, you are missing a lot. It’s not all on the field.
It was the final game for Smokey X, shown here in career apparel. He’s retiring just in time. It’s hard to howl for every score when the team scores 66. Get ready for next year when Smokey XI takes the field. (Photo By Kate Luffman/Tennessee Athletics)
Circle Park is covered with white tents, tables and folding chairs. It’s like half the crowd is in there having lunch, mostly catered, and wall-to-wall people. Lynn Tarpy invited me a couple of years ago to stop by his law firm’s tailgate. I decided to go take a picture and maybe get lunch. I literally walked for miles, peering into people’s tents and haven’t found Tarpy yet.
Food City encourages the tailgaters by awarding prizes and recognition on social media for each home game. And the Missouri game, being the last home game of the season, was the grand finale. The prize was $2,000.
Dick and Susan Williams (and their group) were named the Ultimate Tailgaters for 2022.
Susan said her niece Alison Turner from Franklin, Tennessee, gets all the credit. “She decorates, she gives us the menu and we all bring food. She is the creative one,” said Susan.
Dick Williams, of course, lettered as a defensive tackle for the Vols from 1966-68 and was team captain in 1968.
