Baby Smokey

Peyton Manning: He may not have won the National Championship and may not have won the Heisman, BUT, he brought prominence back to Tennessee football, and I still think he was the greatest quarterback in 1997! (Ask the Colts what they think of him!)

(This was 2000; in 2001 they made it 7 years in a row! Unfortunately, in 2002 Bama won.)

A Bama fan asked Smokey's handler " What does that dog do if Alabama wins?"

The handler replied "I don't know man, he's only seven years old!!!"

Before the kickoff of the South Carolina game (2000), several white doves were released celebrating some occasion. Chuck, at Gridscape, captured this picture of one of the doves landing in the crowd.

Pat won her 700th game in 1999 and is the youngest individual to have ever reached that mark. Of the 16 men's coaches and two women's coaches to reach 700 wins, Summitt (700-147) not only did it at the youngest age, she also has the best winning percentage at .826. Even Kentucky's Adolph Rupp (876-190), whose teams dominated their era and whose career wins record was broken by Dean Smith only three years ago, had just an .822 winning percentage. Summitt's Tennessee teams have won six national championships and 30 games in 10 different seasons. The Lady Vols, a national title contender every year this decade, haven't left the AP's Top 25 since 1985, 247 consecutive weeks. Unless there's a drastic drop-off in Tennessee's success -- and given Summitt's unmatched recruiting skills, that's unlikely -- Summitt will be approaching Smith's record of 879 wins sometime in 2006 or 2007, when she will be in her early 50s. (AP Sports article).

(Update: Pat and the Lady Vols won number 880 on Mar 22, 2005, becoming the all-time winningest college coach in college basketball history! Here is a picture of Pat moments after the game with her mother who paid a surprise visit!

(Update: Pat and the Lady Vols won number 1000 on Feb 5, 2009. Here is what an AP Sportswriter had to say:

By TERESA M. WALKER, AP Sports Writer

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP)—Pat Summitt now has 1,000 victories, an unprecedented height even she finds dizzying.

“It’s a hard number to even comprehend,” the Tennessee coach said.

Summitt became the first Division I basketball coach—men’s or women’s—to win 1,000 career games Thursday night as her 12th-ranked Lady Vols beat Georgia 73-43. It was their second chance in four days at giving their coach her latest and one of her greatest milestones.