‘Lost weekends’
By Tom Mattingly
Over the years, there have been several “lost weekends” over the course of Tennessee athletics, a time when everything that could go wrong did. The recent Vanderbilt hoops weekend was one of them, two one-point losses at the buzzer over a two-day period in a “rivalry game.” Such an event often tends to shatter fans’ confidence, overheat the phone lines to the talk shows, and bring the message boards to a boil.
More than a few years ago, the Tennessee men’s basketball team lost a close one to Oklahoma State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. It was a No. 8 versus a No. 9 game, the teams supposedly equally matched, but Vol fans still thought the game was winnable. And it was.
The women’s team lost a not-so-close contest to Ball State University also in the first round, the first time—ever—the Lady Vols had lost in the first round in the NCAAs. Given it was an “upset,” Lady Vol fans certainly were. Defending national champions were not supposed to go out this way, youthful or not.
Former Lady Vol Kara Lawson clinically evaluated the game on the ESPN post-game show with her version of Pat Summitt’s famed stare. Her analysis—how teams perform during the season is how they perform during the tournament—was right on the money.
The Vol baseball team was swept in a series in Gainesville, as was the Lady Vol softball team. Losses to the Gators, particularly those three-game sweeps, are always troublesome.
If you’re counting, that’s 0-for-8 from Friday night to late Sunday afternoon. Somehow, the sun still rose the next Monday morning, and life as we know it went on.
Historically, there have been games Tennessee teams lost when, perhaps, the Vols should have won. Likewise, Vol squads have won, when everything suggested the team should have lost. That’s part of the ebbs and flows of sports.
There aren’t many such circumstances, maybe one or so a decade, but they are memorable in a strange sort of way.
Consider the ultimate “Lost Weekend,” again in football. There was a Saturday to remember, Nov. 15, 1969, at Mississippi Memorial Stadium in Jackson. That was the day the Rebels, led by junior quarterback Archie Manning, knocked off an undefeated and No. 3 Tennessee squad 38-0.
Tennessee had defeated Ole Miss a year earlier in Knoxville by 31-0, intercepting Manning seven times. Vol fans wore orange and white “Archie Who?” buttons to the game that day and lived to regret it.
It’s popularly called the “Jackson Massacre.”
It was so bad that Haywood Harris had the shortest quote ever in Sports Illustrated. After a Rebel field goal before the half hit the crossbar and bounced over to extend the lead to 24-0, all Haywood could say was: “Dang.” Not “Gosh-dang,” but “Dang.”
“As I recall, there was no ’69 Ole Miss game,” former News Sentinel sports editor Marvin West has written. “The Rebels appeared, ran up and down the field a few times, and went away to celebrate their version of mule day. To the best of my knowledge, Tennessee was not a part of the festivities.”
Rarely has a weekend looked so bleak across Big Orange Country. The Alabama freshmen had routed an undefeated Vol rookie squad 35-0 at Neyland Stadium the day before. You couldn’t imagine a worse 48 or so hours. The sun did, however, rise Sunday morning back then, too. The “Doug Dickey Show” appeared on Channel 6 in Knoxville at 1 p.m., just as scheduled.
There weren’t internet chat boards that season, with no radio talk shows, either, at least in Knoxville. You couldn’t hear the callers’ voices on “Hold That Line,” but there was considerable discussion all over town and across the state.
It didn’t get better immediately. The Vols won the final two games of the season against Kentucky and Vanderbilt, but struggled doing so. The SEC title came home to Knoxville, but the post-season prize was a trip to Jacksonville to play Florida. Many Vol fans don’t consider 1969 a legit SEC title.
The Gators won 14-13 as the Vols sputtered in the Orange Zone. Afterwards, Doug Dickey decided to go to Florida as head coach, leaving behind a 46-15-4 record in Knoxville.
The hangover didn’t last into the 1970 season. This group went 11-1, won the Sugar Bowl over Air Force, and finished No. 4 in the nation. It was one of the most memorable seasons in Tennessee history.
The last two months of the 1969 season are now but a blur in the memory banks. Most of today’s fans hadn’t been born when the Vols and Ole Miss squared off that Nov. 15th day.
From the viewpoint of those of us who were alive back then, if the Vol program could survive the months of November and December in 1969, it can survive what happened against Auburn and Kentucky.
All it takes is patience, perspective, and perseverance in massive and equal doses.
