Tennessee Lady Vol fans were extremely upset with former coach Kellie Harper’s firing. They reportedly let athletic director Danny White hear plenty about their feelings. Who could blame them?
No offense to White, but his office isn’t very trustworthy to Lady Vol fans. If you remember, there was once an athletic director at Tennessee that tried to rob the Lady Vols of their well-established and well-earned reputation. That guy, Dave Hart, even tried to steal the Lady Vols’ actual name.
Therefore, if I’m a Lady Vol fan, I’m not real keen on blindly trusting any directive that might come from the athletic director’s office. However, I would warn Lady Vol fans that are more adhered to the women’s basketball and softball teams than the entire athletic department that things could get much worse. What if the Lady Vols dropped behind the Diamond Vols in terms of White’s focus on improving? White has shown an affinity for the Diamond Vols, helped build up the program and is appreciated for it. That certainly hasn’t been the case with the women’s basketball team.
Will White be appreciated for hiring Lady Vols’ basketball coach Kim Caldwell, even if she’s successful, or will some hardcore Lady Vol fans just chalk the hire up to good luck? Well, I wouldn’t wait for a round of applause from Lady Vol fans no matter what Caldwell does. Barring massive, high-level success, some Lady Vol fans are not going to accept the the hire because she’s not associated with former coach Pat Summitt. This just in. Those last two coaches with Summitt ties didn’t do all that well.
This is a good season to judge whether or not Tennessee’s baseball team can ever be a bigger draw that the Lady Vols and the third-most popular team behind men’s basketball and that oblong-sport thing. No. 1 Tennessee is really good on the diamond, but not as flamboyant as the 2022 crew. They were also championship worthy, but the WWE antics associated with that team weren’t universally accepted. However, those very antics led to some extra publicity that a similar, more boring team of that ilk wouldn’t have received. In the long run, that 2022 team was probably an incredible boost for the program even though they rubbed some people the wrong way at the time.
Lady Vols’ fans may not be too keen on the Caldwell hire. I might have an idea as to why that the case. First, she wasn’t Harper and, second, she had no ties to Summit. Then, there’s a third factor at play. The Lady Vols’ fans in question aren’t realistic. Coaching women’s basketball at Tennessee is a great job, but the Lady Vols can’t just hire anyone they want based on name alone.
There’s never going to be a Summitt-like run again for the Lady Vols or any team now that women’s basketball has become much more relevant and much, much more competitive. Nowadays, there are just too many teams that can compete to win a championship, unlike the days in which Tennessee and UCONN could rule the country with ease.
It doesn’t behoove White for any team to languish, so he’d like to see the Lady Vols have success more than any fan. He believes in Caldwell. It’s time for Lady Vol fans to believe in him.
