Thursday, February 28, 2008
A STAR-STUDDED TENNESSEE TRIBUTE TO BIG ORANGE BASKETBALL!
Saturday night the Big Orange Tipoff Club honors all of the players and coaches who built the foundation of Big Orange Basketball at The University of Tennessee, all of whom we personally invited to be with us as guests at the Foundry at World's Fair Park in Downtown Knoxville. Coaches Ray Mears and Stu Aberdeen were the dynamic duo that ushered in the Golden Age of Hoops Heaven on The Hill that culminated in the Ernie and Bernie Era, which resulted in banners for Coach Mears, John Ward, Bernard King, and now Ernie Grunfeld being hung in their honor in Thompson-Boling Arena.
No coaching tandem ever had as much impact on Southeastern Conference basketball than Mears and Aberdeen. In their tenure, they recruited and coached 10 All-Americans, nearly half of all of the players who have ever achieved that status at UT. In addition to winning three SEC Championships, they had only one team finish lower than third in the league.
Coaches Mears and Aberdeen each won National Championships at Wittenberg in Ohio and Acadia in Canada, respectively, before they teamed up at Tennessee from 1966 to 1977. At UT, they built a 12-12 record against arch-rival Kentucky, the best any coaches nationally ever managed in the Wildcats’ history.
Their fiery intensity was legendary, at courtside, in the locker room, and in practice. They were masters at everything they did, and did it all in a first-class way. Their genius was not only in coaching but in promoting the game of basketball. They inspired their troops for battle as if they were going to war every time. The excitement they engendered at Stokely Athletics Center made every game an event not to be missed.
It is no coincidence that the emergence of Big Orange Basketball on the national scene came when Mears and Aberdeen arrived at Tennessee. Half of their teams played in national post-season tournaments at a time that only a select few were invited, as only 16 teams were allowed in the NCAA tournament for much of their career.
When their tenure at the helm ended at Tennessee, Mears and Aberdeen ranked second in winning percentage all-time nationally as a coaching staff to Dean Smith’s at North Carolina. Their legacy is in all of the lives they touched in a positive way as motivators, including yours truly, who was proud to coach with them in their Camp of Champions in their last summer in Big Orange Country in 1977.
On a personal note, I also had the privilege of getting to know both Ray Mears and Stu Aberdeen as men off the basketball court. I had the high honor of traveling with them and their teams for many weekends on the road in my years as a UT student in the 1970’s. I can truly say that experience was one of the highlights of my life, to be mentored by men of class and integrity, something that I and everyone else who was ever associated with them will never forget.
- John Mark Hancock, Big Orange Tipoff Club Board of Directors
- Website: www.utfan.com/tipoff
- E-Mail Address: tipoff@utfan.com
No coaching tandem ever had as much impact on Southeastern Conference basketball than Mears and Aberdeen. In their tenure, they recruited and coached 10 All-Americans, nearly half of all of the players who have ever achieved that status at UT. In addition to winning three SEC Championships, they had only one team finish lower than third in the league.
Coaches Mears and Aberdeen each won National Championships at Wittenberg in Ohio and Acadia in Canada, respectively, before they teamed up at Tennessee from 1966 to 1977. At UT, they built a 12-12 record against arch-rival Kentucky, the best any coaches nationally ever managed in the Wildcats’ history.
Their fiery intensity was legendary, at courtside, in the locker room, and in practice. They were masters at everything they did, and did it all in a first-class way. Their genius was not only in coaching but in promoting the game of basketball. They inspired their troops for battle as if they were going to war every time. The excitement they engendered at Stokely Athletics Center made every game an event not to be missed.
It is no coincidence that the emergence of Big Orange Basketball on the national scene came when Mears and Aberdeen arrived at Tennessee. Half of their teams played in national post-season tournaments at a time that only a select few were invited, as only 16 teams were allowed in the NCAA tournament for much of their career.
When their tenure at the helm ended at Tennessee, Mears and Aberdeen ranked second in winning percentage all-time nationally as a coaching staff to Dean Smith’s at North Carolina. Their legacy is in all of the lives they touched in a positive way as motivators, including yours truly, who was proud to coach with them in their Camp of Champions in their last summer in Big Orange Country in 1977.
On a personal note, I also had the privilege of getting to know both Ray Mears and Stu Aberdeen as men off the basketball court. I had the high honor of traveling with them and their teams for many weekends on the road in my years as a UT student in the 1970’s. I can truly say that experience was one of the highlights of my life, to be mentored by men of class and integrity, something that I and everyone else who was ever associated with them will never forget.
- John Mark Hancock, Big Orange Tipoff Club Board of Directors
- Website: www.utfan.com/tipoff
- E-Mail Address: tipoff@utfan.com
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]