Back in VOL Country!

During our recent trip to the US, I took a day to travel back to my old 'college town'. Knoxville is just a couple hours from Warren County, so I drove up one morning late in December to do something I hadn't done in several years... play some PEP TUNES! That's right, I had the opportunity to join the UT Pride of Southland Alumni Band, which performs at many UT basketball games during the winter break.

The Alumni Band especially needed people to come for the Lady Vols game versus Rutgers because the 'regular' Pride of the Southland was in Nashville with the football team for the Music City Bowl.

Megan Christian leads the band in some pregame tunes

The opening tip-off

It was amazing how quickly my playing and musical mentality changed during the game. I hadn't played any of that stuff for years, but within 5 minutes of the first rendition of 'Rocky Top' I felt like a sophomore in college again, wailing and glissing my way through all the old favorites. It was really alot of fun, even if only for nostalgic reasons. The biggest challenge I faced was that I had forgotten almost all of the hand signals used to call up the various fight songs and cheers.

Megan shows us which tune is up next

Probably my favorite part was getting the chance to hang out and catch up with several college friends. Plus, it was fun to see the Lady Vols shellac Rutgers! I hadn't been to a UT sporting event in a really long time, so it was nice to be amongst so much orange again.

And we got to wear awesome pullovers!