THOUSANDS CHEER NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee's 1998 national champion football team was praised not
only for what the Volunteers won, but how they won it.
"This 1998 team had great heart, great fight, great character and a would-not-quit
attitude," coach Phillip Fulmer said during a championship celebration that drew
nearly 40,000 fans Saturday to Neyland Stadium.
The winningest team in Tennessee history, which finished 13-0 with a Fiesta Bowl victory
over Florida State, also excelled without individual stars on the field or troublemakers
off.
Tony Barnhart, past president of the Football Writers Association of America, recalled
interviewing Fulmer last spring.
"I expected to get the standard speech you get from a coach whenever he loses a lot
of players. `It is a rebuilding year. We are going to have to have a lot of luck."'
But Fulmer wasn't bemoaning the loss of Peyton Manning, Leonard Little or Marcus Nash.
"We have a lot of great football players left here," he told Barnhart. "And
if I can keep them hungry and a few things happen, we will be pretty good."
Presenting Fulmer with the FWAA's national coach of the year award, Barnhart said,
"When a team exceeds expectations, when the whole is greater than the sum of the
parts, that means you've got great leadership at the top."
No one knows that better than UT President Joe Johnson, who has seen discipline problems
drop, under Fulmer, even as the team achieved greater success.
"I appreciate and all your fans appreciate the fact that you play and coach with
class," Johnson said. "You bring glory and honor and prestige to the University
of Tennessee and do nothing to detract from that.
"All of you have set an example for all of us ... not only as we play and compete,
but as we behave."
UT-Knoxville Chancellor Bill Snyder praised the Vols for their "accomplishments both
on the field and off the field." And he encouraged them to set one last collegiate
goal - to graduate.
Tennessee was last in the Southeastern Conference in graduating football players who
enrolled in the fall of 1991, according to a recent survey by the NCAA.
The Neyland scoreboards Saturday flashed the Fiesta Bowl outcome: Tennessee 23, Florida
State 16.
The entire game was replayed on a giant Jumbotron, with retiring "Voice of the
Vols" broadcaster John Ward calling the action. The crowd roared like it was game
day.
"We are just so grateful, so thankful," said fan Ladonna Graves of Nashville.
"We just appreciate them so much, and we want to let them know it."
The team ran onto the field through a gameday "T" formed by the Pride of the
Southland marching band. Senior linebacker and co-captain Al Wilson was the last onto the
field, and got the biggest cheer. He is one of the few key players who won't be back next
season.
Wilson thanked the fans "for all your support and all the love and care you showed
throughout my four years at the University of Tennessee."
Proclamations and trophies greeted the team - the national championship trophy from The
Associated Press, the MacArthur Bowl National Championship Trophy and the Sears national
trophy.
Knoxville, Knox County and the state of Tennessee all declared Saturday as the Vols'
special day.
Fulmer, a Tennessee native, a former Tennessee lineman and a longtime Vols assistant
coach, thanked the players, his assistants, the university administration and then the sea
of orange around him.
"In 1993, we said we would get to another level," said Fulmer, who took over as
head coach that year. "Well, I believe we are there."
From the Associated Press
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