Household Names
You're a hotshot and they know who you are
In late August, the 27th to be exact, I woke up after sleeping for about three hours. It was 2:30 AM, more or less. This happens pretty often, actually, because I am an old man in a 28-year-old’s body. I try and take good care of said body, but I’m not perfect, and my body revolts from time to time. Sometimes it’s the obvious sicknesses; other times, it’s more of an invisible one that takes time to grapple with.
The good thing about 2022-era insomnia is that you have no shortage of temporary distractions to force you back into a happy mood and a sleepy mode. You can complete the daily Wordle less than three hours into a new day. You can pull up the astronomy application on your phone and see what stars you can almost see if not for light pollution. You can stare at the fan and figure out what optical illusions you can trick your brain into seeing for a few seconds.
At some point during the next four hours, my brain eventually landed on basketball. There was a point during the offseason where I was fully committed to not coming back, to not launching this Substack project, to not seeing how far we could push this and what the limits really were. And I just sat there, in the dark, and I thought. I thought about where we could go from here. What more was there to accomplish?
For a long time, last season felt like it was wrapping up into a natural endpoint. Tennessee had this beautiful run from January onwards, right as I was going through a tough personal season, that culminated in an SEC championship for the first time in 43 years. It was wonderful and perfect as a writer, and as an alumnus who could charitably be described as a “fan” of sorts, it felt like the bills were coming due and you had all the house money in the world.
And then the team you cover bows out in a surprising upset loss in the Round of 32 to the university where your dad graduated from, and all the plans you’d had in mind sort of…go out the door. A proper goodbye is not possible. A happy ending is not achieved. Cats and dogs are living together once again. It’s 5:45 AM, and in 15 minutes, I have to figure out if my body is ready to handle an 11-mile run off of three hours of sleep.
Resetting your brain in the offseason is a powerful thing. For fans, it likely helps that Tennessee’s delightful 2021-22 season resulted in a new banner and new hardware via the SEC Tournament victory. (Also, new rings.) There are a lot of good and nice things that happen over the course of a 35-game season that the 35th game cannot erase. Certainly, that 35th game tried.
Numerous programs of serious note have failed to make a Final Four since the field expanded to its current 64/68-team state. Purdue is one. Florida State is another. Alabama. Xavier. Cincinnati. So on, and so forth. The unfortunate part of that list is that, utilizing KenPom’s Program Ratings, one team really does stand alone from the pack in terms of March torture.
If you do desire charitability, Purdue having nine Sweet Sixteens in 25 years and zero Final Fours is a pretty sickening brand of brutality. In terms of overall program consistency, though, Tennessee is pretty tough to top. It’s a top-20 program over the last two-plus decades despite constant churning at the head coaching position and multiple scandals that have derailed various promising seasons.
With its best team ever, at least by KenPom’s ratings, Tennessee blew it in the Round of 32 against a team that hadn’t won multiple games in a row since January. Several I know declared that they’ve simply written off March as being a source of any kind of positivity. Others briefly threw in the towel and openly wondered what the post-Barnes retirement plan is. Some have simply tuned out basketball as a sport. Tennessee, as a concept, appears ill-prepared for what is to come when it matters the most.
Allow me this: consider Tennessee football. Its second-best team of the last 30 years blew it in the SEC title game with a national title game spot on the line. It spent most of the last 15 years wandering in the Red Dead Redemption wilderness of 6-6 and new coaches. Plenty of people bowed out. I stopped being a regular ticket buyer, then stopped being a regular viewer. Then 2022 happened.
All it takes is one breakthrough. One group of players saying it doesn’t have to be this way any longer. One big win. One big moment. Then you’re hooked back in, just like you were the last time you felt that feeling. Whether you’re ready for it or not is another manner.
The night of August 27, I went to a concert. It was one of those that hits my three strikes list as a Young Old Person:
Multiple openers;
Ended after 11 PM;
Standing only.
But I went to this show because it was relatively cheap and my wife (and friends) really liked the headliner. It had been rescheduled from its initial date of December 2021; the openers had changed since the initial tour release. The first of these was a band that played loud shoegaze stuff where the lyrics were unintelligible and the vocalist was waving his hands around in a Tim Anderson White Sox jersey. At the time, at the first indoor concert I’d been to in over two years, it felt nice to be overwhelmed by the noise again.
The second opener is the one that’s stuck with me every day after August 27.
My tolerance for 1990s ripoff rock is extraordinarily thin by this point in time. Every indie band alive is doing it; the radio groups have started to do it, too. It’s a minor relief after everyone was making 1980s music for the 2010s to finally move onward, but…I don’t know. Not for me, man; I don’t need to hear Pavement Junior when Pavement has all their stuff on Spotify.
But something about this feels different. Maybe it’s a really, really good ripoff; I’m not qualified enough to say. Hearing this that night, and many nights after, has felt at home to me in a way I don’t feel that often with new music anymore. You could wisely say that I’ve been suckered in by the first tight live band I’ve seen since COVID, and you may well be right. But:
look out your window
driving in a different town
same street, same home
buckle up so we can go
That means something to me. That’s what a lot of life felt like over the last year, driving in a place that was familiar, yet different, feeling in and out of touch at the same time. And that’s fine, because not every season and not every year is going to be the prettiest thing in the world. Having to go backwards to go forwards is an alright thing to do. Reaching into the past; grasping something that feels like home; bringing it to the present; moving forward. All one motion, over and over, until you’re ready to go again. And you do this until the unfamiliar feels familiar, while the familiar feels familiar again.
What does all of the above have to do with Tennessee basketball? Uh…very little. But: that night, August 27, I felt like I was ready to return to capital-T This. And here we are, and here I am, and how happy it all makes me.
Tennessee basketball has returned for another season. For the less optimistic among the fanbase, I assume this means more reason to shout into the void about how Tennessee can do whatever they want for four months, but until they do what they want in March, it is all meaningless. It is a useless waste. But I wager: what if November-February is the most valuable part?
More specifically, what if right now is that valuable part, the blank space on the sporting map? Today, Tennessee is 0-0. They have not won or lost a game yet that counts towards their record. We have a pretty good idea of what they'll look like, but none of us really know what's going to happen until the lights come on. In years past, this was reason for breathless anxiety with a modicum of excitement mixed in.
This year, at least for me, it’s like relaxing into the most comfortable chair in your house after a long day. There is joy in Mudville, as we explored last year, but this year’s team looks to offer something different, yet familiar. It’s an exciting, intoxicating mix of old guys you already know and love who are reliable with a few new pieces added in. A couple extra ingredients to the soup, very unlikely to wreck the soup, more likely to stabilize it and maybe make it even better.
There are plenty of reasons to be distracted as this season begins. Locally, there is the Tennessee football team, recreating 1998 for people like me who were too young to remember or properly experience 1998. The women’s basketball team will enter the season as a top-five side, too. The women’s soccer team just won the SEC East for the third year in a row. Men’s tennis went to its sport’s Final Four. Baseball…I imagine you’ve heard of/about baseball. Nearly every sport in existence at Tennessee is either in a peak-era run or experiencing a great deal of success.
Asking for these guys to get their flowers while they’re still here isn’t actually that hard, but it’s fair to have let them slip from your mind over the last eight months. An immense amount of things are competing for your attention these days. (There is also, you know, world events and whatnot.) The ability to slip into a state of generalized peace and watch a group of experienced, lovable young men do their thing for an audience of many cannot be underestimated.
To quote the ladies I saw on August 27th: put them on the big screen. Watch them as they glow under the lights. Could this season end in tragedy like many others have? Well, sure; they don’t call the NCAA Tournament a loser machine for no reason. But, well, I like a little tragedy. Life wouldn’t be very interesting without it.
I haven’t always been ready at the right time, because things happen at certain times whether you want them to or not. But here we are, November 4th, and the season begins in three days. There’s a huge football game tomorrow, of course, but there’s a basketball game in three days. That makes me happy, because it makes them happy. For some, the specter of March may loom, and belief will be stunted until there’s reason to shift that philosophy. Pain and joy go hand in hand, after all. For me, I’m ready. I’ve been ready.
Different, yet familiar all the same. We’re back. They’re back. Go let it rip.
What are your thoughts on Soccer Mommy? Good or bad side of the 90's revival?