"Touchdown Tennessee!" "Checkerboard!" are just a few words any Volunteer fan loves to hear! Saturday's during the crisp Fall time, when leaves in Tennessee are as orange as a Vol fans blood, we know it's College Football season! College Football may be just a sport to some people but to a Tennessee fan it's a way of life. Being a Tennessee Volunteer is one of the proudest things I've ever been and that's why I'm a VFL!
In College Football, just like any sport, fans always give other fans a hard time. In the SEC it seems that most teams and fan bases love to give Tennessee fans a rough time. The opposing fan base or team gives us a tough go by saying the usual 'You suck' or 'Your team sucks'. We may not be the highest ranking team in the SEC or the best in all conferences but we have somethings the others don't! We have a little something called unity, integrity, and pride!
Unlike others, whether it be in football or whatever, a VFL has always stood by there team! When the going got tough we stood there with our heads held high! Win or lose a Vol for Life never abandons their team. We don't jump on the bandwagon because another team has more wins and better rankings than us! It's not like shopping, you don't just pick a different team because they suit you better, because you're a VFL.
Even if we lose games or we aren't in the Top 25, we stay proud and say that our team is the best. Because being a VFL means you don't give up, you push through whatever lies ahead, you will give your all! You don't look at it as losing 5 games, you look at it as 5 times you persevered and got better regardless of what the scoreboard says! We aren't sore losers and that's a fact! When Alabama toyed with the play clock to get their way, it hurt, but we didn't cry about it. We simply said we'd get them next year! Because we are Volunteers, we strive for greatness, even if we hit some bumps along the way. It's worth every bump when you see that Power T open up!
Most fan bases smack talk us so much because they know what a VFL is. They know what kind of fans we are, they see what kind of dedication we have to our team! They know we hold the Vols close to our hearts so they jab at us with insults and smack talk only to be dissapointed with the end result. A Volunteer never backs down we never quit! There is no breaking a VFL, we may get shakey, but we don't break.
Nothing's soothes a soul more than hearing Rocky Top ringing through Neyland.
We can be underrated, we can dismissed, we are underdogs...but we are Vols For Life!