Katie is a hit at the Game

We have been living in Knoxville now for just over 13 years. When we first moved here Leeann kept telling me that I would be a fan of the UT football team. I knew of UT football from my dad. He was a huge fan of UT football and talked about how great the tradition was and he would go on and on about it for hours. My dad was from the Kingsport area so he knew a lot about UT football. Well, Leeann had told me it would take just one game to make me a fan, we went to a game the first year we lived here and I do like the team and have become a fan. So we thought it would be fun to take Katie to a game, but could never find the right time to go. Well, we found the right time yesterday and it was a blast.

We got down to the campus area early so that Katie cold see the Vol walk and the band march to the stadium. We parked at Ft Sanders school where Katie used to go to school so we knew the money paid to park went to the school so that was great. Well, Leeann has been doing so great with her weight loss and work outs that she has become a very fast walker, we had to ask her 3 times to slow down and wait for us.

The first place we stopped was the parking garage at Ft. Sanders Hospital so we could so Katie an overview of the strip area and see all the fans there. Katie took it all in and was just amazed with it all. It was so hot yesterday that I was not sure how Katie would handle it. She kept drinking water and did not complain once the whole time we were walking around the campus. We made it down to the Vol walk area and got a good spot to stand and watch the team come by. We had to wait about 30 minutes, but I did a water run and we all did great. Katie kept asking how many minutes until it started, she was so excited to see all this start. When the team did come by, Katie took the pom-pom we got her and started shaking it. Well, she shook it a bit too hard and hit Coach Phil Fulmer in the head with her pom-pom. She yelled she was sorry, but he just kept going. I got a chance to do something I have always wanted to do. If you every watch a game there is a coach, Trooper Taylor the wide receivers coach, that gets so excited that he like to do a chest thump with his players. Well, I got that chance and did a chest thump with him. That was really cool for me.

We walked down to watch the band march to the stadium. She loved it. She said she could feel the band in her chest and was just amazed with the uniforms and the sounds and all that was going on. When the band went by, Katie and Leeann jumped right behind them and marched to the stadium. When the band played to the hill, I put Katie on my shoulders and what see saw was a sea of orange. 100 thousand plus people waiting for the band, waiting to go into the stadium. Leeann told me that she had a look of amazement on her face. She was just overwhelmed with all that was going on. She asked me where the stadium was; I turned her to the right a bit and said, "Right there, that big building right there". She said "wow, that is a big building".

We made our way into the stadium and to our seats. Leeann and Katie were in row 2 and Leeann's dad and I were in row 32 so I had to leave them down there alone. I went up to my seat and a I got a text message a few minutes later from Leeann asking me if I wanted to trade seats because Katie was asking for me to help explain things to her. So, I went down and sat with Katie. That was so much fun for me. Katie and I had a great time. She was asking me one question after another. "Who is that?" "What do they do?" "Why are out there?" "When is going to start?" it went on and on. I had fun telling her about who the refs were, about the national anthem, all the fun things that go on to start a football game.

When the other people sat down around us, Katie went into her "HI" mode. She was making friends with everyone around her. She was talking to the lady next to her and down to the right of her. She was giving them high fives, waving her hands in the air just having so much fun. Then these two BIG guys sat down in front of us, Katie just leaned down to them and said "Hi", they were putty in their hands. She just made these two big guys melt. She was something else. I didn't get to see much of the game because I was having so much fun with Katie and all the people around us. We left at half time and everyone around us was sad to see Katie leave. Katie could not stop talking about the game all the way back to the car to head home. She was so excited that she can't wait to go back to another game.

It is football Sunday and I am going to go downstairs and watch some games on High Def. Have a great day GO 'SKINS