University of Tennessee Salute to Excellence

The first Saturday in February is always a highlighted on our calendar. The reason is it's the Salute to Excellence dinner for the Women's Athletics Department at the university and everything was ready to for a great evening.


Out in the lobby, people enjoyed a couple of drinks and looked for items that were on the silent auction to bid on. Some people were dressed in a tux, but had tennis shoes on......orange of course....


The room was a sellout at 540 loyal fans, that were there to give a dinner for the senior ladies vols. Each corp table had a senior from one of 11 sports that the ladies are involved in.


The President of the University talked about the Volleyball team and having a grade point average of 3.4 and higher. About the Softball team being tied for third at the end of the season. The golf team placing 6th in the country and the rowing team, swim team and diving teams. The track and field team winning a national championship. Of course, the lady vols basketball coach reaching 900 wins and having everyone of her players get a degree at the university.


We were at table 9 for the evening and Pat had table 10......now that is funny to me.


The entire tribe had joined us along with their soul mates.....cough cough. Haley is in love with my son.....who is in love with a dirt bike, the perfect marriage until he finishes college......and he just gave accepted to go to UT.....GO VOLS.


But the true highlight of the evening was that Shanna Zohman (number 5, which is a Fib number) and Nicole Caldwell (Assistant coach to Pat) were the guess at our table for the evening. The new head coach for the Men's Basketball was at the table just behind us and it seems everyone was busting on everyone all evening.....including Holly Warlick. By the way the guys beat UG today.....


Of course, Pat made the rounds to the Corp tables for a hello and have her picture taken.......During the live auction, they were bidding on a Fried Green Tomatoes dinner at Pat's home, for you and 7 of your friends. Two people were going at it, and when the bidding stalled, Pat jumped up and said, "Well, for 15,000 dollars I would have a second dinner". So needless to say, two groups of people will be going over to Pats and RBs house for a great evening of fun and veggies.


Bruce also was working the room and during the live auction you could have an entire day with Bruce....we said that you could go along for breakfast with the team, do some drills, have a nice lunch, more drills and around 3:00pm go play some golf...whatever you wanted to do, he was yours for the day......when the bidding ended it was at $9,000.00.
A custom Harley Lady Vols bike went for $56,000.00 and they ended up raising over a quarter of million dollars....hard cash.


After the auction was over it was time for the BillyPeppers to play some good ole country rock and roll while the girls where trying to find their men.......


Yea, they found their man......and danced for a couple of hours while we talked and paid for the item we bought........anyone want the folding chairs from the last 3 final four NCAA women basketball tournement??????? Well, they ain't for sale.