Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley will have a mountain to climb this fall. Most believe the third-year Vol coach will need to win at least eight games (or seven with screwy circumstances) to save his job and prevent UT’s third coaching search since late-2008.
Well he and his team got some training over the weekend as they joined Volunteer strength coach Ron McKeefery for a climb to the top of Mount Leconte, in nearby Sevier County, Tennessee. That’s 5,301 feet to you and me and — from base to peak — the tallest mountain in the Eastern United States.
Whether or not Dooley and his squad can match Saturday’s success this fall remains to be seen.
(UPDATE — I really don’t care how a mountain is measured, but a few of you have failed to read the story we linked to and you’ve decided to email, text, and leave comments suggesting I’m either lying or incorrect. One, who would care enough to lie about such a goofball little story? Two, there are apparently all sorts of ways to measure mountains — immediate-base-to-peak, rise-above-sea-level, height-into-space, etc. According to the story we linked to — and as mentioned above — Mount Leconte is the highest mountain in the Eastern US when measured from its immediate base to its peak. At least according to the University of Tennessee’s official website, it is. I’m sorry that I didn’t care enough to call my neighborhood geologist and see if the school had measured the mountain accurately. I simply thought you might find it interesting that an SEC football team climbed a mountain. Silly me. Now, if you’re one of the few who are stressed out or angered by the measuring techniques used by the University of Tennessee in the above link, then I sincerely invite you to take a 12-inch ruler, walk from the bottom of the mountain to the top, and measure away. Then feel free to take a flying leap on your way back down. I hear it’s a quicker descent that way.)
