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The Mike Keith Show | Big Interview with Danny White (9.4.26) · The Mike Keith Show

0:00
SPEAKER_02: From the banks of the Mississippi to the peaks of the smokies, this is the home field of champions.
0:26
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0:30
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0:37
SPEAKER_02: Behind the scenes.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: From Rocky Top, direct from the coaches.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: Insight from the players, the inside track.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: Mike Keith starts now.
0:50
SPEAKER_16: Welcome to the Mike Keith Show.
0:52
SPEAKER_16: This is the Big Interview Edition presented by Clayton Holmes.
0:56
SPEAKER_16: And on this, the Big Interview Edition, we welcome the University of Tennessee's Director of Athletics, Danny White.
1:02
SPEAKER_16: Glad to have you with us.
1:03
SPEAKER_16: Thanks for having me.
1:03
SPEAKER_16: Great to be with you.
1:04
SPEAKER_16: It is exciting to start another school year.
1:08
SPEAKER_16: You have a ton of enthusiasm.
1:10
SPEAKER_16: What jumps out to you to start with about why you're so fired up about 26-27 for University of Tennessee athletic teams?
1:18
SPEAKER_08: Just continuing to work on the foundation we've built.
1:21
SPEAKER_08: I think we have a really strong footing towards building the best athletic department in the country.
1:25
SPEAKER_08: That's our charge.
1:26
SPEAKER_08: Feel really confident we're making progress towards it.
1:29
SPEAKER_08: I think we've adjusted really well to this modern era of college sports.
1:33
SPEAKER_08: And our coaches and their staffs in particular have uh done a really good job in the offseason.
1:38
SPEAKER_08: You know, each each seat sport may have a different offseason, uh, but we'll see the culmination of their efforts here coming up in these competitive seasons in terms of roster construction and strategy to put ourselves in an opportunity to compete for championships.
1:53
SPEAKER_08: I think we're gonna have a monster year.
1:55
SPEAKER_16: Where have Tennessee teams improved the most, in your opinion, in terms of roster construction and then roster management?
2:03
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it's about retention, giving uh ourselves the the best opportunity to retain our most talented athletes, players, and in in certain sports, and uh and going out and attracting the best and the brightest.
2:14
SPEAKER_08: And that that could be from the high school ranks, uh, but uh in the era we're in now, the transfer portal is is a critical piece as well.
2:21
SPEAKER_16: The football program and learning what values are, learning what to retention, basically what your salary cap is, so to speak.
2:30
SPEAKER_16: How hard is it with everything as fluid as it is throughout the market?
2:34
SPEAKER_08: That's the most complicated one because of the size of the roster.
2:38
SPEAKER_08: And there's there's a lot of parallels to the NFL who's been doing this for a long time.
2:43
SPEAKER_08: But I would argue it's it's a lot more challenging in college.
2:47
SPEAKER_08: We don't have multi-year contracts, we don't have a collective bargaining agreement, and there is no transparency to your point in what uh athletes are getting paid.
2:54
SPEAKER_08: And so it's a challenge, but uh it's one that that we've uh really sprinted towards.
2:59
SPEAKER_08: Uh we have our NIL operations staff that's working really hard and in close connection with our football player personnel staff.
3:07
SPEAKER_08: Uh I feel great about where we are, and uh I think uh I think we're gonna have some fun this year on Rocky Top.
3:13
SPEAKER_16: Has all of the craziness at least slowed down in terms of the NIL transfer portal market?
3:20
SPEAKER_16: Uh no.
3:21
SPEAKER_08: I I don't know that we're uh we have many solutions.
3:25
SPEAKER_08: Uh is it wilder?
3:28
SPEAKER_08: It's as wild, and the Supreme Court told us this five years ago, and it's been uh a frustrating process to see us not accept our legal reality as an industry industry.
3:39
SPEAKER_08: And we've spent a lot of time asking Congress, and we'll see what what happens with this Senate bill.
3:44
SPEAKER_08: Uh but as I've said a million times, collective bargaining is something we can do ourselves.
3:49
SPEAKER_08: And uh giving the players a voice to be a part of uh real solutions and a healthier ecosystem, I think is a good thing, and I think they want a lot of the same things we want as coaches and administrators.
4:02
SPEAKER_16: The Protect College Sports Act you just referred to, do you expect that it will be passed?
4:08
SPEAKER_16: I don't know.
4:09
SPEAKER_08: You know, I I I know a lot about college sports.
4:12
SPEAKER_08: I don't I don't know much about anything else, and and certainly DC politics is is not my bag.
4:17
SPEAKER_08: I I don't know.
4:18
SPEAKER_08: Uh either way, I don't know that we have a full solution.
4:20
SPEAKER_08: It doesn't solve all of our issues as written right now, and it could potentially create some new ones.
4:26
SPEAKER_08: I hope that we uh are starting to understand uh the collective we.
4:31
SPEAKER_08: There's a lot to do.
4:32
SPEAKER_08: Uh that there's some things we could do to help ourselves and and show some leadership and and and and and fix this ourselves.
4:39
SPEAKER_08: Our chancellor and I have been pretty vocal about that for a long time now.
4:43
SPEAKER_16: Do you feel like you're gaining any traction with you and what Chancellor Plowman are sort of talking about out there in the atmosphere of college athletics?
4:51
SPEAKER_08: I think so.
4:52
SPEAKER_08: Accepting our legal reality is an important step.
4:55
SPEAKER_08: And uh I I think there's there's a whole lot more people that have.
4:59
SPEAKER_16: If the Protect College Sports Act does pass and becomes law, what is the most positive point or points in it to Danny White?
5:08
SPEAKER_16: The Protect College Sports Act does a whole lot of things.
5:11
SPEAKER_08: What a lot of us really would ask would have asked them to do is just help us on uh eligibility standards that are consistent and national, and transfer standards that are consistent and national.
5:24
SPEAKER_08: It's unhealthy uh for a college student to transfer three, four times.
5:29
SPEAKER_08: Uh they may end up with a college degree.
5:32
SPEAKER_08: Uh is it one that they can really use?
5:35
SPEAKER_08: Is it a degree and something they're really interested in?
5:38
SPEAKER_08: It's really hard to have confidence that that's happening when you know you lose credits every time you transfer.
5:44
SPEAKER_08: We've always had a deep educational mission in college sports, uh, something I'm proud of.
5:50
SPEAKER_08: We want to win championships.
5:52
SPEAKER_08: We want our our kids to go on and play professionally.
5:54
SPEAKER_08: All those things are great.
5:55
SPEAKER_08: We also want them to have a degree and uh excel in in their in their academic work so they could they it could be successful beyond beyond their sport and have a successful life.
6:05
SPEAKER_08: And this environment, I think, creates some challenges for that.
6:08
SPEAKER_08: When you start adding additional things that may or may not be constitutional, could create complications.
6:15
SPEAKER_08: You get to a space where maybe if the bill does pass, it may help us in a couple things, it it may make some other things more difficult.
6:22
SPEAKER_16: But the one-time transfer without losing eligibility.
6:26
SPEAKER_16: You could transfer again, but you would lose eligibility.
6:28
SPEAKER_08: You feel really good about that as a point to kind of stop some of the wild west that it is through the lens of calming the waters a little bit, something that's healthy for the universities, the fans, and I think is really healthy for the student athletes as well.
6:46
SPEAKER_08: I think that would be great.
6:48
SPEAKER_08: We could also do that through a CBA.
6:51
SPEAKER_16: And a CBA would take how many people to get on board to make it happen?
6:55
SPEAKER_16: I don't know.
6:56
SPEAKER_16: Where would where would that start?
6:58
SPEAKER_16: When you talk about collective bargaining at a CBA, where do you think it would have to start to get it moving in that direction?
7:05
SPEAKER_08: Acceptance from the leadership of our industry.
7:09
SPEAKER_08: Uh and uh there's an awful lot uh uh of leaders that uh are there and uh maybe maybe everyone will get there.
7:16
SPEAKER_08: We'll see.
7:16
SPEAKER_08: It's gonna be an interesting fall.
7:18
SPEAKER_16: When did you come to the conclusion that collective bargaining was the best answer for college athletics in this environment?
7:26
SPEAKER_08: Uh about four years ago.
7:27
SPEAKER_08: I didn't know what antitrust law was before I got into all this.
7:31
SPEAKER_08: I saw what was happening, and anyone of anyone that's been around college sports long enough could have predicted exactly what's happening.
7:37
SPEAKER_08: Uh, back in July 1 of 2025, when the NCAA just kind of opened the floodgates of NIL without a plan.
7:45
SPEAKER_08: Uh I sat down with a bunch of lawyers.
7:47
SPEAKER_08: We have really smart attorneys on our campus, our general counsel office within our athletic department.
7:53
SPEAKER_08: Uh, but we are even hired outside counsel, and it all kind of kept coming back to the same thing.
7:58
SPEAKER_08: Like that this is what the Sherman Act says, and this is uh how you could comply.
8:04
SPEAKER_08: And I think there's a way to do it.
8:06
SPEAKER_08: It's been at least four years that we've kind of been come to that realization.
8:10
SPEAKER_16: Got more coming up with Danny White on the big interview presented by Clayton Holmes.
8:14
SPEAKER_16: When we come back, we'll talk about what's new at Neeland Stadium.
8:18
SPEAKER_16: That's next on the Mike Keith Show.
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SPEAKER_16: That's good.
12:44
SPEAKER_16: We got time, so go ahead.
12:45
SPEAKER_08: We've feel like we've been under construction since I've been here and uh really excited about you know this$337 million renovation, which uh hopefully is just a phase one because there's still more work to do, as we know.
12:57
SPEAKER_08: There's still concourses that could get wider.
13:00
SPEAKER_08: There's uh still uh some concessions and restroom facilities that could be addressed.
13:05
SPEAKER_08: But we've gotten a lot done in this effort.
13:07
SPEAKER_08: And uh so this coming year people will see a whole new tickle plaza in that southwest corner, gate uh nine, gate ten area, or new champions corner with statues of Coach Fulmer and Coach Dickey uh with the iconic uh General Nealand statue.
13:21
SPEAKER_16: Let me stop you there for just a second on the champion's corner.
13:24
SPEAKER_16: That is for national champions.
13:26
SPEAKER_16: National championships.
13:27
SPEAKER_16: Yes.
13:28
SPEAKER_16: So for the six national championship teams, they are represented with those three head coaches.
13:33
SPEAKER_16: With those three head coaches.
13:34
SPEAKER_08: Yep.
13:34
SPEAKER_08: Uh and to your point, it's more than the coaches, it's those teams.
13:38
SPEAKER_08: They're all represented with those head coaches.
13:40
SPEAKER_08: A new sound system, we got the best solution available in the world for large stadiums.
13:45
SPEAKER_08: I'm really excited about it.
13:47
SPEAKER_08: I know it's been a challenge the last several years, uh, but the same sound system that's in Mercedes-Benz stadium down in Atlanta, uh, it will go in here.
13:55
SPEAKER_08: It'll be uh it's not just about uh volume, it's about clarity.
14:00
SPEAKER_08: Sure.
14:01
SPEAKER_08: And and clarity throughout the stadium.
14:03
SPEAKER_08: And uh we we've invested heavily to get the very best.
14:07
SPEAKER_08: So our fans, uh, I think we'll see a drastically different experience that way from the sound system.
14:13
SPEAKER_08: That'll be great.
14:14
SPEAKER_08: I think we solved a lot of issues on that uh third concourse on the uh on the south end, got rid of some of the old school restrooms that took up a lot of space and didn't have maybe as many toilets as you'd like.
14:26
SPEAKER_08: So we added more toilets to take up less space in a modern approach.
14:30
SPEAKER_08: Uh, same thing with concessions.
14:32
SPEAKER_08: We added uh walkthrough market concessions like we did a couple years ago on the north end.
14:37
SPEAKER_08: And then in some places we're able to more than double the size of the concourse.
14:41
SPEAKER_08: We poured some new concrete and added some decks just to give some folks some more space to move around.
14:46
SPEAKER_08: I think a huge improvement, probably not as good as it it needs to be at some point in the future, but I think we made a big positive step forward.
14:54
SPEAKER_08: Add some televisions up there as well.
14:56
SPEAKER_08: Uh it should be a much better experience for folks in the South End Zone in that upper deck.
15:01
SPEAKER_16: Yeah, especially when you talk about widening, because people had said to me, I'm having a hard time getting in and out.
15:06
SPEAKER_16: It's it's really packed.
15:07
SPEAKER_16: And you feel like some of this will alleviate at least some of that.
15:11
SPEAKER_08: I think so.
15:12
SPEAKER_08: There's nothing that's changed in that upper in that south end zone for I don't know, 30, 50 years, but we're out of place now with a waiting list of 29,400 accounts.
15:23
SPEAKER_08: We average three and a half tickets in account.
15:25
SPEAKER_08: I mean, the demand is so high.
15:27
SPEAKER_08: It doesn't matter if we're playing Kent State or Georgia.
15:30
SPEAKER_08: There's gonna be 102,000 people in that building.
15:33
SPEAKER_08: Uh and the congestion, I think, week in and week out, uh, it has been frustrating for folks in that south end zone.
15:39
SPEAKER_08: I think we've done quite a few things to make it better.
15:42
SPEAKER_16: Talk to me about the G10 garage and the construction there and what will be lost in parking this year that you say will be back and maybe even better next year.
15:52
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I know there's some heartburn on the on the G10 project and and some tradition with tailgating.
15:57
SPEAKER_08: And uh I get all that, and I'm excited about the future.
16:01
SPEAKER_08: Uh that that that garage was never built to be an entertainment garage, it was built as a commuter garage, excuse me, not entertainment garage, an event garage.
16:09
SPEAKER_08: Um, so what's being built will have more parking spaces.
16:12
SPEAKER_08: The new G10 garage will um have you know greater capacity, but it's also being designed for events.
16:19
SPEAKER_08: Ingress and egress should be much better.
16:22
SPEAKER_08: This is short-term pain.
16:24
SPEAKER_08: I get it.
16:25
SPEAKER_08: Uh kind of like a lot of the construction we've gone through over the last few years.
16:29
SPEAKER_08: I ask our fans to bear with us for one season.
16:32
SPEAKER_08: It's going to be so much better.
16:34
SPEAKER_08: Uh and I I think we also need to recognize that garage has been falling apart.
16:40
SPEAKER_08: And we've had instances where concrete literally falls off on people's cars, and we have to help them, we have to pay to re repair their their cars.
16:47
SPEAKER_08: So it was gonna need to be replaced at some point.
16:49
SPEAKER_08: And even the part closer to the arena uh that we're not addressing right now, that's going to have to be addressed.
16:55
SPEAKER_08: Uh was not and is not in in great shape.
16:57
SPEAKER_08: So we'll have two-thirds of it that'll be brand new and a uh significantly uh improved experience.
17:03
SPEAKER_16: Danny, Tennessee fans in late spring heard about Kenley Horn and the what they did towards the traffic flow.
17:11
SPEAKER_16: The and a lot of partners within town who helped the University of Tennessee and UT Police, so many people involved.
17:18
SPEAKER_16: You were able to work through that in a in a concert situation.
17:23
SPEAKER_16: You were able to work through that in the Savannah Bananas situation, trying to figure out how that will work best.
17:30
SPEAKER_16: From what you've seen from those experiences, how confident are you that it is really going to improve things for the for the football games?
17:38
SPEAKER_08: Very.
17:38
SPEAKER_08: And we've uh put so much effort into it.
17:41
SPEAKER_08: Uh, as you mentioned, Kimley Horn is the national leader in this space.
17:46
SPEAKER_08: We've been flying drones all last season, football and basketball, during those concerts, just monitoring traffic flow, learning about the best ways to approach this.
17:56
SPEAKER_08: We're never going to have a great footprint.
17:58
SPEAKER_08: We got a river, we got a downtown, we got our campus all around us with very few parking lots.
18:04
SPEAKER_08: I mean, when they build new new NFL stadiums these days, they surround it with a sea of parking lots.
18:09
SPEAKER_08: We don't have that opportunity.
18:11
SPEAKER_08: Considering our challenges with our footprint, I think we we have the best plan.
18:17
SPEAKER_08: Uh, and we've never had the coordination we have right now with uh UTPD, uh Knoxville City Police, the county police, all the different first responders that need to be involved.
18:28
SPEAKER_08: They've been awesome.
18:30
SPEAKER_08: They've put a lot of time in this to come up with a thoughtful plan for the first time in uh uh at least since I've been here, but for I think a long time, we'll have three lanes of traffic heading west on Neeland Drive and uh something that maybe a couple of years ago we thought was impossible.
18:45
SPEAKER_08: And uh uh similar types of activity on Cumberland.
18:49
SPEAKER_08: And uh so I ask fans, we're putting a lot of stuff out there uh that you've already received uh on traffic flow.
18:57
SPEAKER_08: And if you park here, this is how you should come, this is how you should go.
19:01
SPEAKER_08: Uh, you might see that if you turn right and don't listen to the plan, it looks empty.
19:05
SPEAKER_08: There's a there's a strategy behind the advice we're giving you.
19:09
SPEAKER_08: The best way to get off campus after the game is just follow the plan.
19:13
SPEAKER_08: Uh, because all of those police officers on all those intersections and everyone directing traffic is following that plan, and it's designed to get you off campus as fast as possible.
19:22
SPEAKER_16: Advantageous to get it out there in May and have people go through some of that from what you're hearing in terms of feedback?
19:29
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, no question.
19:30
SPEAKER_08: It was that was our plan is let's use these events in the spring as as a learning tool.
19:35
SPEAKER_08: And we and it was helpful.
19:36
SPEAKER_08: We there was a couple things that didn't work as uh exactly like we thought, and and we're able to tweak the plan.
19:42
SPEAKER_08: And I think we have have it as as good as it can be uh going into this football season.
19:48
SPEAKER_16: Expectation-wise, if I'm pulling out after the game, what do you hope I find better?
19:54
SPEAKER_16: Knowing that I'm not just gonna get out of town in 12 minutes and you're not on a Jetsons magic carpet or anything like that.
20:00
SPEAKER_16: It's I mean, there's gonna be challenges, but what's fair to expect in Danny White's mind, knowing how serious you are about customer service?
20:09
SPEAKER_08: Sure.
20:09
SPEAKER_08: Our goal is to completely empty the campus in an hour.
20:13
SPEAKER_08: And it's 102,000 people leaving at the same time.
20:16
SPEAKER_08: And it depends on the game, right?
20:18
SPEAKER_08: If it's a big game and we win and it's close at the end, people are celebrating and they're leaving at different times, it's gonna be easier.
20:24
SPEAKER_08: But any event where everyone leaves at the same time, which would be a concert, or as we see, you know, a big game that's full and maybe we lose at the last second, uh, everyone's typically getting off up out of their seat and leaving immediately.
20:38
SPEAKER_08: Uh so just that's going, those are gonna be more challenging.
20:41
SPEAKER_08: But even in those moments, that's our goal.
20:43
SPEAKER_08: We feel like if we can empty the campus in an hour, that means people aren't in a parking garage in it for an hour.
20:49
SPEAKER_08: There we gotta get them out of the parking garages faster, which can only happen if the streets are moving in in a quicker way.
20:56
SPEAKER_08: Uh there's a trickle-down effect, you know, the way traffic is managed, even a half mile away, might impact your experience of how quickly or not quickly you're getting out of this garage.
21:07
SPEAKER_08: And there's not a lot of room for error because of our footprint.
21:10
SPEAKER_08: Um, but I think we we have some really smart people.
21:13
SPEAKER_08: They've they've put a ton of time into this.
21:16
SPEAKER_08: Uh and I'm I'm excited to see it work this fall.
21:19
SPEAKER_16: University of Tennessee has a new apparel provider, Adidas.
21:23
SPEAKER_16: We'll talk about the Adidas rollout and more when we continue with University of Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White on the Mike Eatshow.
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21:44
SPEAKER_16: July 2nd, Tennessee became an Adidas school.
21:48
SPEAKER_16: Director of Athletics Danny White joins me here on the Mike Keith Joe, the big interview presented by Clayton Holmes.
21:55
SPEAKER_16: The rollout.
22:00
SPEAKER_16: Weeks.
22:01
SPEAKER_16: Could it have gone much better?
22:04
SPEAKER_08: I don't know that it could.
22:05
SPEAKER_08: And that's a testament to a lot of the folks that are helping us produce this show.
22:09
SPEAKER_08: Our creative team is the best in college sports.
22:12
SPEAKER_08: They're absolutely phenomenal.
22:14
SPEAKER_08: They overdeliver every time.
22:15
SPEAKER_08: And they had a great partner in Adidas and their creative folks.
22:19
SPEAKER_08: And just an awesome feeling from my initial meeting with John Miller, the president of Adidas North America, his leadership team, they're dynamic, they're forward thinking.
22:28
SPEAKER_08: They've made college a huge priority.
22:31
SPEAKER_08: And within that priority, they've made the Vols a huge priority.
22:35
SPEAKER_08: And I think that rollout was a great way for our fans to see just an early sign of how healthy and powerful this partnership is going to be.
22:45
SPEAKER_16: Other schools rolled out new partnerships on July 1st.
22:49
SPEAKER_16: Tennessee could have done that, but didn't.
22:52
SPEAKER_16: You waited another day and then you extended it over a period of time.
22:56
SPEAKER_16: Just something to tease people with over that period of time.
23:00
SPEAKER_16: What led you to do it so differently and even a day later than everybody else?
23:06
SPEAKER_08: I think when your creative team is as talented as ours is, then uh it's it's uh incumbent on our marketing people to be smart about let's make sure people are paying attention and we have the most eyeballs possible.
23:18
SPEAKER_08: And that's what the strategy did.
23:20
SPEAKER_16: In terms of Adidas and the advantages that you feel like they give University of Tennessee athletics, what would those be?
23:28
SPEAKER_08: In terms of you know, prioritizing college, prioritizing us, the nimbleness and coordination uh of the partnership, uh, we thought would be great.
23:37
SPEAKER_08: And it it's it's over-delivered on all fronts.
23:40
SPEAKER_08: Their quality of their of their gear for for all of our athletes, I've heard unbelievable things from our student athletes.
23:47
SPEAKER_08: They're really pleased with the just the feel and the quality.
23:50
SPEAKER_08: I think it's a brand that uh is is growing in North America.
23:55
SPEAKER_08: They're not where they used to be, and they back when we were with them before when we won our last national championship.
24:02
SPEAKER_08: Uh they want to get back to that space and uh uh and they think we can help them with that.
24:06
SPEAKER_08: And I and I think we can we can help help them, and I think they can help us.
24:10
SPEAKER_08: So the strongest partnerships are mutually beneficial, and and I think in in pretty powerful ways, we can both help each other get to where we want to be.
24:19
SPEAKER_16: And the technology of their product is top-notch, and that's largely been grown overseas.
24:26
SPEAKER_16: And so they bring a product to you and your athletes in in some ways that they've not had a chance to have in any way, shape, or form, regardless of what apparel they've worn or or whatever.
24:36
SPEAKER_08: And beyond that, the the continuing innovation of that product, our student athletes will have opportunities to be a part of that.
24:43
SPEAKER_08: They they'll be able to go to Portland and go to the innovation lab.
24:46
SPEAKER_08: We're gonna have innovation, an innovation lab here in our building.
24:49
SPEAKER_08: Uh, so the opportunities for our kids to be a part of it, test a product out, give them feedback, I think is really cool.
24:56
SPEAKER_16: The rollout of the smoky gray uniforms this year to honor General Nealan's 100th anniversary of his first team.
25:03
SPEAKER_16: How did all that come about and the decision to make the focus of these smoky grays about that 1926?
25:12
SPEAKER_08: That you know, the hundred-year uh kind of anniversary uh uh uh of the general and um all that he means to to our institution, not just our football program, uh it was a unique opportunity.
25:26
SPEAKER_08: Our folks saw that early on, and they've been planning this for a few years.
25:30
SPEAKER_08: And I I think they met with uh with Mr.
25:33
SPEAKER_08: Haslum at least six months, maybe a year ago.
25:35
SPEAKER_16: His final captain, the general's final captain.
25:38
SPEAKER_08: To get stories and just historical, and then and they they brought a lot of that information into the design.
25:44
SPEAKER_08: And it's it's a uniform that I think looks really cool.
25:47
SPEAKER_08: I I can't believe they took a modern helmet and made it look leather, but it really does if you see it in person.
25:53
SPEAKER_08: They told a lot of stories in in that that effort that that I think are are cool.
25:57
SPEAKER_08: So I think it's appealing for young people that like my kids, it's just like something new and exciting with not that.
26:03
SPEAKER_08: I mean, that's what novelty uniforms are, and and and and that's the kind of that's where we play in the smoky gray space.
26:10
SPEAKER_08: It tells a pretty iconic story uh in a profound way.
26:13
SPEAKER_08: I I can't wait to uh see the coverage it gets uh on national media when we play that game.
26:18
SPEAKER_16: Will it get as much coverage as uh the dark mode uniforms?
26:23
SPEAKER_16: I don't know.
26:24
SPEAKER_16: Because that is crazy.
26:26
SPEAKER_16: Yeah.
26:26
SPEAKER_16: The attention dark mode gets from people who are not even interested in football.
26:31
SPEAKER_16: Yeah.
26:31
SPEAKER_16: Are you even a little stunned with how that's taken off in terms of the the social media thing that it has become?
26:39
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you know what it's whether it's shoes or uniforms or uh I'm probably more of a traditionalist.
26:45
SPEAKER_08: I I don't I don't know that I really cared what my uniform looked like when I played, but uh uh I know my my 13-year-old kid loves it.
26:53
SPEAKER_08: He's all into it.
26:54
SPEAKER_08: Sam with him.
26:55
SPEAKER_16: I like gear, I like shoes.
26:57
SPEAKER_16: Yeah, I mean, I I think I'm sitting in a hotel room watching uh the game in 22 when the the dark mode came out against Kentucky, and it's like, oh my gosh, I would give anything to be there right now and be a part of things.
27:13
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and so our athletes love it, and obviously recruits love it, and we talk a lot about honoring our past while innovating uh for their future, and I think this this is an example of that.
27:25
SPEAKER_08: And we we're disciplined about we have a dark mode game, we have a smoky gray series game.
27:31
SPEAKER_08: That's the those are the sandboxes to be creative and innovative, and and then we want to be traditional, and and we have our traditional orange look.
27:38
SPEAKER_08: I thought Adidas absolutely uh nailed it with with uh uh what kind of our design team had crafted into a modern version of the traditional orange and and white looks.
27:50
SPEAKER_08: And we're gonna continue to to kind of uh organize our thoughts that way.
27:55
SPEAKER_08: There's a time to be traditional and honor our our tradition our past, and and there's a time to have fun and innovate.
28:01
SPEAKER_16: Like, for example, you're not gonna wear smoky gray or dark bowed when you play Alabama.
28:06
SPEAKER_16: Correct.
28:06
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, that's that's a pretty traditional game, especially the next two years.
28:10
SPEAKER_16: You're definitely wearing orange.
28:12
SPEAKER_16: We're definitely wearing orange.
28:13
SPEAKER_16: Tennessee, Alabama full color, which is really exciting to a lot of us who had wanted to see it for years, remembering Alabama and the Crimson and Tennessee and the orange.
28:25
SPEAKER_16: How did that come to be?
28:27
SPEAKER_16: And how did you and Greg Byrne, Alabama's athletic director, get on the same page about it?
28:31
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you know, I I think uh our our marketing folks and and creative folks had been talking and uh Greg Greg and I connected and just both of us felt like it's it's a no-brainer.
28:42
SPEAKER_08: It celebrates the greatest rivalry in college football.
28:46
SPEAKER_08: I would say in a unique way.
28:48
SPEAKER_08: This is an instance where maybe being somewhat innovative is also honoring our past.
28:53
SPEAKER_08: And there's such a strong tradition from back in the what was it, 1970?
28:58
SPEAKER_08: I think I saw the last time.
29:01
SPEAKER_08: Uh that's been a long time, but uh it's a really cool tradition.
29:05
SPEAKER_08: The the rivalry is really cool, uh, regardless of what uniforms we're wearing.
29:09
SPEAKER_08: So I think it amplifies it in in a pretty cool way.
29:12
SPEAKER_08: And uh uh I'm looking forward to it.
29:14
SPEAKER_08: Did the SEC have to go full sign off on this?
29:18
SPEAKER_08: Uh I don't believe so.
29:19
SPEAKER_08: I think it's the the home team has to uh approve of anything other than the the traditional, you know, uh white and and and colored jerseys.
29:29
SPEAKER_16: And there will be no penalty at the start of the game.
29:31
SPEAKER_16: There will be no penalty.
29:32
SPEAKER_16: We both agreed to that.
29:33
SPEAKER_16: Okay.
29:33
SPEAKER_16: So they they won't even get up and say it's delay of game or unsportsman like conduct, the penalty is declined.
29:39
SPEAKER_16: No, no.
29:40
SPEAKER_16: That's exciting.
29:41
SPEAKER_16: Yeah.
29:41
SPEAKER_16: Well, I think I think people are you know, it came that way because of black and white television.
29:47
SPEAKER_16: And you don't even remember black and white television, you're too young.
29:50
SPEAKER_16: I know what it is.
29:50
SPEAKER_16: I did we'll see, that's right.
29:51
SPEAKER_16: And I hope it never comes back.
29:53
SPEAKER_16: Trust us for all the things that are coming back, I hope it never comes back.
29:56
SPEAKER_16: But to see those pictures and understand the descriptions of the games that weren't on TV, the majority of them weren't on TV.
30:04
SPEAKER_16: Yeah, and so you would hear about the red elephants and their crimson jerseys and the volunteers in their orange, and you know, it just kind of it made it more storied in terms of the lure, yeah.
30:17
SPEAKER_16: And and the two colors going head to head was was part of that story.
30:23
SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
30:23
SPEAKER_16: So, final question in this segment.
30:26
SPEAKER_16: You talked about it.
30:28
SPEAKER_16: Smoky grays, dark mode, innovation, and yet tradition.
30:32
SPEAKER_16: You're the gatekeeper of that balance.
30:35
SPEAKER_16: How hard is that to stay where you're supposed to stay on behalf of the millions of Tennessee fans?
30:42
SPEAKER_08: We we try to check ourselves a lot, and and early on we kind of set boundaries for ourselves.
30:48
SPEAKER_08: When are we staying traditional?
30:50
SPEAKER_08: And and uh there there's a a time and place for that, and that and that should be and is most of the time.
30:57
SPEAKER_08: But we also want to be, we talk about leading the way in college sports.
31:00
SPEAKER_08: A part of that is being innovative and fun and uh coming up with exciting new ideas.
31:04
SPEAKER_08: We we do that from a fan experience standpoint all the time.
31:07
SPEAKER_08: And it's so visual in the uniform space that that that's kind of how we organize it.
31:13
SPEAKER_08: But uh it it's not just uniforms in everything we do.
31:16
SPEAKER_08: We we kind of have checks and balances, some boundaries for ourselves to make sure that if you don't want to get caught up and get excited and realize you've turned your brand into something that maybe it it shouldn't be.
31:28
SPEAKER_08: And we we are the University of Tennessee.
31:30
SPEAKER_08: The the Power Tea is an iconic brand.
31:32
SPEAKER_08: We have a storied history, we understand that.
31:35
SPEAKER_08: We're gonna continue to honor that and tell that story.
31:38
SPEAKER_08: Um, and actually, the Smoky Gray series is kind of both.
31:41
SPEAKER_08: We're we're we're telling a pretty profound story about the general while also putting out this really cool uh new, exciting uniform.
31:48
SPEAKER_16: I think they look great.
31:49
SPEAKER_16: Yeah.
31:49
SPEAKER_16: We're back with more with Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White when we continue on the Mike Keats Show.
31:54
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36:01
SPEAKER_16: Football is the focus in Big Orange Country right now, but a lot of other successful sports under the University of Tennessee Tent.
36:09
SPEAKER_16: Danny White is the director of athletics here at the University of Tennessee, and he's part of the big interview tonight on the Mike Keith Show.
36:16
SPEAKER_16: It's presented by Clayton Holmes.
36:18
SPEAKER_16: Let's talk about a couple other sports.
36:20
SPEAKER_16: Talk to me about your thoughts on Rick Marnes and Tennessee basketball.
36:24
SPEAKER_08: I think he's a pretty good basketball coach.
36:27
SPEAKER_08: And I think we have a pretty good basketball team.
36:29
SPEAKER_08: So excited about what he's doing.
36:31
SPEAKER_08: Three straight Elite Eights is really hard to do.
36:34
SPEAKER_08: As much as I'm a Tennessee fan and all of our fans are passionate about Tennessee, sometimes you lose sight of the fact that the other teams are trying too.
36:42
SPEAKER_08: That basketball tournament, it's really hard to get to that second weekend and then to win a game and to get to the Elite Eight is just awesome.
36:51
SPEAKER_08: We've been working really hard this offseason, and Rick and his staff have uh to put ourselves in a position to get to that third weekend.
36:58
SPEAKER_08: And I think this roster was very uh aggressively put together in a very smart analytical way.
37:06
SPEAKER_08: Uh always character and integrity.
37:09
SPEAKER_08: Uh that's been a staple of Rick and his program.
37:12
SPEAKER_08: Uh I expect these players will represent us really well, like all of his teams have.
37:17
SPEAKER_08: They're great kids.
37:18
SPEAKER_08: I've gotten to know them a little bit here in the early going, but they're really talented basketball players and they've produced at a high level in college.
37:25
SPEAKER_08: They're experienced.
37:26
SPEAKER_08: Uh, this is a team that can make a deep run, and uh it's gonna be fun to watch.
37:31
SPEAKER_16: Are you the person that convinced Rick Barnes how to run the transfer portal NIL era basketball team?
37:40
SPEAKER_08: Uh, would never take credit for telling uh Rick Barnes how to do anything in basketball.
37:45
SPEAKER_08: He's a but he's a future Hall of Famer.
37:47
SPEAKER_16: But the fact that he embraced that because most of his peers didn't, most of his peers retired.
37:52
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, he he's uh he's adapted really well to the modern era.
37:56
SPEAKER_08: He's got uh some guys on his staff, Greg Polinski spent a lot of time in the NBA.
38:01
SPEAKER_08: Uh they've made some really smart hires and they've taken uh the analytical approach for roster construction that really our whole athletic department is using right now.
38:09
SPEAKER_08: That was the first program to to embrace it in the early goings and uh you know, enlisting uh students from our engineering program to help with uh building a database and and using analytics to evaluate players from across the country before we even know who might be in the portal.
38:27
SPEAKER_08: Um they've been really proactive and uh uh I think managed it extremely well.
38:32
SPEAKER_08: I mean, it all comes from Rick.
38:34
SPEAKER_08: He's he's one that hired all those people, and uh uh to your point, he he's he's adapted so so smoothly into this era.
38:41
SPEAKER_16: The analytical model that you're talking about, what goes into that for a sport?
38:47
SPEAKER_16: For basketball, just take, for example, the Tennessee basketball program.
38:52
SPEAKER_08: If Mike Keith was a basketball player anywhere in the country, and Mike Keith is gonna have a certain amount of assists and turnovers and rebounds and offense, defense, points, all those things, uh, that's all gonna go into an algorithm that people way smarter than me have put together.
39:07
SPEAKER_08: And that's gonna create a value score that's tailor-made for Rick Barnes and the way he wants to play.
39:13
SPEAKER_08: And so we can press a button at the end of the season and determine is Mike Keith somebody we should we should want to talk to?
39:20
SPEAKER_08: There's still recruiting and relationship building and all that and in NIL negotiation.
39:25
SPEAKER_08: Quantitative data, I think, gives you good guideposts to then make qualitative decisions within.
39:31
SPEAKER_08: You know, we may decide we don't want Mike Keith on in our program because he's not a great teammate, or we do because he's an awesome teammate.
39:39
SPEAKER_08: Uh maybe his agent is asking for too much money, and that that dollar figure exceeds where the data suggests his value is.
39:46
SPEAKER_08: You still have to be an elite recruiter, you have to have a great culture.
39:49
SPEAKER_08: Rick's always done those things.
39:51
SPEAKER_08: The analytical approach has been the most recent difference maker.
39:55
SPEAKER_16: So if you if you get a score on somebody, and I'm just pulling this out of the air, they're a 4.5.
40:01
SPEAKER_16: Is there an NIL figure that is matching that that comes with it that says if a player is a 4.5, he should be in this range.
40:11
SPEAKER_16: Um are we there yet?
40:13
SPEAKER_08: We're not there nationally because there's no transparency.
40:15
SPEAKER_08: Okay.
40:16
SPEAKER_08: It's not like the NBA where everybody knows what everyone's getting paid.
40:19
SPEAKER_08: It would be based on what our budget is.
40:21
SPEAKER_08: You know, if if uh if your budget is five million, then you would have a valuation based on your score.
40:29
SPEAKER_08: Because those scores are all the goal is to get enough of the right score, and I'm speaking really unintelligently about this.
40:36
SPEAKER_08: I understand what you're saying, yep.
40:37
SPEAKER_08: I'm not as smart as the people close to it, but uh needs to add up to a team that could potentially be a one-seed.
40:43
SPEAKER_08: One seeds have the highest probability to get to get to the final four, significantly have the highest probability to get to the final four.
40:50
SPEAKER_08: Uh so what does a one seed roster look like from a score standpoint?
40:53
SPEAKER_08: How much money do we have in our budget?
40:55
SPEAKER_08: And that that determines uh financial decisions.
40:59
SPEAKER_16: Tennessee has spent a good bit of money on this basketball team, has invested in the basketball teams of the last few years.
41:06
SPEAKER_16: Was that a difficult decision to make?
41:08
SPEAKER_08: No, it hasn't been for any of our programs.
41:10
SPEAKER_08: That we we're spending a lot on all of our programs.
41:14
SPEAKER_08: Uh, I don't want any of our sports to to be in a position where they can't compete for an SEC or a national championship.
41:20
SPEAKER_08: I'm confident that all of them are in that place.
41:22
SPEAKER_08: Uh and and that's that's a job that's never done.
41:26
SPEAKER_08: Revenue generation has always been critical.
41:28
SPEAKER_08: It's more critical now than it ever was before.
41:31
SPEAKER_08: We've grown our revenue from 140 to 330 in the last five years.
41:37
SPEAKER_08: And that's completely because of how we have the best fan base, I don't think just in college sports, I think we have the best fan base in all of sport.
41:44
SPEAKER_08: Just the scope and scale, the passion.
41:47
SPEAKER_08: Uh, and so we've taken a lot of pro sport rev gen uh strategies and and brought them here to to Knoxville, and and it's absolutely exploded.
41:56
SPEAKER_08: And a lot of people here internally in our offices, we're all proud of that.
42:00
SPEAKER_08: But at the end of the day, it needs to lead to to success on the court, on the field, uh, and and everything that we we compete in.
42:08
SPEAKER_08: And uh I think we're we we've had a lot of success, and I think we're positioned to have even more success.
42:13
SPEAKER_16: Lady Ball basketball is at a completely different place than it was six months ago.
42:18
SPEAKER_16: No question.
42:19
SPEAKER_16: What has led to that in Danny White's opinion?
42:22
SPEAKER_08: I think it starts with the head coach.
42:23
SPEAKER_08: I think Kim has done a really good job of um of writing the ship.
42:27
SPEAKER_08: Year one went better than anyone thought.
42:29
SPEAKER_08: Year two was a disappointment by anyone's standards, and um, like we had some culture issues, and we needed to get back to to what Kim does best, and that's getting you know talented players, but uh kids that want to work hard and compete and uh uh be selfless.
42:46
SPEAKER_08: And she's always said she wants the top condition team in in the country, the hardest working, the fastest playing.
42:52
SPEAKER_08: Her brand of basketball is really exciting.
42:55
SPEAKER_08: Uh, we have the athletes and we have the three-point shooters to do it at a high level uh with this team, and they had a great offseason.
43:02
SPEAKER_08: It it the culture is fantastic over there, and uh uh it's gonna be fun to watch.
43:07
SPEAKER_16: You didn't have to tell Kim Caldwell that the end of last season was not what anybody wanted.
43:12
SPEAKER_16: She knew better than anyone.
43:13
SPEAKER_16: Of course.
43:13
SPEAKER_16: From your standpoint, how do you pick a young coach like that up and say, look, we all get it, so we don't need to go over that.
43:21
SPEAKER_16: Now you've got to find the way forward.
43:23
SPEAKER_08: Just uh continue to remind her the reasons I hired her and that I I still believe in her and a really high uh at a really high level.
43:32
SPEAKER_08: The Kim Caldwell that was the hottest up and coming mid-major coach in the country at Marshall and just lit the world on fire at the Division II level and at Marshall is still the same human being.
43:42
SPEAKER_08: Like she's a better coach after two years here.
43:45
SPEAKER_08: She had one year that went really well, one year that absolutely did not.
43:49
SPEAKER_08: If there's any benefit of this NIL world where uh you can just completely recreate a roster in one season, this would be that case.
43:58
SPEAKER_08: She got back to her roots.
44:00
SPEAKER_08: And the way she wants to play, the types of kids that help her play that way, not just that play style, but the culture, the effort, all those things that make that play style go.
44:10
SPEAKER_08: Uh, and and that's exactly what she's done.
44:13
SPEAKER_08: So I think this season's gonna be a a ton of fun.
44:16
SPEAKER_16: You have to handle every coach differently.
44:18
SPEAKER_16: So let's talk about another young coach, Josh Elander in baseball.
44:22
SPEAKER_16: He gets the job just before Halloween last year, takes over the baseball program, goes to a regional.
44:28
SPEAKER_16: I mean, has some success.
44:30
SPEAKER_16: And yet, year two, there's more expected of Tennessee baseball because of what Tennessee baseball has been.
44:36
SPEAKER_16: How do you handle him in this situation?
44:38
SPEAKER_16: What are the most important things between the athletic director and Josh E.
44:42
SPEAKER_16: Lander?
44:42
SPEAKER_08: Josh is a confident guy, very well prepared uh for the head coaching role.
44:47
SPEAKER_08: I kind of suspected that before I went into that search, but he needed to win the job and he did.
44:52
SPEAKER_08: We saw a whole different side of Josh E.
44:54
SPEAKER_08: Lander.
44:54
SPEAKER_08: And he's continued to show us that.
44:57
SPEAKER_08: He's very organized, very analytical, which I think are important attributes in this era.
45:02
SPEAKER_08: What he did to close out the high school recruiting class and in the portal and the work with our staff.
45:10
SPEAKER_08: Because you know, NIL and roster construction, it's not just about how much money you're gonna spend and what players you're gonna get.
45:17
SPEAKER_08: You also have to follow the rules.
45:18
SPEAKER_08: You know, it's our job to to win and win with integrity and represent this university well.
45:23
SPEAKER_08: So how what how are you going to get that that resource to the student athlete?
45:29
SPEAKER_08: Um, there's there's a lot of work that goes into that.
45:32
SPEAKER_08: And uh for us to have the knowledge and the confidence, uh and we've been able to deliver that what we tell a kid in their family is what actually happened.
45:40
SPEAKER_08: So a lot of schools have been challenged with that.
45:43
SPEAKER_08: Uh, and it's it's kind of disappointing to see.
45:46
SPEAKER_08: Uh, I never want to be a part of telling a kid you're gonna get X, and then halfway through the year we say, Oh, we can't we can't get that approved.
45:53
SPEAKER_08: Well, we have a plan to do it.
45:55
SPEAKER_08: Uh, and uh Josh has locked arms with uh his sport administrators, with the the NIL operations staff, and uh and then he and his staff have just been elite of recruiting in the portal and and and out of high school.
46:09
SPEAKER_08: I I think uh his roster construction with this offseason has been awesome.
46:14
SPEAKER_08: Uh going through his first season, he adjusted a lot, and I think he he made the most of that group.
46:20
SPEAKER_08: Uh we had a good season, not a great season.
46:22
SPEAKER_08: He he may give himself even a worse rapport card than that because he's uh as competitive as anyone.
46:29
SPEAKER_08: Uh, but uh I've been very impressed with him as a young first-time head coach, and I I think the future's really bright.
46:35
SPEAKER_16: He won credibility with his players, players from other teams, media, people who just saw him with his overall demeanor in the dugout.
46:44
SPEAKER_16: Yeah.
46:45
SPEAKER_16: I I mean it was impressive how he just stays.
46:48
SPEAKER_16: Did you expect that?
46:50
SPEAKER_16: Did you know that was part of who Josh E.
46:52
SPEAKER_16: Lander was?
46:53
SPEAKER_08: That's kind of who he was as an assistant, but to your point, it's a lot different when you're the head coach.
46:58
SPEAKER_08: And I I thought it was impressive.
47:00
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, the poise he had, uh, particularly when facing adversity.
47:03
SPEAKER_08: You know, that we we certainly would have hoped to have a better year than that.
47:07
SPEAKER_08: Not that we had a bad year.
47:08
SPEAKER_08: Start of the year, um he was he was trying to win the championship.
47:11
SPEAKER_08: And that that's that's always the goal.
47:14
SPEAKER_08: Um, and I thought he showed great maturity and poise uh and helped some guys along at different moments that were struggling and uh to to see guys get kind of get out of uh some funks and and and get back to playing better.
47:28
SPEAKER_08: That that's coaching.
47:29
SPEAKER_08: And it's not just him, his staff, and he he's assembled a really good staff.
47:33
SPEAKER_16: Uh I think we're in a really strong spot.
47:35
SPEAKER_16: One more segment with Danny White as we wrap up the big interview on the Mike Keith Show presented by Clayton Holmes right after this.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: Getting you ready for the game.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: The Mike Keith Show delivered by Greek in your ball network.
47:55
SPEAKER_16: Tennessee has a tradition in football of playing outstanding non-conference opponents.
48:00
SPEAKER_16: It dates back to 1965 when the Vols started playing UCLA, and every athletic director, including this one, Danny White, has seen Tennessee step out of conference to play name opponents.
48:14
SPEAKER_16: I ask you, future scheduling, you've got some name opponents coming up, which is great.
48:19
SPEAKER_16: Excited about trips and seeing people and going to different places, what college football is all about.
48:25
SPEAKER_16: Yep.
48:25
SPEAKER_16: But with the nine-game conference schedule and the college football playoff like it is, can you keep scheduling like that at Tennessee?
48:35
SPEAKER_08: I I do think an expanded playoff would give a healthy incentive to schedule a little more difficult in the non-conference.
48:45
SPEAKER_08: Uh in every other sport that we have, there's either an RPI or the net in the basketballs.
48:52
SPEAKER_08: And we are incentivized if we're trying to win the national championship to build the most difficult non-conference schedule possible.
48:58
SPEAKER_08: And that's exactly what we do.
49:00
SPEAKER_08: In football, it doesn't play out that way.
49:03
SPEAKER_08: And it people will say, and it's true, it's more complicated.
49:06
SPEAKER_08: There's less data points in only 12 games.
49:08
SPEAKER_08: Um, but some of it is also with the postseason of only four, it's I think literally impossible.
49:14
SPEAKER_08: At 12, it's still really hard.
49:16
SPEAKER_08: Uh with a bigger field, I think you'll see strength of schedule um rewarded more.
49:23
SPEAKER_08: Athletic directors, football coaches will be more incentivized to schedule more difficult.
49:28
SPEAKER_08: But for for now, our scheduling philosophy uh will be you know, we have five SEC home games like we do this year, and then the next year we have four.
49:36
SPEAKER_08: So we're gonna try to uh work out non-conference P4 home and home series that coordinate with that.
49:44
SPEAKER_08: So in a year that we have five SEC home games, we'll be on the road like we're at Georgia Tech this year.
49:49
SPEAKER_08: Next year we got Georgia Tech at home with four SEC home games.
49:53
SPEAKER_08: That way we have five P4 home games in Neeland Stadium every year.
49:57
SPEAKER_08: Uh for the best fan base in the country with a sold-out stadium.
50:01
SPEAKER_08: I I'm always looking for ways to reward our season ticket holders uh and make being a season ticket holder a value proposition.
50:09
SPEAKER_08: And the the West Virginia game in 2028 was already on the schedule.
50:14
SPEAKER_08: Uh that'll be a neutral site game, but then we'll get back to with the Washington series uh home and home against P4s.
50:21
SPEAKER_08: And beyond that, we'd like to stick with that model.
50:23
SPEAKER_16: You are wrapping up a five-year plan this year for the University of Tennessee Athletic Department.
50:28
SPEAKER_16: How different will the next five-year plan be from what you may have even thought it possibly could be?
50:35
SPEAKER_08: We spent my first year here building this strategic plan.
50:38
SPEAKER_08: We're in our fifth year of it.
50:40
SPEAKER_08: In a lot of areas, we we passed those goals so quickly.
50:43
SPEAKER_08: And uh I don't think I understood how powerful the fan base was here.
50:47
SPEAKER_08: Um, and and certainly, I mean, there's committees and everyone, a strategic plan is worthless if three people sit in a room and put it together.
50:54
SPEAKER_08: There there needs to be uh buy-in and and and engagement in that process.
50:58
SPEAKER_08: And a strategic plan is also worthless if it you go through that and you stick it in a drawer and you revisit it five years later.
51:05
SPEAKER_08: So we have continuously revisited it.
51:07
SPEAKER_08: We just went on our all-staff town hall meeting, uh, went had a kind of an overview from the committee chairs and how we're doing.
51:14
SPEAKER_08: Uh, and I think we're way ahead of schedule in a lot of areas.
51:17
SPEAKER_08: There's some things we haven't hit yet that we said we wanted to do.
51:20
SPEAKER_08: Uh, so the the next one should be even more aggressive.
51:24
SPEAKER_08: Uh we we want to build, and I think we can build not just the best athletic department in the country.
51:30
SPEAKER_08: I think we could build the best athletic department college sports has ever seen.
51:33
SPEAKER_08: Uh the revenue growth we we've been able to do with our fan base is unprecedented.
51:40
SPEAKER_08: Uh, I think our roster of head coaches is as good as it gets.
51:44
SPEAKER_08: I put them up against anybody in the country.
51:46
SPEAKER_08: Uh, Tennessee and Knoxville sell itself.
51:49
SPEAKER_08: We we call it America's College Sports City for a reason.
51:52
SPEAKER_08: College sports matters more to more people here than anywhere else in America.
51:57
SPEAKER_08: And I think student athletes and future student athletes are figuring that out.
52:01
SPEAKER_16: Danny White, director of athletics here at the University of Tennessee.
52:04
SPEAKER_16: Thanks so much for the time.
52:05
SPEAKER_08: No question.
52:05
SPEAKER_16: Thanks for having me.
52:06
SPEAKER_16: Go Valls.
52:06
SPEAKER_16: Go Valls.
52:07
SPEAKER_16: He is the subject of the big interview tonight on the Mike Keith Show, presented by Clayton Holmes.
52:12
SPEAKER_16: Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
52:17
SPEAKER_02: All week long to the latest from the Tennessee campus, the Mike Keith Show online, delivered by Uber Eatsports.com.
52:26
SPEAKER_02: We are the Law Network.