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Happy Friday ... 
The Ole Miss and Oklahoma baseball teams are set to battle it out in the Final Series of the College World Series (
MCWS) while Kennedy Chandler has a new team after falling into the second round of the NBA draft ... Meanwhile Danny White is acting rather strangely for a 2022 AD at an SEC school.
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Our UT Insider Orange Throat is here to break it all down scientifically.
Orange Throat
'T Club Team:
Random musings as we still try to shake the Tennessee Baseball Blues:
AN ALL SEC FINAL Ole Miss went on a magic ride in the NCAA Tournament and will ride it all the way to the Men's Baseball World Series Finals, (as opposed to the Women's Baseball World Series Finals). The Rebels now take on future SEC brother Oklahoma in a best of three series. Your correspondent hasn't been able to watch and isn't the format a bit convoluted for this event?
IS DR DANNY SLAMMING THE BRAKES ON NIL? Is our prim and proper athletics director calling the cops on our keg party? Sounds like it. Insiders are confirming what is being said in more cryptic terms on sites such as volquest and what Tony and Sinco brought out into broad daylight on Wednesday's Show of Record ... Danny White is apparently overriding new state law and is forbidding his coaches and staff from having contact with UT's unofficial/official NIL Collective Spyre. This is so Tennessee. Many of UT's biggest sports donors joined up with the guys at Spyre over the past year to get our football, basketball and baseball programs in a position to compete at a championship level.
FORGET THE GOVERNOR, LET'S LISTEN TO THE NCAA A good many of the nation's athletics directors have risen up against using NIL in recruiting and have pressured what's left of the NCAA enforcement team to investigate the worst offenders. You see, the A.D.'s don't like donors diverting money from their pet projects and control and working with the sports programs to recruit the best talent. This is happening in Knoxville just as our biggest rivals are gearing up. Kirby Smart is under no such orders from his boss. Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith is railing against NIL while his HC Ryan Day is in the hunt and in the mix, grabbing UT targets like Carnell Tate.
WE HAVE SOME IDEAS Surely, Josh Heupel will get creative on how to do business with Spyre. Does our vet school have a carrier pigeon program? Philip Fulmer isn't an employee any more, even though he's still getting a check. Maybe Heup could accidentally drop his target list on the floor and the former head coach/AD could pick it up and drop it off to the Spyre boys. Or we could accidentally drop our recruiting list in McDonald's bags.
Orange Throat'
I can't figure out why Danny White is taking this tack as it relates to his coaches and collectives. And yes, I did say on the air (though I haven't written it here until today) that Danny White has mandated a break between his coaches and collectives that serve Tennessee athletes. Is this the reason that Tennessee Football has seemingly hit a wall?
I'll put it this way ... White's war on Spyre and other collectives can't be helping. I was told by a source yesterday that Tennessee coaches are having to use 'go arounds' to get word to collectives. They've been forced into this as White has apparently threatened to go through the texts of various staff and coaches related to the programs in his employ. Some reading this are going to reject it out of hand because it seems absurd. Please get in line ... This was my exact reaction as I learned of it over the weekend.
Why Danny Why? I wondered aloud on the air a few months back if White was going to get spooked and turtle up once the NCAA began sniffing around. Did that bit of blustering by the NCAA spook him? One of our callers opined that perhaps it's not the NCAA that's got White on the run but the SEC. It could be that Greg Sankey has asked the Vols to cool it for now on the NIL front as a quid pro quo for helping the Vols out of the woods with the Pruitt-era NCAA mess. This is highly possible, but I can't get anybody to tell me that this has occurred.
White Is A Corporate Guy: As you opined above Throaty, Danny White is a true believer in the NCAA. It's literally all he's known for his entire life. And let's face it ... The cheese of people like Danny White has been moved since July 1st of 2021. NIL has completely changed the game and flipped the board. ADs, like the coaches under their employ, have ceded power to the booster controlled collectives. With this has come a more pronounced challenge to raise money for athletic department initiatives. I understand that Tennessee has had little success in moving tickets in their new terrace area in Neyland Stadium.
Danny Is Black & White: Long and short is that I get that Danny White isn't a collective kind of a guy, nor will he ever be. Still he's an athletic director at an SEC institution whose sports teams are fueled by pseudo professional to outright professional athletes. It's time for Danny White to wake up and smell the coffee here.
This Isn't Done By A Long Shot: The hope here is that Danny White gets some push back from the power players that read this Blog Of Record as part of The Show Of Record. The boosters in Tennessee's program really need to let Danny White know that ceding their NIL edge would be foolish and self-immolating.
Danny White might have power but you money folks have more. Encourage him to remove the yoke of repression from his demands and allow his coaches to interface with the collectives loud and proud ... This is after all the law of the land and the law in the state of Tennessee. We get that Danny White is an NCAA sympathizer, but Tennessee must compete in the SEC. Where's Ross Bjork when you need him?
Alumni Hall Tennessee Baseball Players Meet & Greet Party Tonight! Turkey Creek –
11309 Parkside Drive Tonight ... Friday, June 24 5-7pm More Information can be found here: Link
Players Confirmed For Tonight: Evan Russell
Trey Lipscomb
Kirby Connell
Redmond Walsh
Will Mabrey
Jorel Ortega
Jared Dickey
Drew Beam
*players subject to change
Alumni Hall will be hosting an event this Friday to celebrate the incredible season of the Tennessee Vols baseball team. “It was an epic season and one for the books,” said Beth Parks, Marketing Director for Alumni Hall. “We enjoyed working with many of the baseball players this year with merchandise, events, and social media giveaways. The fanbase and community really got behind the team and our staff here at Alumni Hall thoroughly enjoyed the energy and comradery as fans shopped the store, attended our events, and interacted with us.”
The event will be held this Friday, June 24th from 5-7 pm at Alumni Hall - Turkey Creek where Tennessee Vol fans can meet the players, get autographs, photos, and congratulate them on an incredible season. The party will consist of meet and greet opportunities with the Vols baseball players, a baseball pitching game overseen by professional training experts from D1, concession favorites from Sugar Rush Food Truck, cornhole, Jenga, plus awesome tunes from our own, DJ Nyce One. There will not be a formal meet & greet line so fans can do things at their own pace.
The event is free and no purchase is necessary to attend. Alumni Hall will have Tennessee baseballs, wall art, player apparel, and other baseball items for sale in addition to our 2 for $38 tees, Nike Golf, Champion, and summer apparel that has just come in so that Vol fans can still shop with us during the event.
Choice Voice: Clayton asks a very interesting question that many a fan base around the SEC has pondered in years past. What is the value in winning the SEC Tournament in Baseball? It's seems punitive to the winners, whereas the early exiters seem to have it figured out...
The Kennedy Chandler Deal Is Weird But Not Really: It was a tough night for prognosticators at the bottom of the first round. The final pick in the first round is a guy that averaged 3 points per game. He was the #12 player in the class and a five star ranked two spots behind Chandler. Zero guards in Chandler's class went ahead of him so that's one way of looking at it. No freshman point guards were picked in the first round. The deal on Chandler is purely size. Ty Ty Washington is a combo guard plus he's a year and half older than Chandler. Chandler was easily one of the 3 or 4 best freshmen in the class. I hear the knocks on him were size and ... believe it or not ... his foul shooting. Could Chandler have helped himself if he would've stayed in school? I suppose he could have shot foul shots better, and he could have gotten stronger.
Congrats Kentucky Nation: On Shaedon Sharpe who is a shadow player ... He was the invisible man ... What a career ... Almost like it never happened. Matt Dixon's favorite Kentucky draft pick since Enes Kanter who is not employed by Clay Travis ... What a winner.
Tony
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