Remember, they denied wanting to do away with the Lady Vols logo, too. Denial is the default setting for Hart.

Is it about money and marketing? Anybody want to guess how many tickets they'll have to give away to fill Bristol Speedway?

Don't know anything about the situation but the drum major, Jessica Henderson, is in one of my classes. Seems like a nice person.

and sardine seating, having to bear the pumped in crap somebody over there calls music is one of the main reasons I no longer go.

This hullabaloo will blow over, but the change is happening. I attend sporting events all over the country every year. Almost all are college.

The last remaining bastion of collegiate sports atmosphere I've seen is Virginia Tech football. They don't just have a band at games; they have TWO bands. (One is a military band.) Even that will change, however.

The biggest proponent of "modernizing" the atmosphere at Virginia Tech: Frank Beamer. I have had long discussions with him about it. It is all about re-creating the game day experience - to appeal to recruits.

So remember: the college game day experience is being designed with the specific intent to appeal to 17-year-old inner-city linebackers.

The other proponents of change: Olympic sports coaches. They realize that the only way to ever get more funding - or to prevent reduced funding - is for football to generate more revenue. Only about 30 or 40 percent of UT football revenue is spent on football. Maximizing football revenue is, in large part, about paying for baseball and softball.

And at UT, it is about paying for baseball, softball and swimming DEBT SERVICE, not just operating expenses.

for the 4 years(?) they'll be here. So they can go onto the NFL(?) where they can give their former HS name instead of UT when Monday Night Football asks for their alma mater.

Forego tradition, pay the players and call college football what it already is – professional sports.

Truth is, it has been for decades.

Places like UT and Va Tech have just been good at covering it up under the guise of tradition. The pre late 90's fan went to the game and heard the band play the same things, listened to John Ward through their headphones, heard Bobby Denton say the same things, the teams wear the same things and took solace in all of it.

Now, as you rightfully point out, it’s not about the fan. I figured it out somewhere between “FIRST TENNESSEE FIRST DOWN” and Kid Rock making my ears bleed.

The playing of commercial music to the exclusion of the bands is reprehensible and ill conceived. I sincerely hope that is not the marketing department's recommendation. If so, they can find consensus with other SEC campuses but I personally am not interested in what everyone else is doing. Neyland has always been a unique and positive college football experience but the increases in donor required amounts, shuffling of long time season ticket holders, and now loud relentless marketing campaigns and playing of commercial music ushers in a different crowd. The fan base now sometimes boos the playing of the other teams fight song. How long before the that time honored respectful tradition is discontinued? I used to take solace when visiting other stadiums that once I got back to Neyland I wouldn't have to put up with bands playing simultaneously and loud music filling the rest of the time. That solace is now gone and so is the guarantee that I can bring my wife and kids and not have to stand down a obnoxious fan spewing vitriol. Vol fans we are losing our uniqueness and at a grave cost that money can't replace.

I vote to eliminate the unconstitutional "prayer." Can we have a marketing moment there instead with a "let's remember when we had tradition" and watch something from back when instead of the spectacle of "prayer."