Tennessee Big Al, I understood from a friend that the parking garages were unattended Sunday!

Parking is not the problem that keeps TBA from being TALL:

Stokely was full @ 12,700.
The games were not televised--maybe 3 or 4 a year.
You could only see the home games on a Channel # 2 replay at 11:30 PM.
No TEE shirts were thrown--the loudest cheering you saw Sunday was for the free TEE shirts.
Mike Hammond did not beat the crowd into submission with the PA system at the player introduction.
The band did not play Rocky Top in a perfuctory manner 30 times each game.
The band new more tunes than Rocky Top!
Stokely was not always full!
Coach Ray Mears appealled to the fans and the corporations to come to the game.
People complained about the parking.

Currently, the fairground sideshows at TBA are remnants of the Coach Ray Mears Era. Sure it was a novelty to see guys juggling basketballs & a guy riding a unicycle, but it would be as corny now as the kids riding those stupid tricyles at halftime are now!

Your right about Coach Peterson. He needs to appeal to the fans to come, thank them for coming. He needs to appeal to those that come to stand & cheer(a novel idea). He needs to stop worrying about the parking--it is not K-mart where everyone fights for a front door spot. He needs to get rid of the carnaval atmosphere, and present that basketball court as the shrine to the great game that it ought to be!

I loved going to Stokley, but there are a few myths that circulate that describe it as a palace. It did have some good points--the games, the players, & the coaches, both ours & theirs!!

Lets gat an understanding here Sky Sheep. The Parking around TBA and Knoxville Town in General IS A GREAT DAMN BIG EVIL PLOTTED PROBLEM. Do not shrug it off as a non factor just because you believe its not. Where do you park my good man? Where do you park when you have business downtown? Do you know there has been more written in the senseless about the lack of adiquate parking than about any other subject in the letters to the Ed? And that it comes up every time those moron town planners decide to create the next great damn attraction that will save the old city and our residing ghost downtown? Have you gotten towed for being approx 18 inches over the line? Have you got locked in the armed forces parking lot and had to call UT security to get let out while being chastized by your son who told you not to park there? And then listen to him buddy up with the security guard and have a good laugh at the old man? But in trying to find a phone I wondered all through Stokely for my first time and got lost in the Lady Vols locker room and could feel the ghosts of basketball past as I gazed around that Gym. And then after the Ga game this year, OMG took me on his guided tour and recreated the atmoshere for me of those glory days. If I ever missed something memorable, I feel that hoops time @ Stokely had to be a major one to miss.

What was the deal with all the parking tickets handed out when the vols came back into town after the win in Fl? I believe that was the occasion. And the stories go on and on and those were just mine! There are 683,598.5 parking horror stories just around TBA and Neyland stadium, and thats just in the last 8 years. (check the police and UT security dockets)
Soooooo, Sky, what kind of signal does that send the fans right into the gate when attending a ballgame? And then the treatment gets even more intresting when you get inside. Who in the hell at UTPRMedia whatever they call themselves do? They are one big walking talking PR nightmare and could not make a correct change or update their fancrappy attitude if their jobs depended on it. Of which obviously they don't. HEY! When your programs in the tank, the focus stays pretty much on the program and when the programs winning NC's, well the bugs in the systom are not foremost on the fans mind.
Or are they?????

But like you said and I said on DW today, Buzz needs to dig in and have his presense felt in all areas of UT basketball to be successful. I for one am dissapointed that he has not rendered a certain amount of change already. But.... then again he does appear to have his hands full.

So where does the accountability for the UTAD Media PR associates come into play here. Why in tarnation can they not make some very real changes in the parking mess and the TAll MART Greeters being their own VolNazi squad and ect ect? I'm sorry but the last time anyone over there had a real sense of urgency was when they tried to use one of those pay toilets with a bad case of the runs. And just how far downhill are they going to let Neyland Stadium get before they come up with a little paint, a pressure wash and get the Generals name inside and around the Stadium?

I think I've rattled on long enough, but when you hear the crys of ex-players who are now handicapped or have parents who are and lose their parking passes for a mess of different reasons and see the conditions of the student housings and other buildings and look at their administration decisions and the ex-president's love for chocolate sundays and the fact that the State doesn't even fund its top priority college right and how they let my daughter get away to attend Berry in Ga, and her wanting to be a teacher.....damn, I just can't seem to stop here....I'm just going to push respond

It was a semi-dump. Nobody who built it knew what they were doing – it was all dumb luck, but the place had several advantages TBA utterly lacks.

The seats were in the dark; the only light to speak of was on the floor. The cube scoreboard was squarely above center court. All these things focused attention on the action.

The students filled the entire half of the gym behind the bench.

The pep band was about 60-80 players like Kentucky still does at Rupp (Not the pitiful little 12-horn combo they have now. Crazy-ass UTAD builds twice as much gym, then cuts the pep band down to the size of the Cedar Bluff Holiday Inn Lounge Band.)

All this hellish action was right square in Joe B. Hall and C.M. Newton's ear.

The roof was low, the place was cozy. John Ward hung from a catwalk over the court.

If you look, Stokely is almost identical to Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke, one of the greatest college basketball atmospheres. Main difference is Cameron's floor is turned 90 degrees compared to Stokely. That and players like Bobby Hurley. Still, we were there when Grunfeld, King and Howard Wood were kicking ass and taking names.

I wish we could nuke TBA and go back to that warm old shed.

I got a little carried away last night. You made some good points.
Sorry for the disrespect.
I hate it when that damn Wooly Carter puts me in the corner!
TBA