SMOKEY VI AND JOHNNY MAJORS DOMINATE
Knoxville, TN (HOUSEOFNEYLAND) SMOKEY VI, a.k.a. "PB Brooks Blue Smoky VI", was born the day before the UT victory over Alabama on October 15, 1982.
SMOKEY VI would be the VOL mascot under only one football coach, Johnny Majors.
He & Majors would boast a .724 winning percentage, & 3 SEC TITLES (those were the good old days).
SMOKEY VI was on hand, as were we, in New Orleans for the 1986 SUGAR BOWL when TENNESSEE absolutely crushed MIAMI & its hopes for a National Championship.*
*I would have to say that VOL victory was the most enjoyable I have witnessed even more than the upsets of LSU in 1959 & BAMA in 1982. The reason is because of what that team had to overcome just to get to the Sugar Bowl, that no one gave them even the slightest chance to win, the cockiness of the Miami fans & the way the VOLS dominated defensively. To top it off our seats were in the middle deck of the end zone, right in the middle of the goal posts on the end of the field where all but one of the VOL TDs were scored.
On a sad note, SMOKEY VI was the VOL mascot when Reverend Bill Brooks passed away on September 17, 1986 at the age of 81.
Mr. Brooks' wife, Mildred, took over for her husband in the care of SMOKEY.
During the 1991 UCLA game, SMOKEY VI had a heat stroke with the air temperature at 106 degrees & later that year, on December 19, SMOKEY passed away due to cancer.
SOURCE:
He & Majors would boast a .724 winning percentage, & 3 SEC TITLES (those were the good old days).
SMOKEY VI was on hand, as were we, in New Orleans for the 1986 SUGAR BOWL when TENNESSEE absolutely crushed MIAMI & its hopes for a National Championship.*
*I would have to say that VOL victory was the most enjoyable I have witnessed even more than the upsets of LSU in 1959 & BAMA in 1982. The reason is because of what that team had to overcome just to get to the Sugar Bowl, that no one gave them even the slightest chance to win, the cockiness of the Miami fans & the way the VOLS dominated defensively. To top it off our seats were in the middle deck of the end zone, right in the middle of the goal posts on the end of the field where all but one of the VOL TDs were scored.
On a sad note, SMOKEY VI was the VOL mascot when Reverend Bill Brooks passed away on September 17, 1986 at the age of 81.
Mr. Brooks' wife, Mildred, took over for her husband in the care of SMOKEY.
During the 1991 UCLA game, SMOKEY VI had a heat stroke with the air temperature at 106 degrees & later that year, on December 19, SMOKEY passed away due to cancer.
SOURCE:
"Smokey: The True Stories behind the University of Tennessee's Beloved Mascot," by Thomas J. Mattingly & Earl C. Hudson, The University of Tennessee Press, 2012.
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