After an 11-2 season but a season-ending blowout loss to Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, the Volunteers of Tennessee were losing their talisman in Peyton Manning along with their All-America linebacker Leonard Little. The 1998 team was still expected to be talented, but going into fall camp that summer there was still a question mark at the most important position on the field: quarterback.
Chapter 1: "There’s a New Sheriff in Town"
Phillip Fulmer [head coach]: I was excited for camp. We were a talented bunch and I was looking forward to seeing Tee develop as the man.
Tee Martin [quarterback]: I told people to call me the sheriff and I would walk around camp saying: ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’ using my fingers as pretend guns and going ‘Pow! Pow!’. Then one day during a break Shawn [Bryson] came over and said that sheriff is actually a voted on position and that I should stop calling myself that unless some constituency had duly elected me.
Shawn Bryson [running back]: I explained to Tee the general election process for sheriff that takes place in a county, but I don’t think he was listening because he kept saying “Pow! Pow!” and pointing his fingers at me until I stopped talking.
Tee Martin: I was listening. The sheriff is all about his constituents.
Phillip Fulmer: I had no problem calling Tee the sheriff, I liked the confidence it showed, and so I mentioned to Shawn he should probably just let it go. He had a tough time with it, but eventually I think Al [Wilson] helped him come around. I did draw the line when Cosey Coleman asked me to call him Weatherby. I just didn’t get some of the slang the kids were saying at the time.
David Cutcliffe [offensive coordinator]: I never heard Tee call himself the sheriff, but even during camp I was always upstairs [in the booth] so it was hard to hear what was going on down on the field. Even when it rained and we had to go indoors I had them build me a crow’s nest up in the roof so that I could get a better view of the practice field.
Tee Martin: Once everyone understood the sheriff was running things I calmed down with some of the ‘Pow! Pow!’ noises and just kept it simple with some finger pointing like I was shooting guns with silencers on them.
Peerless Price [wide receiver]: It was better when Tee stopped making the gun sounds because it made it easier to understand the play call. Usually I just ran a go [route] anyway, but it was nice to know when I was doing the right thing.
David Cutcliffe: I knew we might have something when Tee completed a ball across the middle to Cedrick [Wilson] and he didn’t do the gun motions. It told me he was focused. That night I was up in the booth thinking about the playbook, about to fall to sleep on a bed fashioned from foldout chairs and feathers I plucked myself from ducks down by the river, when it hit me: Kevin Spacey was actually Keyser Soze. Man, that movie just never made sense until that moment.
Phillip Fulmer: It was the fifth day of camp and Cut[cliffe] told me that he had a revelation. I expected some new play to beat Florida, but then he said that he finally understood the twist at the end of The Usual Suspects. I told him I hadn’t seen that one, but nothing got me going like a good episode of A Prairie Home Companion on the radio.
Chapter 1: "There’s a New Sheriff in Town"
Phillip Fulmer [head coach]: I was excited for camp. We were a talented bunch and I was looking forward to seeing Tee develop as the man.
Tee Martin [quarterback]: I told people to call me the sheriff and I would walk around camp saying: ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’ using my fingers as pretend guns and going ‘Pow! Pow!’. Then one day during a break Shawn [Bryson] came over and said that sheriff is actually a voted on position and that I should stop calling myself that unless some constituency had duly elected me.
Shawn Bryson [running back]: I explained to Tee the general election process for sheriff that takes place in a county, but I don’t think he was listening because he kept saying “Pow! Pow!” and pointing his fingers at me until I stopped talking.
Tee Martin: I was listening. The sheriff is all about his constituents.
Phillip Fulmer: I had no problem calling Tee the sheriff, I liked the confidence it showed, and so I mentioned to Shawn he should probably just let it go. He had a tough time with it, but eventually I think Al [Wilson] helped him come around. I did draw the line when Cosey Coleman asked me to call him Weatherby. I just didn’t get some of the slang the kids were saying at the time.
David Cutcliffe [offensive coordinator]: I never heard Tee call himself the sheriff, but even during camp I was always upstairs [in the booth] so it was hard to hear what was going on down on the field. Even when it rained and we had to go indoors I had them build me a crow’s nest up in the roof so that I could get a better view of the practice field.
Tee Martin: Once everyone understood the sheriff was running things I calmed down with some of the ‘Pow! Pow!’ noises and just kept it simple with some finger pointing like I was shooting guns with silencers on them.
Peerless Price [wide receiver]: It was better when Tee stopped making the gun sounds because it made it easier to understand the play call. Usually I just ran a go [route] anyway, but it was nice to know when I was doing the right thing.
David Cutcliffe: I knew we might have something when Tee completed a ball across the middle to Cedrick [Wilson] and he didn’t do the gun motions. It told me he was focused. That night I was up in the booth thinking about the playbook, about to fall to sleep on a bed fashioned from foldout chairs and feathers I plucked myself from ducks down by the river, when it hit me: Kevin Spacey was actually Keyser Soze. Man, that movie just never made sense until that moment.
Phillip Fulmer: It was the fifth day of camp and Cut[cliffe] told me that he had a revelation. I expected some new play to beat Florida, but then he said that he finally understood the twist at the end of The Usual Suspects. I told him I hadn’t seen that one, but nothing got me going like a good episode of A Prairie Home Companion on the radio.
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