Tennessee has won six national titles. Winning is the key, of course, but the appeal goes deeper. Summitt promotes Tennessee basketball much as energetic Sarah Patterson promotes Alabama gymnastics. They've got the Lady Vol radio network, and if you want to stay around after home games you can ask her questions, right there. She usually has one of the girls signing autographs.
Little kids get to slap hands with the players as they run onto the court.
John Adams, sports editor of The Knoxville News-Sentinel , clearly enjoys covering a club that on several nights has pulled more than 24,000 spectators. Adams accompanied the team on a two-week tour of Europe in 1999. So did a host of fans. He said he'd never had a team take as many fans as Tennessee did. And it was an expensive tour.