DUCATS WITH DAD: This was intended to be a rant against overpaid & overhyped coaches, the NIL & Tennessee’s “10% talent fee” on next season’s ticket package. I spent yesterday banging the keyboard between my ears foraging for nouns & verbs to express my disdain. But these old ducats, especially the $8 one that is today 48 years old, kept pointing to a detour I took. That September Saturday wrapped up 3 heavy days with the gridiron. The Chattanooga Junior High jamboree brought a good Thursday, the next evening, I sat with my best friend as his brother caught a TD pass for his high school, & then my first home game for The Big Orange. Like any good Tennessee boy, I’d listened to John Ward on the AM radio dreaming of being the next Bobby Majors or Conredge Holloway, watched Ward host the coaches TV show on Sunday afternoons & caught the Vols the 1 or 2 times a year they played on ABC television. My coach at the time was only two years removed from his 3 time letterman Vol career & he made  running through the “T” out of the East stands on to Shields-Watkins Field sound better than running through the pearly gates & on to streets of gold. My dad parked near a fraternity house & as we made our way to the double decker horseshoe that was the ’76 version of Neyland Stadium, I noticed unfamiliar smells coming from the grounds. My dad asked if I knew the smells, I said “no” & he said “good”. The smells, I found, were weed & what Granny Clampett called “corn squeezins”, the fuel for Dan Jenkins 10 steps of drunkenness. The frat boys were  between step 1’s “witty” & #7’s “crank up the Enola Gay”. After a Vols win, we retraced our route. Steps 8 (witty, part 2) thru 10(bulletproof) were in action with sorority girls now participating. The smells were stronger & aided by a Panhellenic sidewalk cookie toss. My dad said, “Son, ain’t nothing good ever happened after 11PM & the only things you’ll find then are bad women & bad liquor. And the women you can figure out before dark”. Dad, I discovered, was an Old Testament quality prophet. I just wish he hadn’t prophesied during the 8 year period he wasn’t so bright which ran eerily parallel to the time I was aged 13 to 21…