Where I Come From: How I Became A Vanderbilt Commodore Fan

Got in as an undergrad, but went to a different school which I have since completely disavowed in every particular. Fortunately, I applied for grad school and got in, only to wash out in 3 years in a doctoral program. I did end up with a Master’s degree for my trouble – not to mention the experience of the Notre Dame game in ’96 and camping out for Kentucky tickets (which led to one of my favorite stories ever). My era, alas, was DiNardo and Dowhower and VBK, and the farthest thing from what the last five years of students have experienced.

I only really embraced my Commodore heritage around 2002-03, which suddenly paid off with the Sweet 16 run in ‘04, and ever since I have followed as best I can from the Bay Area – I was at Pete’s Tavern, our home away from home in San Francisco, the night we beat #1 Tennessee, and I was riding over the Golden Gate bridge balled up in the floorboard doing deals with God when we beat #1 Florida. I was tailgating Cal-Stanford in ‘05 when my aunt called to concede defeat (UT nursing alum). I was crouched on the floor of the Cal alumni house with people crowded around me watching me hit refresh on my iPhone at the end of Vandy-Auburn (which is still on my DVR). I was in Moraga in the loudest 3000-seat bandbox gym of my life when we beat St Marys. And I was in the Tank in San Jose with all the oxygen ripped out of my lungs in March, when my first thought was "Goddammit, I’m going to be seeing that shot every March for twenty years."

Oh yeah – and when Myron Lewis made that pick in LP Field on New Years Eve in 2008, about 20 seconds later my email, home phone, cell phone, IM and Twitter all started going off at once, because everyone I knew? Knew I was going out of my mind.

I think Jeffery Taylor is the hardest-hitting 44 shooter since Dirty Harry’s Magnum. I think Warren Norman is faster than Jahvid Best, DeSean Jackson, and bad news combined. I think next year is going to be huge.

And that’s why I’m happy to be a ’Dore.

Awesome story about the KJIV legacy. I’ll try to input my winding road to fandom/attendance later (just started a new job, which explains why I haven’t been posting much. Also, Summer League doesn’t start for a week or so, and little else is going on).

Also, I’m happy to have an awesome/legit sponsor on this page for once. Much better than the KY ads from last winter.

This is a fun idea!!!

I was born a Vandy fan. I grew up in Franklin and both of my parents grew up in Nashville. My grandfather on one side went to Vandy (even though Rupp recruited him to UK), and my grandmother on the other side went to Vandy. My parents along with many of my aunts and uncles went to VU. My dad worked for the basketball team while he was in undergrad. My grandmother made cookies for the team to take on roadtrips. My mom recalls dates spent in the locker rooms while my dad was finishing stuff up. I was born and immediately put into a Vandy outfit. I had the cheerleader uniforms, the t-shirts, and everything else. I started going to basketball games at Memorial as young as age 3 with my grandparents. We sat in 2C on the last row. My grandfather had put up coat hooks on the wall and he kept his own stats on a clipboard using a Vandy pencil and a flashlight because he didn’t trust the ones in the paper. I got in trouble at age five for screaming “We’re going to beat the hell out of you.” My mother didn’t appreciate her five year old daughter screaming the word “hell.” I attended Vandy for undergrad from 2005-2009. Now I live in east Tennessee for school, and I’m surrounded by UT fans, but they’ve already learned not to mess with me.