Turn The Page

The subject itself begged for this book to be written, so reading this was enjoyable and very interesting, but the writing itself was good, not great. Nevertheless, chronicling what led up to and created perhaps the most disorganized and dark year in Tennessee Volunteer football made for an eye-opening experience while taking this in. Tom Mattingly's contribution in the beginning about the history of Tennessee football, while it had some interesting notes, was sporadic and disjointed in my opinion. The book really picks up though with Summers interviews with key donors to the school and its athletic department, then moving on to discussions with print and radio journalists, along with players and fans reactions. Summers best writing was the latter third of the book, covering the narrative of the later months of 2017, when everything literally fell apart. The main subject of the book is described in this portion, where the fans literally had had enough of the incompetence in Knoxville and with the power of social media, shut down an ill-advised attempt at hiring a certain coach with a checkered past. The most eye-opening part of the book, to me, was the afterword by Dr. John Staley, Jr., where he discusses what could have been considered criminal actions by the coaching staff during the 2017 season. Worth a read for any Tennessee fan....