University of Tennessee Athletics
Chest-Bumping With Stranger Highlights My Walk
September 11, 2009 | Football
Sept. 11, 2009
BY Eric Berry, For Sporting News Today
Our Vol Walk to Neyland Stadium before every home game is something special. The fans come out and show their support. They're giving us a lot of energy and showing us what the atmosphere is like before the game. Just to have the support from that many people that early before the game, that kind of settles us down and gets us ready to play.
The walk last week took no more than five minutes. Unlike past years where we walked single-file, it was a pretty big alley for us to walk down. We could go about four or five guys wide. But at the same time, we still got a good feel of the energy from the fans. The band is playing "Rocky Top," and they're playing a few other songs too, but sometimes I can't even really hear because the fans are so loud.
I stay on the ends of the rows so I can high-five the fans and kind of get that connection with them. Last year, I'd walk toward the back, but now I'm in the front because Coach (Lane) Kiffin wants me in the front. That's pretty different just to see that perspective. I'm right up there with Coach, who was walking down the Vol Walk very calm, cool and collected. I know he was excited, but if he would have got really excited, then we would have gotten really excited. He kept reassuring us that this was a business day, and we needed to take care of business. We couldn't let our emotions get too out of whack.
There is one guy while I'm on the Vol Walk, we always chest-bump at the same spot every year. It's kind of been our thing. I'm not sure what his name is. He always has on an Eric Berry jersey and some sunglasses, but we chest-bump every year on every Vol Walk in the same spot. My freshman year against Southern Miss, he just picked me out and he was like, `E.B! E.B.!' And he pointed to his chest and we did a little chest bump. And from that point, it's been going on and on.
This Saturday will be special because my dad and Johnny Majors will be introduced as Vols Legends before Saturday's game against UCLA. Also, my dad and I will be introduced as captains together. He was a captain on the 1981 Tennessee team. That's one of the reasons I came here is to share that bond with my dad as a UT Vol, and this will be a very special moment on Saturday just to see us both as captains--two different Berrys in two different eras.
-- As told to Roger Kuznia
