Tennessee football: Defining Vols history by 10 Disney animation eras
Disney: Renaissance Era (1989-1999)
Tennessee: Doug Dickey to Bill Battle (1964-1974)
The Disney Renaissance and Tennessee football’s restoration in the 1960s had numerous similarities. Disney, for instance, embraced modern animation at this point but also the traditions that made them great, such as retelling classic stories.
For the Vols, Doug Dickey did the same thing. He embraced new schemes, such as the T-Formation to replace the Single-Wing, but he also doubled down on UT traditions, which is why he established Running through the T at games. It was an understanding of what made the program great.
That made the subsequent years the Golden Years for both. In Disney’s case, it started with “The Little Mermaid” in 1989. That was a smashing box office success similar to what the 1965 season for the Vols was. That year, UT went 8-1-2 and finished in the top 10 for the first time since 1956.
In 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969, the Vols continued their success with four more tp 25 finishes, two SEC Championships and a retroactive national championship in 1967, all as they moved into a new era of integration in the SEC. The same was true for Disney with epic movies like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “The Lion King.”
The second half of the Renaissance also parallels the second half of these UT years. In Disney’s case, the movies got progressively worse after “The Lion King,” with films like “Pocahontas” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” But they still enjoyed box office success based on the leftover reputation of the early renaissance movies.
This holds true for Tennessee football as well. Bill Battle took over in 1970, and the Vols still managed a Sugar Bowl win and top 5 finish in 1970 and then two more top 10 finishes in 1971 and 1972. But like Disney in the late 1990s, the Vols were on a downward slide.
Again, though, Disney and the Vols are similar here because of their expansion in other avenues. The Walt Disney Channel and some very popular Disney Live-Action movies began to take off, while UT hit the peak of the Ray Mears years and began a women’s basketball program started by Pat Summitt.
Condredge Holloway was a spike in that slide, similar to “Mulan” and “Tarzan” and, to be fair, maybe even “Hercules.” Meanwhile, like Disney at this time, UT expanded in athletics. They started a women’s basketball program and enjoyed the Ray Mears years in men’s basketball. This is when Disney really began to cash in on the Disney Channel.