How’s this for a monumental task – try building excitement as head basketball coach at a university where most fans thought the only sport ever invented was football. Enter Ray Mears, a name that has become synonymous with University of Tennessee sports. When UT selected Mears head coach in 1962, they had no idea that he would become the winningest active coach in the nation and create unprecedented fan support and excitement for the men’s basketball program. Mears, a great promoter who coined the term “Big Orange Country,” began his college coaching career at Wittenberg University, where his program climbed into prominence with an NCAA National Championship in 1961. In twenty-one years of college coaching, Mears never had a losing season, posting an overall record of 399-135. Selected SEC Coach of the Year twice, he led Tennessee to NCAA tournament appearances three times. All the more impressive when one remembers that in those days, UT had to get by Adolf Rupp’s legendary Kentucky teams to get there. Perhaps Mears greatest fame came during the “Ernie and Bernie” years of the mid-1970s, when All-Americans Bernard King and Ernie Grunfield tore up the court. Mears left UT in 1977 and went to the University of Tennessee at Martin as director of athletics until retiring in 1990. Under his guidance, UT-Martin’s sports programs won an amazing eighteen championships. Fittingly, Ray Mears then moved back to Knoxville, where he could advise and support his “family,” the UT Volunteers.
