KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee Baseball's comeback win on Monday — the first in 20 years for this team in the College World Series — has fans pumped up.
While it's been a while since a UT team won a big national title, Big Orange's teams have seen a lot of success from the field, to the track, and the pool.
Mark Nagi, the author of Decades of Dysfunction, said that times are changing for Tennessee fans and teams from all kinds of sports are starting to take home victories.
"I think that sometimes, we like to wax poetic on the good old days," Nagi said. "People look at Tennessee Athletics in the 1990s, when football's winning a national championship, the women's basketball program won three national titles baseball and got to the College World Series."
In his book, he analyzed stories within Tennessee Athletics from between 2008 and 2017. He said it was a period when Tennessee just could not seem to do anything right.
"They were losing in football and basketball, baseball, women's basketball, whatever sport you want to say," Nagi said.
But now, the program has changed. Tennessee is winning and fans are getting more and more hyped.
"These are the good old days," Nagi said. "Tennessee is not only competitive on a conference level but also on a national level as well.
Now, Tennessee finally seems to be turning things around and there are many benefits.
"Anytime the Vols are doing good, regardless of sport, people are excited. They're happy. They feel like spending money and that's the locals that live here and visitors that come here to watch them play," said Kim Bumpas, president of Visit Knoxville.
The future looks brighter than ever, Nagi said.
"I think people should have a lot of confidence in the direction that Tennessee Athletics is going," he said.