Reporting on UT coaching situation

As I lounged around on my last night before school started last week, I received a phone call from my sports editor from The Tennessee Journalist (TNJN), UT's student news website, that our football coach Lane Kiffin was leaving to take over at USC. He wanted me to write a brief write-up and post it as soon as I could. I posted it and figured I'd keep my eye on ESPN to see if anything else happened, and that would be that.

Oh, how I was wrong.

Soon after, I got a call from TNJN's editor in chief telling me to get down to Lindsey-Nelson Sports Complex, because Lane Kiffin was giving an exit press conference. This started the most hectic four-day period since I've been at college, as I was part of TNJN's extensive coverage of the coaching search.

I just started writing for TNJN last semester, mostly writing game recaps for women's soccer and men's basketball. I had never been a part of any sort of breaking news coverage like this before, and it was incredible.

I did my first original reporting when I covered the roughly two-thousand student riot in response to Kiffin's leaving. I ran around helping get footage, and interviewed kids to get their opinions on the matter.

For the next couple of days, I was on Twitter just about every minute I was awake, waiting for news on the new coach to break. I didn't even think about the fact that classes were starting up, and that I still had to get my schedule finalized and buy my books.

When Derek Dooley was announced as the new head coach just a few days later, I had the opportunity to cover his introduction press conference at Neyland Stadium, including interviewing players on their views about the hire.

Before Kiffin and Dooley, UT's only had two head coaches since 1977, so this was a rare occurrence that I was honored to be a part of.

It was extremely fun and beneficial for me. I got to sit next to AP reporters and mingle with guys I read from ESPN.com. I'm blessed to have the experience, and I wanted to share the four stories I got out of it:

Kiffin bolts for USC - The original article on Kiffin's press conference
Students riot in response to Kiffin's leaving - Students gathered outside of Kiffin's press conference and lit fire to numerous objects in protest
Dooley introduced as UT head coach - Coverage of Derek Dooley's intro and his thoughts on being UT's next coach
Players react positively to Dooley hiring - Although the players had hardly spent 20 minutes with the new coach, they seemed to take a liking to him