John Wilkerson’s final call of Tennessee baseball's national championship is an instant classic.
But it was born in his mind a month earlier during a solitary drive from Hoover, Alabama, to Knoxville, after the Vols won the SEC Tournament.
And Wilkerson revised and repeated those words silently over and over, but he never told anyone or wrote them down.
“If I wrote it down, that could jinx it,” said Wilkerson, the longtime UT baseball radio announcer.
On Monday, Tennessee baseball won its first national championship by in Game 3 of the College World Series final in Omaha, Nebraska.
It was a tense ninth inning. But when the Vols made the final out, Wilkerson summed up the feat and the moment perfectly on the Vol Network broadcast.
Wilkerson now reveals that every word he said had a purpose.
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“Swing and a miss! That’s the ball game! How about that?" Wilkerson shouted when UT won. "The Aggies score two in the ninth, but the Volunteers, Tennessee — the climb is complete! They have reached the summit! The Volunteers are the very best in college baseball, and the championship flag has been planted on Rocky Top!"
"For the 60th and final time this season, Tennessee says hello win column and hello national championship! Everybody in Vol Nation can stand and say with me, while they are wearing black, the national champion is clad in big orange!"
Wilkerson has always practiced spontaneity when it comes to making on-air calls of big games. But this time, he made an exception and thought about the weight of each word in anticipation that the Vols might finally win the national title.
Here’s the thought behind each phrase of Wilkerson’s suddenly iconic call.
‘The climb is complete!’
Coach Tony Vitello was hired before the 2018 season.
He got the Vols to an NCAA regional in 2019, then the College World Series in 2021, then a No. 1 ranking in 2022, back to Omaha in 2023 and finally an NCAA title this season.
Everything about the Vols improved steadily under Vitello’s watch, and athletics director Danny White made sure the program took strides in facilities and funding.
Wilkerson recognized that in the opening line of his call.
“Look at what this trip has been. Look at what this administration has done,” Wilkerson said. “It’s been a steady climb. So that needed to be the first attribute – the climb is complete. They’ve done it.
“They started building in 2018. And the first thing that needed to be celebrated is the fact that this program has been on a steady ascent.”
‘They have reached the summit!’
Wilkerson has a deep respect for UT’s championship history. And no one won at the highest level more than former Lady Vols basketball coach Pat Summitt, an eight-time national champion.
So Wilkerson tweaked a common phrase with a reference that every UT fan would recognize.
“A lot of people, and rightly so, go with the analogy that (winning a national championship) is reaching the mountaintop,” Wilkerson said. “But it being the University of Tennessee, I thought that it has to be phrased ‘the summit.’
“It’s simply for the example that Coach (Summitt) set and all that she did for the university and the sports world, in general. And then it goes from the summit to planting a national championship flag on Rocky Top. So I just thought it just fell together nicely, and it was appropriate.”
‘Hello national championship’
“Hello win column” was the only phrase that UT fans could be certain that they’d hear.
It’s been Wilkerson’s signature phrase to cap Vols’ victories for several years. He adopted it from the late Mark Holtz, the former voice of the Texas Rangers and an inspiration to Wilkerson.
It was UT’s 60th appearance in the win column this season, the most in SEC history.
‘Clad in big orange’
And, finally, Wilkerson paid tribute to legendary UT broadcaster John Ward to finish his call of the baseball team’s national title as the Vols, wearing black uniforms, celebrated on the field.
“Everybody in Vol Nation can stand and say with me, while they are wearing black, the national champion is clad in big orange!” Wilkerson said during the broadcast.
Of course, that referenced Ward’s iconic call when UT football won the 1998 national title: “The national champion is clad in big orange.”
Wilkerson said, “It was a throwback to the immortal words of John Ward. It all came together, and I was just so happy that (the final call) recognized so many things about Tennessee athletics’ past, as well as what the team accomplished this year.”
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Emailadam.sparks@knoxnews.com. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
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