In Tennessee, college football is a religion. When I studied in Knoxville in 2023, I was told that on Fridays the staff have to clear their car parks by a certain time (no overtime on Fridays!) because all of the car parking is needed for football fans who descend with their vans, campers and gear to make a weekend of it.
Smokey, a Bluetick Coonhound, is the team mascot and the Knoxville campus is dotted with Smokey statues:
There have been a succession of real-life Smokeys; below is a story about the woman who outfits the current mascot, Smokey X…
Kathleen Crisley is Fear-Free certified dog massage therapist and canine fitness trainer. She has a particular passion for working with dogs and their families to ensure injury prevention and quality of life. She specialises in working with anxious and emotionally damaged dogs. Her mobile practice, The Balanced Dog, is based in Christchurch, New Zealand
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There’s nothing quite like sitting in the stands of Neyland Stadium on a fall Saturday as the T opens and Smokey leads the football team out to the field of battle.
For more than 70 years, Smokey has been an icon in college sports, and his game day gear, made by Tennessee Athletics’ own Jill Mayfield, is just as iconic.
Mayfield, a facility operations and support specialist for UT Athletics, has dedicated a prodigious amount of time brainstorming, stitching, and sewing for the beloved canine.
And it all began with some cheerleaders and a paint mishap.
Before Mayfield began working at UT, she had a friend whose son was on the cheer team. One game day morning, the team was painting the Rock, and without thinking they threw the paint cans in the back of their truck.
“Paint got all over the big flag they had back there for the football game that night,” Mayfield says. Knowing she was a seamstress, they called her in a panic.
The cheerleaders brought the flag to Mayfield’s house, giving her the opportunity to fashion a pattern of the Power T. Half of the team went to find white material, and the other half went to find orange, and they made a temporary flag for the night.
The Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native attributes her love for sewing to her maternal grandmother, who ran a drapery business out of her home.
“My mom would help her at the shop, and to keep me entertained they would have me pick up pins they dropped on the floor,” Mayfield recalls. “Just being around it led me to want to sew.”
In 2000, Mayfield began working for the UT ticket office and reconnected with the head of the cheer team. Shortly afterward, she was asked to try her hand at crafting the outfits worn by the costume mascot.
Though she doesn’t sew much for the costume mascot currently, Mayfield was responsible for the fan favorite Big Orange tuxedo.
It was in 2014 that she was asked if she was interested in making the live mascot’s vest—and she jumped at the opportunity.
Her first task was figuring out the timing. Smokey’s senior handler, a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, designs the vests for each football season. Depending on how intricate the design is, the garment may take up to two days to make.
After the design is approved by the spirit program director, Mayfield will tweak it, measure Smokey, and then gather the orange and white fabric to pull the design together.
“I start at the back section first, then the side sections to finish. I’ll put them together and send a picture to the team. Once it looks good, I’ll start assembling and bring Smokey in for a final fitting.”
Mayfield is on the sidelines for each game and loves to see Smokey on duty and interacting with fans.
“I always want to make the handler’s vision come through just like he wanted it,” she says. “I’ve seen Smokey run through the T a million times, but each time feels like the first.”
Source: Torchbearer, the magazine of the University of Tennessee
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