Three of Tennessee football's most recognizable names are coming to Fort Sanders this week, as Phillip Fulmer, Erik Ainge and Fred White join fans for a live podcast taping one night before the Volunteers face Alabama. The Athlete's First Tailgate event is set for Friday, October 16, from 6 to 9 p.m. at The Hill Bar and Grill, with the live Riverside Podcast broadcasting straight from the bar as fans soak in SEC football conversation and pregame energy.
According to WZTV, the event brings together Fulmer, the former Tennessee coach; Ainge, the former Tennessee quarterback; and White, the former Tennessee safety, for an evening built around familiar faces and SEC storytelling ahead of the Tennessee-Alabama matchup. The Hill Bar and Grill is the event venue in Knoxville.
A Rivalry Built on Decades of History
Fulmer's presence carries particular weight for longtime Vol fans. During his head coaching tenure at Tennessee from 1992 to 2008, Fulmer compiled an 11–5 overall record against Alabama, including a stretch in which the Volunteers won nine of ten meetings against the Crimson Tide between 1995 and 2004, according to The Sports Historian. Fulmer's 1998 Tennessee team finished undefeated at 13–0 and beat Florida State in the Fiesta Bowl.
Ainge, who quarterbacked the Volunteers from 2004 to 2007, remains a daily presence in Knoxville sports media as co-host of The Erik Ainge Show on weekday mornings on 99.1 The Sports Animal (WNML), per 99.1 The Sports Animal. That ongoing local broadcasting footprint helps explain why his name draws as much local buzz as the two former Vols from the 1998 championship era.
The Third Saturday in October, Again
Friday's tailgate is pregame activation ahead of Tennessee's official matchup with Alabama, slated for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff at Neyland Stadium on Saturday, October 17, according to 247Sports. First played in 1901, the Tennessee-Alabama game is known across the conference as the Third Saturday in October and stands as one of the SEC's defining rivalries, with Alabama leading the all-time series 61–40–7 through the 2025 season, according to Wikipedia. The two programs have met more than 100 times, with stretches of history dominated by one side or the other, including the Fulmer-era run that current fans will be reminiscing about on Friday night.
The rivalry also carries its own postgame ritual: the winning team traditionally celebrates with victory cigars, a tradition started in 1961 by Alabama athletic trainer Jim Goostree, himself a Tennessee alumnus, who lit up after fulfilling a bet following a Crimson Tide win, per The Crimson White. Both fan bases and locker rooms have kept the cigar tradition alive for more than six decades despite collegiate anti-tobacco rules.
Backed by a Major Sports Agency and a Federal Safety Push
The Athlete's First Tailgate is presented by AMP, Athletes First, Skrewball Whiskey Las Vegas, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, per WZTV's reporting. Athletes First, founded in 2001, ranks among the premier sports management agencies in the country, representing more than 140 NFL players and expanding in 2026 into basketball and collegiate Name, Image and Likeness management, according to Forbes.
NHTSA's involvement fits into a broader national push launched for the 2026 college football season: the agency's Sober Driving Pledge Tailgate Tour, part of its long-running Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign, is bringing pledge walls and impaired-driving simulators to major campus tailgates across the country, according to NHTSA. NHTSA data show alcohol-impaired driving caused 11,904 traffic fatalities in 2024, accounting for 30 percent of all U.S. crash deaths.
This week's Athlete's First Tailgate brings a live sports podcast and tailgate gathering to Knoxville ahead of Tennessee's marquee SEC home game.
