Reliving the night Tennessee football fans smoked their first cigars – ever | Toppmeyer

Eli Sparks enjoys the aroma while his dad, Johnny, smokes a Padron 7000. Eli doesn’t smoke, but simply smelling his dad’s burning cigar takes Eli back to the night he did.

Like countless other Tennessee football fans, Eli smoked the one and only cigar of his lifetime on Oct. 15, 2022.

The night Tennessee extinguished its 15-game losing streak to Alabama, thousands of Vols fans lit up. Years of Vols frustration lifted into the sky with the cloud of smoke, while fans enjoyed a puff of euphoria.

That night comes flooding back whenever Sparks smells his dad's cigar.

“He’s always smoking the Padron 7000s,” said Sparks, a 21-year-old senior economics major at Ball State, “so I always feel like I’m back at Neyland Stadium after beating Alabama, like I’m back outside of Gate 21,” where Sparks smoked his first cigar. “It brings back those memories.”

Sparks is ready for his next smoke. He'll light his second-ever cigar if No. 15 Tennessee (5-1, 2-1 SEC) upsets No. 8 Alabama (6-1, 4-0) on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) in Tuscaloosa.

The first time will be hard to top.

When Chase McGrath’s 40-yard field goal wobbled over the cross bar at the end of Tennessee’s 52-49 victory, the placekicker uncorked a party inside Neyland Stadium.

Fans stormed the field, while Sparks and his sister descended from the upper deck to join them.

Revelers toppled one set of goal posts, then the other, and escorted the goal posts out of the stadium and baptized them in the Tennessee River. “Dixieland Delight” blared from the loudspeakers.

Cigar smoke filled the air. Some smoked Cubans. Others lit cheap stogies.

No matter the price, no matter its origin, a victory cigar is a victory cigar.

How Alabama-Tennessee cigar tradition started

The winning side in this bitter rivalry enjoying cigars dates back at least more than six decades. Longtime Alabama trainer Jim Goostree often is credited with starting the tradition. Goostree, a Tennessee alumnus, cut his teeth as a Vols student assistant trainer before he turned heel and served 27 years at Alabama.

Story goes, Goostree danced in the locker room and issued cigars to Alabama players as he smoked one of his own to celebrate a 34-3 victory over Tennessee in 1961, the Crimson Tide’s first win over the Vols in seven years.

Used to be, coaches and players enjoyed cigars. Sometime along the way, fans joined in. I’ve been inside Bryant-Denny Stadium while Alabama routed Tennessee, and you could smell cigar smoke waft up long before the clock struck zero.

Last year’s white-knuckle affair prevented either side from lighting up early.

Then, they smoked, en masse.

Sport coat survives after goal posts fall, while Vols fans enjoy cigars

Men and women, young and old, cigars in hand.

I feared for my sport coat.

I covered last year's game, and after filing my on-deadline column minutes after the buzzer, I descended from the press box and braved my way onto the field. I needed to cross from one corner of the north end zone to the other to reach UT coach Josh Heupel’s news conference.

That meant wading across a sea of fans who celebrated while sending up a cloud of cigar smoke. Fans stood elbow to elbow as I inched forward in pursuit of Heupel’s presser, all the while worrying a fan accidentally would brush their lit cigar against my favorite navy jacket from Jos. A. Bank.

First-world problems, I know.

My sport coat survived, unblemished. The risk was worth it. I’ve covered SEC football for a decade. I’ve never experienced a scene like that night, before or since.

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Sparks and his sister were among the last to leave the field.

Sparks was born after Tennessee’s 1990s glory days, but he’d heard audio of John Ward’s radio broadcasts and watched countless videos showing scenes of Neyland Stadium from a time when the Vols were a titan.

On last year’s Third Saturday of October, Sparks finally experienced a moment like something from Tennessee’s past, brought to life.

“To experience that with the added bonus of a big cloud of cigar smoke, that was amazing. It was almost overwhelming,” said Sparks, who was born in Clarksville into Vols fandom. “For the first time in my whole life, the voice of John Ward didn’t feel so far off. It felt like we were really back.”

Sparks still needed to experience his first cigar. When he and his sister finally exited the stadium, Sparks’ dad was waiting for him outside Gate 21 with a Padron 7000.

“It probably took me about five minutes to get the hang of it,” Sparks said. “I’m not a huge cigar guy, but it’s the tradition. When we beat Alabama, that’s what you do, so I was like, I will finish this cigar.”

Longtime Tennessee football fans experience a foreign taste

Hundreds of miles away, David Smith smoked his very first cigar at age 62 on his friends’ cabin porch at Horseshoe Lake in Arkansas.

Smith had tried to feel optimistic during the game, but doubts creeped in while Tennessee prepared for the game-winning field goal. Smith had learned the pain of allowing himself to contemplate celebrating a Vols victory over Alabama.

In 2009, Tennessee had a field-goal chance to topple the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Smith’s wife, Jan, announced they’d take shots to celebrate, just as soon as the kick split the uprights.

The ball never made it there. Daniel Lincoln’s kick ran into Mt. Cody.

Fast forward to last October, and Smith had a request for his wife: Don’t jinx this. Please.

Smith didn’t have a cigar handy, but after McGrath’s kick was true, Smith’s friend Rodney Herndon became Johnny-on-the-spot and produced a Blanton's cigar for Smith to enjoy – if enjoy is the right word.

“I pulled on it for probably 10 minutes,” said Smith, from Bartlett, Tennessee. “To call it half-smoked is probably an exaggeration. I definitely puffed on it, for sure. It’s not something I want to do every day, but I’ll be glad to do it once a year.”

The remainder of that cigar resides on a shelf in Smith’s home office. He’s better prepared for his next smoke.

While on a cruise last spring, Smith purchased a cigar in the Dominican Republic, in hopes of a future Vols victory, and he bought Herndon a cigar to replace the one Smith smoked.

While Smith smoked in Arkansas, fellow first-timer Roger Eichelberger had a couple of puffs in Chattanooga.

Eichelberger and his wife visited the Tropicana Club in Havana, Cuba, in 2019, and they received a bottle of rum, a rose and a Cuban cigar. Eichelberger doesn't smoke, but he took the cigar home as a souvenir. It remained just a souvenir until Eichelberger fished it out last October. At age 69, he puffed his first cigar.

“I thought, well, if they win, I’ll take a puff,” Eichelberger said. “A puff is about all I could take, too.

“The victory was great. The cigar, I spent the rest of the night trying to get the taste out of my mouth.”

The taste felt foreign to a non-smoker and to Vols fans who’d waited years to experience a celebratory light, a joyful puff and the taste of triumph.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

If you enjoy Blake’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, or access exclusive columns via the SEC Unfiltered newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee vs. Alabama: Vols fans smoked first cigars – ever – last year