What I Learned From Morgan Wallen
There are few things I love more than the Tennessee Volunteers. I very much allow the performance of the football team to dictate my entire mood, and I rarely miss a baseball game. I’m a proud alum, own a significant amount of orange clothing, and I tear up every time I watch the Pride of the Southland Marching Band’s pregame show. I’ve seen it dozens of times at this point and yet, every time, I’m wiping away tears as that big, beautiful Power T parts and the team takes the field.
I’ve also been known to cry after made field goals with two seconds left in regulation to beat Alabama and after winning the College World Series. Let’s be honest, I full stop sobbed after the baseball team won the national championship back in June. My dad even asked why I was “crying on the internet.” When I told him it was because Tennessee won a natty, he said “that’s all?”
My dad is not where my love of sports came from, ha.
I also love country music. When Morgan Wallen announced he would be playing Neyland Stadium – home of the Tennessee Volunteers and some of my favorite memories – there was no question as to whether I would be going.
A bit of background for those less familiar with Morgan Wallen: He is a Knoxville native. He went to Gibbs High School, about fifteen miles from downtown Knoxville, and home of another famous alum, one Kenny Chesney. He played baseball at Gibbs, and planned to play in college, but an injury derailed that dream. He’s a huge Tennessee Vols fan, especially of the baseball team, and sings about his hometown in several songs. To get to play Neyland is an honor. Very few artists have played the stadium. Garth Brooks was there in 2019 (I was too!). Kenny Chesney played it in 2003, The Jackson 5 in 1984, and Johnny Cash with Billy Graham in 1970.
That’s it. Those are the only names to ever play Neyland. Morgan was in an exclusive club. He played two nights, breaking The Jackson 5’s attendance record set over their three shows. A local boy playing Neyland? That’s the thing of dreams.
I’ll confess I wasn’t a huge Morgan Wallen fan before the concert. I had several songs I like, a few I turn up a little louder than others. I was going for the experience more than anything.
And what an experience it was.
From his epic walkout with Peyton Manning (in full Tennessee uniform wearing his sacred No. 16 jersey!), Coach Josh Heupel, star wide receiver Bru McCoy, and superstar quarterback Nico Iamaleava to surprises guests Miranda Lambert and Darius Rucker, the whole night was epic. I sang so loud I lost my voice, scream-shouted “gets louder when I’m cheering on the Volunteers!” during his encore of “The Way I Talk,” and even set aside my usual disdain for the Darius Rucker cover of “Wagon Wheel” (Old Crow Medicine show or nothing!) to bellow “Johnson City, Tennessee!” along with 80,000 of my new friends.
An experience.
About midway through the show, Morgan stopped to talk about what it was like to go from playing tiny venues around town to playing Neyland Stadium. I found myself tearing up. Can you imagine what that was like for him? To step onto stage at Neyland Stadium, the same place he attended football games as a kid, and sing his songs about east Tennessee to 80,000 people? His family was in the audience. His friends. And, I bet, a kid or two who looked at him in awe and decided “I want to do that, too.”
I left Morgan Wallen’s concert inspired.
If you’re here, you obviously know writing is my passion. My mind is constantly spinning stories. It never stops. All I want to do is write. The amount of time I’ve lost to writing when I should have been doing something else is astronomical. Someday, I hope I get to write full time. And a big dream? I would love to see my manuscripts get turned into television series. When I made the decision to leave my MFA program in writing for television, one of my professors looked me in the eye and said “remember, there are a lot of ways to be a writer.” I think about that a lot.
Something about seeing Morgan on stage in his hometown where the Tennessee orange was plentiful and chants of “It’s great to be a Tennessee Vol!” broke out at random filled my tank with hope.
I recently uncovered a deep truth about myself: I’m afraid of success. I’m afraid of it because I don’t know what it looks like. I’ve never seen it firsthand, at least not to the magnitude I daydream about, the kind where my books are bestsellers and I get to go on international book tours and option my work for television series. My mom talked a lot about starting a magazine for single moms. She never followed through, spending her days working a job she hated to put food on the table and taking care of us. I don’t know that she was ever truly happy. My dad has confessed a couple of times over the years that he “kind of” wanted to be a fighter pilot, but he took a landscaping job and got married too young instead. He’s content, but I’d bet he wonders “what if?’ on occasion. It breaks my heart that they didn’t pursue those big dreams.
While working through this revelation about myself, I realized something else: someone has to be the first. The first one to level up on the definition of success, to go for it, to risk it all. And since someone has to be the first, why not me?
Morgan Wallen was the first in his family.
He, too, came from small town roots. He’s the son of a teacher and a pastor, has made his fair share of mistakes. Yet he did it. He was the first.
He played a sold out Neyland Stadium, twice.
If he can do it, if he can be the first, I can, too. That’s what I thought about as I walked out of Neyland at 11:30 pm on a Sunday night. If a small town kid from east Tennessee can figure out how to do the music thing, I, a small town kid from rural Virginia, can figure out this writing thing. It might take a few books. It will definitely take falling on my face a few times. But I can be the first. I can face my fears of success and be successful.
My dreams can come true, too.
I went to Morgan Wallen’s concert for the experience, and to sing “Long Live Cowgirls” as loud as I possibly could. I left far more inspired than I ever expected to be. I left with a full tank, a lot of hope, and a reminder that I can chase my dreams with abandon.
And I did, in fact, sing “Long Live Cowgirls” as loud as I possibly could.
