‘Whistler’ could help Vandy football
Published 6:00 pm Friday, July 19, 2019
HOOVER, Ala. — Vanderbilt, which normally contributes more to the SEC’s all-academic team than the league’s football bragging rights, has been to bowl games two of the last three years and has beaten cross-state rival Tennessee three straight years.
Relatively speaking, that’s good for the SEC’s only private school. But apparently there’s still one hurdle left to cross, one more goal to let the football team know it has truly arrived in the boomtown of Nashville.
The Commodores apparently still need something to warrant the attention the infamous “Vanderbilt Whistler” gives to the school’s powerhouse baseball team.
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There are two of the culprits, actually, but the more notorious of the pair, Preacher Franklin, was threatened with ejection at both the SEC tournament and the College World Series en route to the Commodores baseball national championship.
He’s been an icon around Vanderbilt baseball for years, but elsewhere is largely viewed as the biggest pest in the SEC, with his trademark two-fingered “tweet-tweet-tweet” between pitches overtaking Mississippi State’s cowbells as the most annoying racket in the conference.
LSU was the victim in the SEC tournament, and the Tigers’ football team will visit the Nashville campus for football for its conference opener.
But the Commodore football team may have a ways to go. LSU fans and players may not have to pack ear plugs.
Two of the three football players Vanderbilt brought to SEC Media Days had never heard of The Whistler.
Head coach Derek Mason only knows of him.
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“The Vandy Whistler is everywhere,” Mason said. “Sometimes I think I hear him outside my (office) window.”
Just not, apparently, as a vocal presence at Commodore football games.
“What that is?” Vandy running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn, a Nashville native, asked when quizzed about the campus fixture.
“I don’t even know what that is,” said New Orleans native Kalija Lipscomb, a tight end who nevertheless was able to punctuate his answer with a reasonable imitation of the annoying whistle.
“If he wants to come around, we’d love to have him,” Vaughn added. “We’ll take him.”
Tight end Jared Pinkney, who figured he went to five baseball games and watched most of the others, knew about The Whistler.
“Not that big of a deal,” he said. “I’m not sure if he has a presence in our football season. I can’t really hear him.”
That would be a blessing to LSU fans’ ears in Music City on Sept. 21.
But Mason, who in his six years on the job is one of only two Vanderbilt coaches to lead the Commodores to multiple bowl games, is out to change that.
“Vanderbilt football is poised for strong improvements in 2019,” he said. “With the momentum of spring ball, the NFL draft and the Vandy boys success in the College World Series, there’s a different buzz in Nashville.”
The football program has often been a buzz kill.
But, as the ever-optimistic Mason said, “This is a different-looking Vanderbilt football team,” He explained that there is more experience, depth and athleticism than any of his previous teams.
With Mo Hasan and Allan Walters competing, “There’s more talent in the quarterback room today than at any other time in my tenure.”
But the task is daunting — the Commodores open the season with Georgia and get Purdue before LSU rolls into town.
Maybe, by then, The Whistler will be paying attention.
If so, Lipscomb hopes he irritates visiting fans as much as their baseball counterparts.
“Why not?” Lipscomb said. “He’s paying for a ticket. You can do whatever you want, just don’t distract from the game, don’t distract the players.
“We love it. What else would you want out of a fan? I’ve never heard him personally. I assume he’s adding to the crowd noise. Why not?”
“We’d love to add that to our football culture,” Pinkney said. “We love him. Regardless of what the world thinks, Vanderbilt loves him.
Mason thinks it could happen.
“Expect to see him at bowl games, expect to hear him,” Mason predicted. ” I know he’s annoying to y’all, but to us, in Vanderbilt there on West End, he’s the man.”
