Food is a Tennessee recruiting tool, from steak dinners to snack runs

When baseball, basketball and football recruits visit the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, they bring family, expectations and star power with them. What they quickly learn – sometimes before ever stepping on campus – is that they also better bring an appetite. Food is a big part of the recruiting process for coaches like Kim Caldwell, who was hired to take over the Lady Vols program in April 2024, leaving little time for the Knoxville newcomer to dawdle. She plunged into the process of building a roster – nurturing relationships with high schoolers, enticing visits from transfers – and walked away with an unexpected lesson in efficiency. "You spend a lot of time on your visits eating,"...