| Sources |
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 2 Aug 2005.
Lois Jane Ownby obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 19 Oct 2013.
A dream come true
Sierra Williams, left, had been dreaming of being at Tennessee dancer since sixth grade.
Williams is 1st SCHS grad on Tennessee dance team
BY JASON DAVIS
KNOXVILLE — For Sevierville’s Sierra Williams, it was a dream some eight years in the making.
As a sixth grader, Williams, now 18, began calculating what she wanted to do after high school.
“In middle school I started researching what I wanted to do,” Williams, the daughter of Doug and Kim Williams of Sevierville, said Thursday afternoon. Having attended Tennessee football games with her family, an avid bunch of Vols fans, Sierra — who’d always loved dancing — was struck by the dancers she saw on the sidelines of Neyland Stadium’s Shields-Watkins Field.
She’d made up her mind.
“I knew if you wanted to dance you had to start at a young age,” she said. “Tennessee is actually nationally-ranked first (as a dance team), so that was my goal. I started woring on that when I was in fifth or sixth grade. So I’ve been going at it since then.”
This past April, her dreams began coming true.
After a vigorous tryout at Tennessee, Williams made the final cut to become a member of the Tennessee dance squad — the first-ever SCHS graduate selected for the team.
She couldn’t believe it. It took days, in fact, for the news to set in.
When it finally clicked that the goal was a reality came on Aug. 31, when the Volunteers football team hosted Austin-Peay for the season opener.
“During the summer we had camps and everything, (and) meeting all the girls and getting a tour of UT (was great),” she said. “But the moment that it really hit me that I was doing what I’d always dreamed of was when I got to run through the T.”
In 1965, former Vols coach and Athletic Director Doug Dickey moved the Vols bench to the stadiums west side, which allowed the Vols to enter the field just prior to kickoff through a giant “T” formed by the Pride of the Southland Band.
“If you’ve been to a game, you know how loud it is,” Williams said. “I couldn’t hear a single thing, and I was so starstruck that I was running through the T, I was actually there and doing my dream. I didn’t know what to expect, and it was really happening. That’s when it finally hit me.”
“It’s the most amazing feeling,” her mother, Kim Williams, said. “Knowing that your child’s biggest ‘dream’ has come true. She has worked so hard for this. Every Saturday at Neyland Stadium, as I watch her run through that T, I can’t hold in the tears of pride. We love her so much. She’s an inspration to our family.”
Dancing machine
Putting in years of work locally with the Elizabeth Williams School of Dance and later with the Oak Ridge Academy of Dance, Williams honed her craft, learning the essentials in ballet, jazz and hip-hop styles.
“Both studios were great,” she said. “My background training came from Elizabeth’s, but UT is such a specific style … My junior year I started taking classes at Oak Ridge Academy of Dance and they’re training for UT pretty much — they train their kids for dance teams in college.”
She also picked up cheerleading along the way.
“I started sixth grade with cheerleading, just because I wanted to get involved with something else,” she said. “I absolutely loved it. I didn’t think I would, because my brother (former SCHS football player Austin Williams) was like, ‘You’re not going to be a cheerleader.’ But I loved it, and did it throughout high school.”
A captain her senior year at Sevier County, Williams said the experence was invaluable to the pursuit of her dream.
“I’ve seen everything connect,” she said. “Everything’s happened for a reason. If I’d been in dance team throughout high school it wouldn’t have trained me as much (as cheerleading). A lot of the stuff we do does have cheer motions. That de?nitely helped me make it through tryouts. If I hadn’t been a cheerleader it would have been a lot more difficult to make it on the team.”
Living the dream
Williams said she’s loving her experience as a dance team member.
“(It’s) definitely amazing,” she said. “There are so many benefits to it. My favorite part is definitely running through the T. It’s so fun.”
But other things also add to the perks of being a dance team member.
“We have a personal trainer, and I love working out, so we get that.”
The squad practices on Mondays, Wednesday and Thursdays and works collaboratively with the cheerleaders and mascots as part of the Spirit Squad.
“We get to interact with the cheerleaders, the mascots and the dance team,” Williams said. “We’re all together. It’s awesome, I love it. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”
Gameday is hectic, but it’s what the team lives for.
Yesterday’s game day against South Carolina made for a busy schedule for the dance team.
“I’ll have to be at Volunteer Village at 9 o’clock, we do two pep rallies,” Williams said. “We do some interactions with kids, we take pictures and we dance and do some little ditties — what they call them. We do that two times.
“Then sego over to Circle Park, which is right next to us, and there are about 70 tents set up. We’ll go and do what they call a ‘Shake and Howdy.’
We’ll interact with people and have another pep rally.
“(And on Saturday) there’s a donors meeting of people that donate to the University of Tennessee, and there’s a breakfast thing before the game, and we’re going to have another interaction and pep rally there.”
From there, Williams said the squad will go on to do another on the Tennessee traditions.
“Then we do the Vol Walk,” she said with a smile. “We’re at the very back behind the band. That’s awesome. Everybody’s chanting, (singing) Rocky Top. Everyone’s so excited for the game.”
After moving into the stadium, the team will then work on pre-game activities.
“We’ll do pre-game, the National Anthem, and we’ll do a dance,” she said. “We’ll get the crowd pepped up. We’re in front of the student section at that point. And then we’ll run all the way around the field and then we get to run through the T, and then the game starts.”
It’s a lot to do, more than she realized beforehand, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“I didn’t expect any of it,” she said. “There’s a lot of running. But I did track when I was in middle school and a little bit freshman year (of year of high school). I’m glad I did that, I know how to run and not get out of breath.”
Perhaps the most tiring UT tradition is the leg kicks the dancers do after the Volunteers score.
“One of the first games, I think it was against Austin Peay, we had like 45 kicks,” Williams said. “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ But I made it through.”
What’s next?
Williams is a business management major and rooms in the dorm with her old high school friend and SCHS classmate, Anna Newton.
She said she’s not certain where the future will take her, but she believes God’s got a plan for her.
“I’m going where God leads me,” she said. “As of right now, I was the dancer chosen for a leadership program called VOLeaders (Leadership) Academy.”
The academy’s goal is to provide leadership development opportunities, some large scale and some on a smaller group level, to all of UT’s student-athletes.
Williams hopes the academy will one day lead to an internship in business.
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Abt 1995 - (~ 30 years)
