I've been one of the people calling for this day for a while now. I was ready for a new football coach at UT when I came as a freshman and saw the team go 5-6. Things got better for a couple years, but all along I felt a change was needed.

And then, to my surprise, it actually happened. The news reached me within 10 minutes of the story breaking on ESPN. As a matter of fact, it's what I woke up to Monday, Nov. 3. I had decided to sleep in and take the day off from my real job, which turned about to be exactly what I needed to do.

I spent the next six hours working on another column on the announcement for later this week and trying to sort out (along with quite a few other people) how the Tennessee Journalist should cover the biggest story in Knoxville in 10 years.

Then 5 p.m. arrived and after a few years of wanting exactly what was happening, I experienced one of the most bittersweet moments of my life. I was there for the press conference where it became official that Tennessee would have a new head football coach.

Once I was able to stop running around like a chicken with my head cut off, which was just before the press conference began, it hit me. This really is the end of an era.

I grew up in Clarksville as a Tennessee football fan. The first game I can remember watching was in 1993 when I was 5 years old. Heath Shuler was the quarterback, and Fulmer was the coach.

For the entirety of my life that I actually have any memory of, Fulmer has been the coach of my favorite team. I know nothing else.

As I stood and watched grown men cry over the news, it was hard to not get emotional myself. As Fulmer started to reflect on the past it made me do the same. At one point he listed a number of cities where the Vols have won big games during his tenure.

That list included Atlanta and Tempe, Ariz., the sites for the SEC and National Championship games 10 years ago. I was in Atlanta that year to see the team beat Mississippi State. I was also at the same game a year earlier when Peyton Manning won the SEC title game against Auburn.

I was at both of those games with my late grandfather, who was the main reason I became a Tennessee fan in the first place. As I thought about the Saturdays I spent with my own family watching the Vols, Ramon Foster and Eric Berry went on to reiterate exactly what I was thinking at that point when they got behind the microphone.

Tennessee football is a family. As I'm sure it is with many college football teams, the Vols are a way of life for those of us who were privileged enough to be raised as fans. It is a bond for people's real families, but more than that, we feel like we are part of what makes Tennessee football what it is.

And that became the dilemma. When there is a family problem, everyone in the family wants it to be fixed. That doesn't mean you care any less about whoever is involved in the issue. It just means we want everything to be better.

Things just weren't going as well as anyone involved, Fulmer included, wanted them to go. Something had to change, and the one real thing that could change was the person in charge.

The team has been a shell of what it was in the '90s lately. To me, the turning point came in 2001. The Vols had a chance to go to another National Championship game after winning one three years earlier. All Fulmer and the team needed was a win over a less-talented LSU team in the SEC title game, and Tennessee was headed to play Miami.

That didn't happen. The Vols lost, and since then things haven't been the same. There have been hugely disappointing seasons, some good ones, and some in between. But the team hasn't won an SEC Championship since 10 years ago, while other teams have surpassed UT.

It is the correct time for this change to happen. But at the same time, as Mike Hamilton said, it is also time to celebrate a man who has been a part of the Tennessee family his entire life. A man who took the Volunteers to the top of the college football world.

And to hope whoever comes in as his replacement dedicates himself to this program like Fulmer has, and at some point brings our family the joy Fulmer helped provide a decade ago.