Smokey - University of Tennessee mascot

3D Model

Smokey is the mascot of the University of Tennessee sports teams. These teams, named “The Volunteers” and nicknamed “the Vols”, use both a live and a costumed version of Smokey.

There is an actual Bluetick Coonhound mascot, Smokey X, who leads the Vols on the field for football games. However, it has been confirmed that Smokey X has retired from the job, now the job is in charge of Smokey XI, beginning in the 2022-23 NCAA football season. The Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity cares for the hound on the University of Tennessee campus. There is also a costumed mascot that appears at every Vols game and has won several mascot championships.

In 1953, the University of Tennessee Pep Club held a contest to select a coonhound, a breed common in Tennessee, to serve as the school’s live mascot. Announcements of the contest in local newspapers read, “This can’t be an ordinary hound. He must be a ‘Houn’ Dog’ in the best sense of the word.”