SPRING HILL, Tenn. — For most of Destin and Keaten Wade’s time in high school, the Tennessee influence was unavoidable.
“The librarians, the secretaries, they’re all Tennessee fans,” Destin Wade said Friday. “They’ve been trying to persuade me.”
Added Summit High School coach Brian Coleman: “They’re people pleasers, so that was the pressure on ’em. Everybody around here is Tennessee fans, mostly. And they don’t want to let anybody down. But at the end of the day, it’s their choice. It’s their fit.”
The first students to arrive at the Wade twins’ commitment ceremony Friday afternoon were both wearing Power T logos, with one bearing the signature orange. They were hopeful the two four-star class of 2022 recruits would commit to the Vols. But if they had their ear to the ground in recent weeks, they also knew that while Tennessee’s day might come eventually, that day was not going to be today, even if Josh Heupel and the new Tennessee staff made a push.
“(Heupel) wasn’t on the job very long before he was calling,” Coleman said. “He was calling me, he was calling them. He definitely pursued ’em.”
All that influence? A late effort from Heupel and his staff to persuade them? Just like the two Tennessee hats sitting on the table, the Wades shrugged them off. Instead, they snatched the blue Kentucky hats before standing and taking off their gray Summit High zip-up pullovers to reveal black Kentucky shirts underneath.
Of course, the blue-and-white balloons flanking the stage had already tipped the choice.
Two more of the 14 four-star prospects within the state of Tennessee in the class of 2022 in the 247Sports Composite won’t be heading to Rocky Top, barring a flipped commitment in the eight months before the early signing period begins. After their unofficial visit to Lexington last weekend, the Wades made up their mind and verbally committed to Kentucky on Friday.
How’d it happen?
“The sense of family, how they treated us and made us feel like a priority in their class and just the overall scheme and fit they had for us,” Keaten Wade said.