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WHAT'S MY NAME? mond, Stokes was at it again. He had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and the Vols beat UConn, 60-57. At that point, it was clear Stokes was no one-hit wonder. Soon after he was inserted into the starting lineup, and while this unique situation would cause resentment on many teams, Stokes' teammates embraced him. "They were absolutely amazed at what he was able to do," says Rucker. "They didn't believe that he wasn't talented, they knew he was talented, but the problem was they didn't know he was already skilled. Also, you just can't get him away from the game, he is always working out, and the guys picked up on that quickly. If that effort is phony, where he is doing it just to get noticed, guys will look right past that and roll their eyes, but Jarnell was really trying to get better so they saw how strong he was, how skilled he was, and how hard he worked and really embraced him because he could help them win." With Stokes entrenched as the starting center, Tennessee went 10-6 in SEC play, good for second in the league after being picked to fnish 11th out of 12 teams in the preseason poll. Stokes played a major part. He averaged over nine points and seven rebounds, but it was his attitude that had the biggest impact. Cuonzo Martin's coaching practices are notoriously diffculty, and he preaches about having a warrior's mentality on the court. Stokes embodied that. He was not afraid of anybody or anything, and despite not really knowing the plays, he was able to make an enormous impact. The Vols fnished their season in the NIT, but from where they started, it was a resounding success. While Stokes made a name for himself with his passion and lunch-pail mentality as a freshman, his love for the game wasn't always there. In middle school, Stokes was known for his exploits on the chessboard rather than the blacktop; he picked up chess in kindergarten because some of his friends were playing it. He gradually got hooked, and was eventually a middle school state champion. Stokes didn't have a particular interest in basketball until his father encouraged him to play the game. At frst, Rucker admits Stokes was awkward. He had enormous feet and before his body flled out, Stokes was fat and pudgy, and too big to play many youth sports. But his father, Willie, a military man, pushed him. "So he went out there and played basketball and he was kind of soft," Rucker continues. "It was almost like he went out there like Michael Oher in The Blind Side when they try to teach him how to play football. That was Jarnell with basketball. He didn't want to hurt anybody, he knew how big he was, and he wasn't in shape." Stokes tried to quit after his freshman year, but Willie wouldn't allow it, saying it set a bad precedent for life. At his son's games, if his father thought he wasn't leaving everything on the foor, they'd work out on the track afterwards. "His dad said, 'If you don't leave it all out on the court, I'm getting it out of you before we go home,'" Rucker adds. "He really developed a strong relationship with his dad and Jarnell began to work his tail off in basketball. That's where his work ethic comes from." That extended to this past summer, when Stokes was selected for the Under-18 games for Team USA. Florida's Billy Donovan, who had the unfortunate task of planning for Stokes this year, coached them. Despite being SEC rivals, the two worked together every day. Donovan told Stokes to dominate the paint and not settle for jump shots, and Stokes averaged 14 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while shooting a blistering 68.9 percent from the feld. Besides starring on the court, Stokes found himself the center of attention among his U-18 teammates, as he was the only player 26 on the team with college experience. "It was funny 'cause at the beginning of the year at UT, I was asking everyone questions about what college was like and what I could improve on, and then in the summer with the USA team, I was the most experienced guy on the team," Stokes says. "So with the USA team everybody was asking me the same questions I was asking a few months before then because I was the most experienced, so that was pretty cool." With that experience under his belt, Stokes upped his numbers this season to 12.4 points and a team-high 9.4 rebounds a night while starting every game and averaging just under 29 minutes of action. The Vols returned their entire team from 201112 other than Cameron Tatum and Renaldo Woolridge, and despite missing Stokes' frontline partner, Jeronne Maymon for the whole season, at press time they were 19-11 heading into the SEC Tournament. Within the span of one year, Jarnell Stokes did the unthinkable by coming to college mid-season and fourishing. Now, he has Tennessee positioned to make a deep NCAA Tournament run. Who would have thought?