NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Forget those two seasons spent as the nomadic Tennessee Oilers. The Titans want to celebrate a 10th season with their more successful current nickname.
Owner Bud Adams said in a statement he looks forward to the fun of looking back at the moments and players defining the franchise over the past nine seasons. He remembers deciding to start from scratch and select a new nickname and uniform to go with the new stadium being built in Nashville along with a new headquarters for his team.
"I would love to finish the decade as we started it -- in the Super Bowl," Adams said.
The logo will be on merchandise for fans to buy, of course, and will be on display at LP Field during the 2008 season. The team has also lined up past players like kicker Al Del Greco and receiver Kevin Dyson to take part in an offseason tour across Tennessee and into parts of Alabama and Kentucky that begins April 14.
The Titans are asking fans to help select the favorite players, games and moments over the past nine seasons in voting on the team's Web site.
Taking time to celebrate seems only right for a franchise that endured a difficult relocation from Houston before severing ties with Texas by dropping the Oilers' nickname for a new name fresh for fans in the team's new home.
Steve Underwood, the team's senior executive vice president, said he sees the team's relocation as the most tumultuous in the history of professional sports considering the litigation the Oilers faced in Houston, a referendum in Nashville on whether to build the stadium and Congress attempting to intervene in the move.
The players, coaches and staff also had to deal with a move in July 1997 just before training camp, followed by a difficult season spent commuting to Memphis where the then-Oilers played in front of few fans, the same fans who continued to stay away in 1998 when the team moved to Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville.
But everything clicked in 1999 with the new nickname, uniform and opening of the new stadium, now called LP Field. The Titans went 13-3 and reached the lone Super Bowl, where they lost to St. Louis, the first of five playoff berths in the past nine seasons.
The team also has sold out each of the 93 games played there, with every suite full and every spot of signage sold.
"If you had been through what we went through to get here and have had the kind of support we've had from our fans, it's made it all worthwhile," Underwood said.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
