Evan Woosley-Reed doesn’t remember the date.
But he remembers the scene when he beat his mother — former Tennessee Lady Vols basketball standout Tiffany Woosley — in golf.
The Tennessee golf commitment celebrated the feat.
“That was a very fun day,” Evan said. “But I did end up rubbing it in too much. The next time we went out she beat me.
“She’s a good golfer. She’s a very good putter, better than me. She’s got that touch, I’d say from basketball, that helps.”
Tiffany is the school’s all-time leading scorer with 3,105 points. She coached at Lincoln County for two seasons after graduating from Tennessee before winning two WNBA championships with the Houston Comets.
Tiffany has put basketball aside these days. The only basketball goal at home is in Evan’s room.
But she can still shoot a basketball.
She hit over 30 straight free throws at her parents’ home one day when her son challenged her to a free throw shooting contest. Evan walked away from it before he got his turn.
“I told her, ‘This is dumb. This is getting boring,'” Evan said.
The two play golf together. They join in scrambles and often win. Their competitiveness comes out on the golf course.
“It’s competitive on who can beat the other in golf while we are playing to beat others in the tournament,” Evan said. “That’s led to us winning a lot of times.
“But ultimately we are having fun out there trying to beat each other.”
Tiffany has owned and sold multiple companies and currently has multiple companies, including Homeland, an IT services firm, where she is the CEO.
Her competitiveness and work ethic have carried over to her son, who was the 2019 TSSAA Small Class state champion and the 2018 runner-up for Cascade, a rural Bedford County school.
She learned discipline and hard work from her former high school coach Rick Insell and former Tennessee coach Pat Summitt. It’s driven her in sports and the business world.
“We make him understand he can’t be ordinary,” Tiffany said. “You have to be the oddball. You have to be the one kid that does something different than anybody else.”
Tiffany and her husband, Chad Reed, have their son on a detailed schedule even during the COVID-19 pandemic. He isn’t allowed to sleep in. He runs three miles each morning before doing chores around their Shelbyville home.
[jwplayer NLchC3AC-vgFm21H3]
Evan has met Insell, but he never met Summitt, who died in 2016. However, he has heard stories from his mom and Insell about Summitt’s drive to be the best. He understands where his mom got that drive.
“I just want to make sure I put in the hard work to fulfill my dreams,” Evan said. “I want to accomplish it for not only myself, but for other people that want me to accomplish them.”
Tennessee not the original best fit
Tiffany was traveling back from Knoxville with Evan after he attended a golf camp as a seventh-grader when she broke the news to him.
Tennessee, the school that has been home for her and a place she cherishes, wasn’t the place for her son, a budding golf star with big dreams in the sport.
“He wanted to go to Tennessee,” Tiffany said. “At that time, the program wasn’t where I thought it should be. It wasn’t a top-10 program.
“I said, ‘No, we aren’t going.’ And he was really upset with me.”
They started looking at other colleges — Alabama, Auburn and other places — and he was about to commit.
And then the Vols hired Brennan Webb from Middle Tennessee State. The family knew him. Webb followed Evan to three straight golf tournaments. He watched his practice rounds and followed him around.
Evan and the rest of the family became convinced Tennessee was a place for him.
“I’ve grown up as a UT Vol fan my whole life,” Evan said. “It’s a dream come true to go there.”
Tom Kreager is a staffer at the Nashville Tennessean, part of the USA Today Network. Contact him at tkreager@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @Kreager.