Tennessee Vols' Quart'e Sapp swimming in playing time, three years after infamous bathtub photo

Quart’e Sapp didn’t come up with the idea. Grandma gets the credit for that.

Lenore Davis was up visiting her daughter and grandsons when she saw all the recruiting letters Sapp had accumulated.

She decided they should have some fun with them and had Sapp lie in the bathtub with letters piled to the brim and taped to the walls.

The photo went viral.

“She still says to this day: 'That photo needs to have my name in the credit,' ” Sapp’s mom, Angel Davis, recalled with a laugh. “It literally was her idea. It wasn’t something she pondered over for three or four hours. It was bam, bam. Within minutes, he was in that tub and she was putting mail over him.”

Sapp committed to Tennessee a little more than a month later. The sophomore is now swimming in playing time.

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Sapp earned his first career start at weak-side linebacker in place of the injured Cortez McDowell on Sept. 23 against Massachusetts. He has led the team in tackles in each of his two starts.

“I see a young man who’s getting more and more confident,” Vols coach Butch Jones said.

How did Sapp get here?

Sapp enrolled at Milton (Ga.) High School as a sophomore. He made a strong first impression.

“Day one when he walked in with his mother, he looked you in the eye. He gave you a firm handshake,” said Pete DeWeese, who was Sapp’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Milton. “Even just from that standpoint, when a young man walks in the door and has himself together in that manner, you know he’s going to contribute.”

Within two weeks, Sapp had beat out a senior for a starting spot.

“Even as a young player before he was fully developed physically, he was still one of the better athletes on the field, and he was smart,” DeWeese said. “He understood things, and he was able to learn the system and start to identify things, which allowed him to play fast.”

Sapp led Milton in tackles his final two seasons.

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His recruiting decision came down to Tennessee, Michigan State and Texas A&M.

Sapp is a native of Florida and spent much of his childhood there. He decided Michigan State was too cold. Texas A&M was too far from home. Tennessee was just right.

Injuries slowed Sapp’s start in Knoxville.

His first season was cut short by a stress fracture in his foot, an injury he had before coming to UT, though he didn’t know it.

Then, last year, Sapp tore the ACL in his left knee while blocking on a kickoff against Ohio, the third game of the season.

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His mother remembers getting called down from the stands to go see her son after that injury. He had a towel draped over his head and was trembling. He couldn’t make eye contact with her.

“That was a very emotional day for him,” Davis said. “I hate going back to that day.”

Added Sapp: “It was a journey to get here, so I thank God for every day just to be able to take the field.”

Where Sapp goes to clear his head

When Sapp needs time with his thoughts, he grabs his fishing pole and heads for a body of water.

“It allows me to think,” Sapp said. “It’s just me and myself and nobody talking, nothing about sports.”

Ample fishing spots factored into UT’s favor during Sapp’s recruitment.

Davis marvels at her son’s varied interests.

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In addition to being a standout football player at Milton, he was “a fantastic basketball player,” DeWeese said. In his senior year, he took up the guitar. He also joined some classmates in forming a bass fishing club team.

“He’s very diverse, but his passion is definitely fishing,” Davis said.

Grandma gets credit for that, too.

“Ever since I was a little girl, my mom has fished,” Davis said. “She took a love for it.”

She passed on that love to Sapp, teaching him to fish when he was a child. Lenore Davis used to live off the St. Johns River, and she’d take Sapp fishing there.

“I love being around the water,” Sapp said.