by design | Apr 24, 2023 | Columnist, Mattingly
Enhancing the fan experience By Tom Mattingly As the powers-that-be look to further improvements to the atmosphere at Shields-Watkins Field/Neyland Stadium for the 2023 season and well beyond, fans seeking perspective might want to think back to a long-ago day, when a...
by design | Apr 17, 2023 | Columnist, Mattingly
By Tom Mattingly Over the years, more than 20 books about Tennessee football have been written by such journalists as Tom Siler, Russ Bebb, Marvin West, Haywood Harris and Gus Manning, Tony Barnhart, F. M. Williams and Jeff Hanna, Clay Travis, Barry Parker and Robin...
by design | Apr 10, 2023 | Columnist, Mattingly
‘There Ain’t a Cow in Texas’ By Tom Mattingly After the 2001 Florida game, a 34-32 Vol victory, a noted sportswriter volunteered this comment about Tennessee tailback Travis Stephens’ performance. “If he’s not the best running back in the country,” he opined and later...
by design | Apr 3, 2023 | Columnist, Mattingly
An article of faith By Tom Mattingly Every year as October yielded the stage to November, attention across the expanse of Big Orange Country turned to one of the best-known famous motivational phrases in all of college football, courtesy of John Majors. “They Remember...
by design | Mar 27, 2023 | Columnist, Mattingly
‘One of the best times I’ve had in sports’ By Tom Mattingly When the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team won the SEC championship on March 6, 1967, in Starkville, Miss., Knoxville Journal sportswriter Ben Byrd gave the team a nickname, the “Fearless Five.”...
by design | Mar 20, 2023 | Columnist, Mattingly
‘Don’t you all take your football seriously?’ By Tom Mattingly These “rivalry games” in the SEC sure are fun, even though they are very intense from start to finish, 365 days a year. The banter on the chat boards, supposedly uninhibited, wild, and wooly, is part of...