By Steve Williams When I see yellow daffodils and forsythia bushes blooming in early spring it always reminds me that it’s time for the TSSAA state high school basketball tournaments. It’s that time now. It’s one of my favorite times of the year. For 15 years or so in the 1970s and 1980s, I had […]
By Steve Williams I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna miss Skylar McBee. Oh sure, there have been many better University of Tennessee basketball players over the years, but no one has competed any harder than McBee, who is scheduled to play his last home game this coming Saturday when Tennessee hosts Missouri in […]
By Steve Williams Today, February 25th, is the 5-year anniversary of the University of Tennessee being ranked No. 1 in the nation in men’s basketball. What a day that was! The Vols were on top of the college basketball world, above the Dukes and North Carolinas and UCLAs and Indianas and all of the grand […]
By Steve Williams A fourth-place finish in a district tournament would not be a momentous occasion for most high school basketball teams, but for the South-Doyle Cherokees, it’s a big step for their program. By winning two games and finishing fourth in this season’s District 2-AAA tourney at Seymour, the Cherokees earned a berth in […]
By Steve Williams Butch Jones, new University of Tennessee head football coach, was asked about Vonn Bell – a 5-star recruit who picked Ohio State over the Vols – early in his National Signing Day press conference last week He gave a brief but polite answer and then added he would prefer not to comment […]
By Steve Williams About this time every year, after the last football game of the season has been played, we hear fans moaning about the long wait ahead until next season. It’s a depressing time for many. You would think they had been sentenced to only cold and darkness, bread and water, for the next […]
By Steve Williams A movie could have been made of the 1984 Doyle High School football season, ranking right up there with Hoosiers. The title? The Turnaround. Such a movie actually would have to begin with a replay of Darrell Burch’s field goal kick in the fourth quarter of the 1983 season finale that gave […]
By Steve Williams Dual-threat quarterbacks stole the spotlight in football this season. Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, or “Johnny Football” as he is better known, became the first freshman ever to win the Heisman Trophy. In the NFL, rookies Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins and Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks dazed defenses and […]
By Steve Williams Just when University of Tennessee sports fans needed a lift, the men’s basketball team hit a couple of bumps in the road. An 85-80 loss to Memphis followed by a 92-74 beating from Ole Miss in the SEC opener – both in front of home crowds – wasn’t what the patient needed […]
By Steve Williams Stair Technological High School was a newcomer on the Knoxville prep football scene in 1937, but it earned the respect of longtime powers like Knoxville High, Central and Young before it closed in 1951. Located in a big brick building at the intersection of Henley Street and Western Avenue, diagonally across from […]
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