‘Hold that line’

By Tom Mattingly For fans who listened to University of Tennessee football broadcasts on WROL/ WATE/WETE, 620 on every AM radio dial, during the 1950s, 1960s, and even into the 1970s, there was some great locally produced Saturday football programming. Examples...

The Peyton Manning of his day

By Tom Mattingly Over the course of the University of Tennessee football program’s history, there are connections that aren’t readily apparent, but they make sense once you realize what they are and how they manifest themselves. These connections go back to the 1930s,...

Riding the rails with the Vols

By Tom Mattingly When Tennessee played at Georgia on Nov. 4, 1972, many Vol fans rode to the game on a special Southern Railways train from Atlanta, disembarking near the stadium’s east end zone. Tennessee won, 14-0, and the trip back in the late afternoon and early...

‘Roll the scores’

By Tom Mattingly In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, there was one collegiate game on the tube each weekend, several emanating from Knoxville. ABC had the broadcast rights, and whatever game they chose, that’s what the nation saw, with a few exceptions for so-called...