checkerboard_charly
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this may be old, but i stumbled across it on the net. worth reading.
i guess this is a reporter's perspective of us from iowa.
A small college sports guy from Iowa spent a year in the big time, helping do media relations for the University of Tennessee ''Vols'' He's home now with more good lines than a bad country music song.
The author, the veteran sports information director at his alma mater Central College in Pella, Iowa, spent the past school year on sabbatical at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, working in the mens sports information department. It not only gave him a good look at another level of college athletics it doesnt get much bigger than football at UT but also plenty of experiences in a different region and culture. On the one hand, it is mighty broadminded of us here at Offenburger.com to be running the authors review of his time at UT. After all, I am a graduate of the rival Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and our feelings toward the state school over east are best summed up by our erudite cheer, Go to hell, UT, go to hell! But on the other hand, hes got a delightful tale here about all he saw and did, and Ive been pestering him for 10 months to share it. In terms of full disclosure, he says that Central paid most of his salary during the sabbatical, while Tennessee provided a furnished apartment, a small stipend and lunch at the athletic department training table, not to mention more free orange clothing than I could possibly ever use. I feel faint, but lets give the guy an audience here
Chuck Offenburger
By Larry Happel
July 26, 2004
PELLA, IOWA
Larry Happel
Sure, Chuck, Ill write a column for you on my experiences in Tennessee, I promised last fall. But lets wait until the end of football season.
What a foolish notion. I lived there for nearly a year, yet failed to detect a beginning or an end to what the natives piously proclaim as Football Time in Tennessee. (You can go right now to UTsports.com and learn down to the second how much time remains until this years season opener with UNLV). One seasons outcome is not yet resolved, and the next ones already started, much like presidential campaigns in Iowa.
I was at the University of Tennessee on an 11-month sabbatical from my post as sports information director at Central College in Pella. The gig was inspired by those scams that Offenburger has made a career of pulling off dreaming up an excursion most would call a vacation, and then getting someone else not only to bankroll it, but pay him for the privilege of doing so.
Having never lived anywhere other than small-town Iowa, nor held a job other than the one Ive performed at Central for more than 20 years a job that I never even applied for to begin with I guess it had never occurred to me that I was free to leave.
But this Iowa boy did have a desire to see what life is like in media relations at a place where the media being related to actually showed up at the games.
A YEAR ROUND OBSESSION. It was still mid-July, 2003. The smoggy blanket enveloping the Smoky Mountains wasnt yet visible through the windshield of my Buick Regal along I-40 East as I journeyed toward Knoxville. But I began picking up the radio talk shows and gained a sense of what I was in for.
With urgency in their voices, callers were expressing dire concern about the Volunteers lack of experience at tight end. It was a crisis that the host agreed required immediate attention from head coach Phillip Fulmers staff, if not the Tennessee legislature. I soon discovered this level of fervor for All Things Vols was not limited to the-sky-is-falling talk show callers (whom former Iowa State and Tennessee football coach Johnny Majors used to refer to as the legions of the miserable).
Some things about Tennessee I had anticipated. A Waffle House and a Baptist church at every highway interchange. Postcard-perfect forest vistas. A reverence for the memory of Dale Earnhardt.
But nearly all of the stereotypes miss the mark. Standing in an east Tennessee coffee shop and yelling Phones for you, Bubba, does not result in most of the male customers rising to answer.
A few clichéd images do ring true. Roaming the grounds of the Dollywood theme park in nearby Pigeon Forge are throngs of sunburned tourists in NASCAR tank tops. Most appear to have season passes to the SuperBar at the Sirloin Stockade -- although to be fair, a good share of those visitors likely come from the Midwest. Country music does echo throughout the east Tennessee hills. A sports information office colleague in the cubicle next to mine dressed in black for an entire week following Johnny Cash's passing last fall. And only in Tennessee can one scan the football roster and find a backup quarterback named Jim Bob Cooter, a redshirt sophomore who no doubt passed up a starring role in a ''Dukes of Hazard'' remake to join the Vols.
Another popular image is that the state's population would consider Tennessee football roughly as important to their well-being as breathing. I felt I was prepared for that. I've grown up surrounded by Iowa Hawkeye fans, after all. But I was wrong. Football clearly tops oxygen in the Tennessee natives' pecking order. This point was driven home when I met a woman who special-ordered her kitchen appliances to come in Tennessee orange. Disturbing as that sounds, I actually found the appliances more visually appealing that her family's
orange-and-white Christmas tree.
Tennessee football is all-consuming. Turning on the 10 p.m. news (which in the Eastern Time Zone comes on at 11 p.m., something that has always bothered me), I noticed a graphic in the bottom corner of the screen throughout the newscast: 36 days until Football Time in Tennessee.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel published two sports sections each day. One was labeled Sports and the other was headlined Vol Report, assuring that Tennessee football news not be tainted by other world events. And on game days, the Vol Report would be the papers first section, with less pressing matters, such as the war in Iraq, buried inside.
At Central College, I spend my days devising ways to attract even passing attention from reporters. At Tennessee, the task is simply controlling them. Reporters sit through every practice, making note of impressive runs and dropped passes. At the teams first practice in August, players jogged through a light workout in shorts and t-shirts. The next day, a story in the paper projected the starting lineup, based on how they had lined up for drills.
On game days, the News-Sentinel sent five reporters. Four came from the Nashville Tennessean. Three each from the Chattanooga Press and the Maryville Daily Times. Small-town sports editors from throughout the state. Writers from Memphis, Atlanta, and other major markets are regulars, not to mention national TV crews from ESPN or CBS. There are seemingly more people in the Neyland Stadium press box on a typical Saturday than live in Kossuth County, Iowa.
GAME DAY ON ROCKY TOP. Game day in Knoxville is like no other. Neyland Stadium backs up to the shoreline of the Tennessee River, where fans arrive by boat, tailgating in the Vol Navy. Thousands of additional fans arrive hours early to join the university band in lining the streets before the team makes the five-block Vol Walk from the football training complex to the stadium. The Vols are led by police sirens and a heavily perspiring Davy Crockett wannabe in buckskin, who sprints down the street hoisting an oversized Tennessee flag. Hes accompanied by Smokey, the bluetick coon hound mascot youve seen on the sidelines on TV who always looks like hes thinking, Man, its hot out here. Eventually, 105,000 fill the stadium with more orange clothing than youd see on opening day of pheasant season in Iowa.
When the University of Tennessee Volunteers take the football field before 105,000 fans in Knoxville, they run through a ''T'' formed by the marching band, and out in front of the players as they make their grand entrance are costumed mascots ''Smokey'' the coonhound and Davy Crockett. (University of Tennessee photo by Elizabeth Olivier)
Our road schedule was like a college football junkie fantasy trip and an expensive one.
Not only did we fly by charter jet, but after we landed, busy highways were blocked off as we received police escorts, sirens wailing, on every short trek from the airport or hotel. They even provided a police escort when two players and Fulmer had to leave the hotel to drive a rental car to a press conference.
As our buses headed to the Friday walk-through in Gainesville, lining the streets were Florida Gator fans, young and old, wildly swinging their arms to taunt us with the Gator chomp, while a few offered even less appropriate gestures. A rare road win in the Swamp the next day inspired Vols quarterback Casey Clausen to race to Tennessees corner of the field and direct the schools band in yet another rendition of Rocky Top, a tune I came to know rather well.
Maybe the most consistently ear-splitting crowd roar Ive ever heard spurred Auburn to victory in Tennessees game there. But at Alabama, just prior to the game I heard a noise sounding like distant thunder, then realized it was the taped rumbling voice of legendary Crimson Tide mentor Bear Bryant booming from the stadium Jumbo-tron, revving up an already frenzied crowd. A press box colleague rolled his eyes, nudged me and advised, They just wont let him die. The voice faded and then the image of new coach Mike Shula appeared on the screen as he led the Tide charging onto the field, an image that even the fiercest Bama hater would find stirring.
And I learned there are more than a few Bama haters in Tennessee. Its a rivalry turned white-hot in the past year with accusations by Tide boosters that Vols coach Fulmer ratted on them to the NCAA, resulting in probation for Alabama. Never mind the fact that if Alabama hadnt been cheating in the first place, the issue would never have arisen. In an unfortunate sign of the excesses of college sports, law enforcement authorities were assigned to provide security for Fulmer when he attended this years Southeastern Conference media days events held in Birmingham in late July.
Last years UT-Bama game, however, was a joy to watch. Our staff went down to the field in the closing minutes to prepare for post-game interviews, and then stood in the back of the end zone for five overtimes before the final pass was batted down, literally at my feet, clinching a 51-43 Tennessee win.
Late in the regular season, I was standing atop the press box on the roof of the Orange Bowl stadium, gazing at palm trees in 80-degree temperatures, and wondering how the weather was for whatever Iowa Conference game was being played that same November afternoon in Storm Lake in far-flung northwest Iowa. The UT game against the Miami Hurricanes that day was another memorable one, with the Vols scoring a 10-6 upset and snapping a lengthy win streak Miami had for their games played in that stadium.
And we completed the falls schedule on a chilly senior day at the University of Kentucky, with the Wildcat faithful serenading their senior players with My Old Kentucky Home prior to their last game.
BUT IT DOESNT END THERE. The regular-season finale sets the stage for a bowl game, in this case the Peach Bowl, after Florida pulled a backroom deal to take what appeared to be our spot in the Outback Bowl, and thus preventing my dream Tennessee-Iowa match-up. Preparing for a bowl means our office produces a bowl media guide roughly four times the size of Centrals regular media guide, although not quite as weighty as Tennessees 372-page preseason guide.
The bowl game is just a prelude to recruiting season, as the Tennessee faithful spend January scouring the Internet for clues on which way prospects are leaning and how their campus visits went, while spreading rumors about illegal payoffs by rival schools.
That leads to national signing day in early February, when the local radio station breaks into the days programming every time a faxed letter of intent is received by the Tennessee football office.
And that leads to spring practice in March and April, our office putting together the pre-spring media guide, then the Orange and White game, and an even heftier post-spring media guide. Summer school starts in June as the sports information staff furiously wraps up the regular-season guide, on the remote chance a bit of Tennessee football trivia somehow got left out of all the other guides.
There's a real dog ''Smokey IX'' that is the official mascot of the Tennessee Volunteers, and this one is the latest in a long line of bluetick coonhounds that have held the honored position. This Smokey debuted during this past spring's Orange and White Game. (University of Tennessee photo by Donnell Field)
Nearly all of the incoming recruits enroll early so they can begin working out with the other players throughout the summer in Knoxville, prompting the media to offer speculation on which new quarterback looks best when playing catch with the receivers on a muggy July evening.
And then its just a few short days until its Football Time in Tennessee.
It was a ride to remember, for sure, and the Tennessee staff was incredibly gracious and generous to me.
But yet, its good to be home in Iowa. The crowds in Pella wont be as large as Tennessees this fall and there will be no police escorts for our team bus. The games wont be on CBS and if standout sophomore tailback Dustyn Baethke has a monster season, there will be no speculation that hell leave Central a year early to go into the NFL draft.
Yet when our Dutch face fourth-and-one late in the game, the butterflies in my stomach will probably be fluttering faster than they ever did for an SEC game last year. Relatively few people will care. But I will.
As our old Central coach, College Football Hall-of-Famer Ron Schipper once said to me, I dont need 60,000 fans in a stadium to get me excited about a football game.
I dont either. But for a year, it sure was fun.
Larry Happel, a native of Waverly, Iowa, is a 1981 graduate of Central College in Pella, and he began work as the colleges sports information director in 1979. For the 2003-04 academic year, Central president David Roe approved Happels request for an 11-month sabbatical so that he could spend the year working in the University of Tennessee men's sports information office under the direction of Bud Ford. Happel left his job at Central as well as his home in Pella and his furniture in the hands of Abby Gonzales, a former student sports information assistant who graduated from Central in 2002. She had served as a graduate assistant in sports information at Southern Illinois University before returning to Central as interim SID, filling in for Happel. Gonzales recently accepted a position as Centrals news and marketing writer. You can e-mail Happel at HappelL@central.edu
i guess this is a reporter's perspective of us from iowa.
A small college sports guy from Iowa spent a year in the big time, helping do media relations for the University of Tennessee ''Vols'' He's home now with more good lines than a bad country music song.
The author, the veteran sports information director at his alma mater Central College in Pella, Iowa, spent the past school year on sabbatical at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, working in the mens sports information department. It not only gave him a good look at another level of college athletics it doesnt get much bigger than football at UT but also plenty of experiences in a different region and culture. On the one hand, it is mighty broadminded of us here at Offenburger.com to be running the authors review of his time at UT. After all, I am a graduate of the rival Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and our feelings toward the state school over east are best summed up by our erudite cheer, Go to hell, UT, go to hell! But on the other hand, hes got a delightful tale here about all he saw and did, and Ive been pestering him for 10 months to share it. In terms of full disclosure, he says that Central paid most of his salary during the sabbatical, while Tennessee provided a furnished apartment, a small stipend and lunch at the athletic department training table, not to mention more free orange clothing than I could possibly ever use. I feel faint, but lets give the guy an audience here
Chuck Offenburger
By Larry Happel
July 26, 2004
PELLA, IOWA
Larry Happel
Sure, Chuck, Ill write a column for you on my experiences in Tennessee, I promised last fall. But lets wait until the end of football season.
What a foolish notion. I lived there for nearly a year, yet failed to detect a beginning or an end to what the natives piously proclaim as Football Time in Tennessee. (You can go right now to UTsports.com and learn down to the second how much time remains until this years season opener with UNLV). One seasons outcome is not yet resolved, and the next ones already started, much like presidential campaigns in Iowa.
I was at the University of Tennessee on an 11-month sabbatical from my post as sports information director at Central College in Pella. The gig was inspired by those scams that Offenburger has made a career of pulling off dreaming up an excursion most would call a vacation, and then getting someone else not only to bankroll it, but pay him for the privilege of doing so.
Having never lived anywhere other than small-town Iowa, nor held a job other than the one Ive performed at Central for more than 20 years a job that I never even applied for to begin with I guess it had never occurred to me that I was free to leave.
But this Iowa boy did have a desire to see what life is like in media relations at a place where the media being related to actually showed up at the games.
A YEAR ROUND OBSESSION. It was still mid-July, 2003. The smoggy blanket enveloping the Smoky Mountains wasnt yet visible through the windshield of my Buick Regal along I-40 East as I journeyed toward Knoxville. But I began picking up the radio talk shows and gained a sense of what I was in for.
With urgency in their voices, callers were expressing dire concern about the Volunteers lack of experience at tight end. It was a crisis that the host agreed required immediate attention from head coach Phillip Fulmers staff, if not the Tennessee legislature. I soon discovered this level of fervor for All Things Vols was not limited to the-sky-is-falling talk show callers (whom former Iowa State and Tennessee football coach Johnny Majors used to refer to as the legions of the miserable).
Some things about Tennessee I had anticipated. A Waffle House and a Baptist church at every highway interchange. Postcard-perfect forest vistas. A reverence for the memory of Dale Earnhardt.
But nearly all of the stereotypes miss the mark. Standing in an east Tennessee coffee shop and yelling Phones for you, Bubba, does not result in most of the male customers rising to answer.
A few clichéd images do ring true. Roaming the grounds of the Dollywood theme park in nearby Pigeon Forge are throngs of sunburned tourists in NASCAR tank tops. Most appear to have season passes to the SuperBar at the Sirloin Stockade -- although to be fair, a good share of those visitors likely come from the Midwest. Country music does echo throughout the east Tennessee hills. A sports information office colleague in the cubicle next to mine dressed in black for an entire week following Johnny Cash's passing last fall. And only in Tennessee can one scan the football roster and find a backup quarterback named Jim Bob Cooter, a redshirt sophomore who no doubt passed up a starring role in a ''Dukes of Hazard'' remake to join the Vols.
Another popular image is that the state's population would consider Tennessee football roughly as important to their well-being as breathing. I felt I was prepared for that. I've grown up surrounded by Iowa Hawkeye fans, after all. But I was wrong. Football clearly tops oxygen in the Tennessee natives' pecking order. This point was driven home when I met a woman who special-ordered her kitchen appliances to come in Tennessee orange. Disturbing as that sounds, I actually found the appliances more visually appealing that her family's
orange-and-white Christmas tree.
Tennessee football is all-consuming. Turning on the 10 p.m. news (which in the Eastern Time Zone comes on at 11 p.m., something that has always bothered me), I noticed a graphic in the bottom corner of the screen throughout the newscast: 36 days until Football Time in Tennessee.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel published two sports sections each day. One was labeled Sports and the other was headlined Vol Report, assuring that Tennessee football news not be tainted by other world events. And on game days, the Vol Report would be the papers first section, with less pressing matters, such as the war in Iraq, buried inside.
At Central College, I spend my days devising ways to attract even passing attention from reporters. At Tennessee, the task is simply controlling them. Reporters sit through every practice, making note of impressive runs and dropped passes. At the teams first practice in August, players jogged through a light workout in shorts and t-shirts. The next day, a story in the paper projected the starting lineup, based on how they had lined up for drills.
On game days, the News-Sentinel sent five reporters. Four came from the Nashville Tennessean. Three each from the Chattanooga Press and the Maryville Daily Times. Small-town sports editors from throughout the state. Writers from Memphis, Atlanta, and other major markets are regulars, not to mention national TV crews from ESPN or CBS. There are seemingly more people in the Neyland Stadium press box on a typical Saturday than live in Kossuth County, Iowa.
GAME DAY ON ROCKY TOP. Game day in Knoxville is like no other. Neyland Stadium backs up to the shoreline of the Tennessee River, where fans arrive by boat, tailgating in the Vol Navy. Thousands of additional fans arrive hours early to join the university band in lining the streets before the team makes the five-block Vol Walk from the football training complex to the stadium. The Vols are led by police sirens and a heavily perspiring Davy Crockett wannabe in buckskin, who sprints down the street hoisting an oversized Tennessee flag. Hes accompanied by Smokey, the bluetick coon hound mascot youve seen on the sidelines on TV who always looks like hes thinking, Man, its hot out here. Eventually, 105,000 fill the stadium with more orange clothing than youd see on opening day of pheasant season in Iowa.
When the University of Tennessee Volunteers take the football field before 105,000 fans in Knoxville, they run through a ''T'' formed by the marching band, and out in front of the players as they make their grand entrance are costumed mascots ''Smokey'' the coonhound and Davy Crockett. (University of Tennessee photo by Elizabeth Olivier)
Our road schedule was like a college football junkie fantasy trip and an expensive one.
Not only did we fly by charter jet, but after we landed, busy highways were blocked off as we received police escorts, sirens wailing, on every short trek from the airport or hotel. They even provided a police escort when two players and Fulmer had to leave the hotel to drive a rental car to a press conference.
As our buses headed to the Friday walk-through in Gainesville, lining the streets were Florida Gator fans, young and old, wildly swinging their arms to taunt us with the Gator chomp, while a few offered even less appropriate gestures. A rare road win in the Swamp the next day inspired Vols quarterback Casey Clausen to race to Tennessees corner of the field and direct the schools band in yet another rendition of Rocky Top, a tune I came to know rather well.
Maybe the most consistently ear-splitting crowd roar Ive ever heard spurred Auburn to victory in Tennessees game there. But at Alabama, just prior to the game I heard a noise sounding like distant thunder, then realized it was the taped rumbling voice of legendary Crimson Tide mentor Bear Bryant booming from the stadium Jumbo-tron, revving up an already frenzied crowd. A press box colleague rolled his eyes, nudged me and advised, They just wont let him die. The voice faded and then the image of new coach Mike Shula appeared on the screen as he led the Tide charging onto the field, an image that even the fiercest Bama hater would find stirring.
And I learned there are more than a few Bama haters in Tennessee. Its a rivalry turned white-hot in the past year with accusations by Tide boosters that Vols coach Fulmer ratted on them to the NCAA, resulting in probation for Alabama. Never mind the fact that if Alabama hadnt been cheating in the first place, the issue would never have arisen. In an unfortunate sign of the excesses of college sports, law enforcement authorities were assigned to provide security for Fulmer when he attended this years Southeastern Conference media days events held in Birmingham in late July.
Last years UT-Bama game, however, was a joy to watch. Our staff went down to the field in the closing minutes to prepare for post-game interviews, and then stood in the back of the end zone for five overtimes before the final pass was batted down, literally at my feet, clinching a 51-43 Tennessee win.
Late in the regular season, I was standing atop the press box on the roof of the Orange Bowl stadium, gazing at palm trees in 80-degree temperatures, and wondering how the weather was for whatever Iowa Conference game was being played that same November afternoon in Storm Lake in far-flung northwest Iowa. The UT game against the Miami Hurricanes that day was another memorable one, with the Vols scoring a 10-6 upset and snapping a lengthy win streak Miami had for their games played in that stadium.
And we completed the falls schedule on a chilly senior day at the University of Kentucky, with the Wildcat faithful serenading their senior players with My Old Kentucky Home prior to their last game.
BUT IT DOESNT END THERE. The regular-season finale sets the stage for a bowl game, in this case the Peach Bowl, after Florida pulled a backroom deal to take what appeared to be our spot in the Outback Bowl, and thus preventing my dream Tennessee-Iowa match-up. Preparing for a bowl means our office produces a bowl media guide roughly four times the size of Centrals regular media guide, although not quite as weighty as Tennessees 372-page preseason guide.
The bowl game is just a prelude to recruiting season, as the Tennessee faithful spend January scouring the Internet for clues on which way prospects are leaning and how their campus visits went, while spreading rumors about illegal payoffs by rival schools.
That leads to national signing day in early February, when the local radio station breaks into the days programming every time a faxed letter of intent is received by the Tennessee football office.
And that leads to spring practice in March and April, our office putting together the pre-spring media guide, then the Orange and White game, and an even heftier post-spring media guide. Summer school starts in June as the sports information staff furiously wraps up the regular-season guide, on the remote chance a bit of Tennessee football trivia somehow got left out of all the other guides.
There's a real dog ''Smokey IX'' that is the official mascot of the Tennessee Volunteers, and this one is the latest in a long line of bluetick coonhounds that have held the honored position. This Smokey debuted during this past spring's Orange and White Game. (University of Tennessee photo by Donnell Field)
Nearly all of the incoming recruits enroll early so they can begin working out with the other players throughout the summer in Knoxville, prompting the media to offer speculation on which new quarterback looks best when playing catch with the receivers on a muggy July evening.
And then its just a few short days until its Football Time in Tennessee.
It was a ride to remember, for sure, and the Tennessee staff was incredibly gracious and generous to me.
But yet, its good to be home in Iowa. The crowds in Pella wont be as large as Tennessees this fall and there will be no police escorts for our team bus. The games wont be on CBS and if standout sophomore tailback Dustyn Baethke has a monster season, there will be no speculation that hell leave Central a year early to go into the NFL draft.
Yet when our Dutch face fourth-and-one late in the game, the butterflies in my stomach will probably be fluttering faster than they ever did for an SEC game last year. Relatively few people will care. But I will.
As our old Central coach, College Football Hall-of-Famer Ron Schipper once said to me, I dont need 60,000 fans in a stadium to get me excited about a football game.
I dont either. But for a year, it sure was fun.
Larry Happel, a native of Waverly, Iowa, is a 1981 graduate of Central College in Pella, and he began work as the colleges sports information director in 1979. For the 2003-04 academic year, Central president David Roe approved Happels request for an 11-month sabbatical so that he could spend the year working in the University of Tennessee men's sports information office under the direction of Bud Ford. Happel left his job at Central as well as his home in Pella and his furniture in the hands of Abby Gonzales, a former student sports information assistant who graduated from Central in 2002. She had served as a graduate assistant in sports information at Southern Illinois University before returning to Central as interim SID, filling in for Happel. Gonzales recently accepted a position as Centrals news and marketing writer. You can e-mail Happel at HappelL@central.edu
