Ok, so someone tell me who this Tennstud is. I have heard him referenced in the recruiting boards but he is always wrong.
Lightning rod
TennStud: A man, 'fanatic' marked by contradictions
By Zack McMillin - Memphis Commercial Reporter
Contact
October 22, 2004
As the football player for the University of Georgia races past
Tennessee defenders and into the end zone, Roy Adams frets.
It is Saturday, Oct. 9, and the usual few dozen football fans are
gathered at Adams's home in East Memphis to watch Tennessee play
Georgia. In the den, Adams has five TVs tuned to five games -- more than
200 inches of TV space, altogether.
The set in the middle, the 52-inch big-screen, shows Tennessee and
Georgia. And now the referee is signaling a penalty on Georgia and no
touchdown.
"Those officials are going to get killed," says Tim Jones.
Jones's photo is among the nearly 600 framed pictures and articles that
cover Adams's walls like wallpaper, a collage that testifies to his
large circle of "dear friends" from the college football world and his
rise from the "slums of South Memphis" to his current status as a
wealthy owner of a property management company.
A former quarterback for the local college football program Adams still
refers to as Memphis State, Jones has known Adams since he played for
the Tigers and is a regular at the football parties.
"See," says Adams, "that's why you've got to have policemen in society.
Georgia was crooked."
Adams has come to consider himself something of an authority on
crookedness, and he doesn't deny that college football, this game he
loves, has a corrupting influence.
"Those football factories, the players are there to generate revenue,"
Adams says. "If we get to where these football players can read or
write, that would be an admirable goal.
"It's all a joke."
And yet, those who know Adams say the 66-year-old UT graduate is the
biggest college football fan in Memphis, if not the entire Southeast
(and, hence, the country). When it comes to Tennessee football, the
shortened "fan" does not do Adams's fervor justice.
His fanaticism is such that the mere mention of his name can create
controversy among SEC fans.
This is just one of many contradictions in the Dickensian character
that is Roy Adams.
"Being a college football fan is a sickness," Adams says. "College
football is a cult, and we are all in different cults. It's like Jim
Jones and all those people committing suicide. Alabama and Tennessee
fans are the same way."
When Alabama plays Tennessee this week, Roy Adams will sit in Neyland
Stadium urging his beloved Volunteers to defeat hated Alabama.
To many Tennessee fans, Adams is an eccentric -- with a capital "E" --
and colorful character who does no harm.
To many Alabama fans, Adams looms as a sinister character in a rivalry
now more bitter and more intense because of Tennessee's involvement with
the NCAA and FBI investigation that led to severe sanctions against
Alabama.
It was Adams and his former UT-educated attorney, Southland Capital
president Karl Schledwitz, who first urged former Trezevant assistant
coach Milton Kirk to tell NCAA officials about the recruitment of Albert
Means, who signed with Alabama in 2000.
In 2001, Kirk claimed that Memphian Logan Young, a wealthy Alabama
booster, gave $200,000 to former Trezevant coach Lynn Lang to steer his
prize recruit, Means, to the Crimson Tide.
The story, first reported by The Commercial Appeal, turned into a
national scandal. An FBI investigation produced guilty pleas from Kirk
and Lang for shopping Means and an indictment of Young, who has always
denied any involvement with Means's recruitment.
Adams first emerged as a herald of sorts, trumpeting allegations that
Young was spending money to steer players to Alabama.
On the Tennessee message board, Adams uses the handle, "TennStud,"
after the old Jimmy Driftwood song.
Adams has gloried in Alabama's troubles, and the word "gloat" and the
term "rub it in" are often used to describe his posts.
"With Alabama fans, he can create a stir in a heartbeat," says Rodney
Orr, who runs the popular Alabama message board TiderInsider.
Phillip Shanks, an attorney in Cordova, has filed lawsuits along with
Montgomery, Ala., attorney Tommy Gallion against the NCAA and Tennessee
coach Phillip Fulmer on behalf of their clients, former Alabama
assistant coaches Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams.
In a now-famous episode among hardcore UT and Alabama fans, Adams
showed up to a deposition with Shanks wearing his white coonskin cap and
carrying a bottle of whiskey.
Adams often directs his verbal barrages at Shanks and Gallion.
This was a post from earlier this week: "When you are right, as we
Tennesseans are, when you are principled, as we Tennesseans are, when
you are abiding by the rules and winning, as we Tennesseans are, then
all the evil in the world as represented by Gallion and his ilk can do
the University of Tennessee no harm!!"
Shanks clearly despises Adams.
"At my age, a man is fortunate if his chief enemy in the world is a
discredited (man) like Roy Adams," Shanks says. "I'm fortunate that Roy
Adams is my chief tormentor, and thank God it's not somebody with any
credibility."
Most afternoons, Adams can be found in the dining room area of his
house, half of which he's converted to an office.
He tunes his satellite radio to listen to Paul Finebaum, a sports
writer in Birmingham with a popular sports talk show. His computer,
which is crammed into a cluttered desk, is always turned on and always
logged into the UT message board known as Gridscape.
Adams began visiting message boards eight years ago and for years used
WebTV to access the Internet.
He recently made his 4,000th post on Gridscape.
"Gridscape is the New York Times of chatboards," he says. "Notre Dame
would be the Wall Street Journal."
And the Alabama board?
"TiderInsider is the National Enquirer," Adams says with a sly smile.
"Just goofballs that still live in the past who say, 'We will do this
...' It's just funny. I mainly followed it through the years with the
Logan Young thing, and I knew what was true and they were all in denial.
And still are."
Orr, as soft spoken as Adams is loud, doesn't seem to share the deep
grudge his customers hold against Adams, but he acknowledges that Adams
inflames Tide fans.
"What's so funny is how he paints this picture of Tennessee being so
clean, and naturally Alabama fans aren't going to see it quite that
way," says Orr. "And then he paints Alabama to be the dirtiest program
in the history of the NCAA. Roy has admitted he's had relationships with
college players, and there's talk Roy was banned from the University of
Tennessee, so fans see it as a guy who is hypocritical."
Adams practically crows that, "We won! They lost! We have been
vindicated!"
Even his friends, like Schledwitz, think Adams would do himself a favor
by toning it down.
"I've said that to him so many times until I'm blue in the face,"
Schledwitz says. "
Alabama fans, for their part, believe Adams might yet receive his
comeuppance.
"Let's just leave it at this," Shanks says. "Roy has some exposure. He
has said some things about my clients that are untrue and some things
about the University of Alabama that are untrue.
"We'll have to see what happens."
The shrill noise of a phone ringing interrupts the action of the
UT-Georgia game.
Milton Kirk, reclined in a Roy Adams big leather easy chair, the one
directly across the big screen showing UT-Georgia, picks up the
receiver.
"Roy Adams residence," Kirk says, to no avail. He repeats: "Roy Adams
residence."
Gerald Riggs fumbles. Phone rings again. This time Adams answers.
It's Derrick Ballard, a linebacker at the University of Memphis from
2000-03. Tiger players are regulars at Adams's house, and some will come
by on this day, too, since Memphis has an off week.
"He's a good friend," Adams says of Ballard.
The "good friends" and "dear friends" that populate Adams's life are
too numerous to count. Many are former U of M players. Some met Adams
through his longtime connection with Northwest Mississippi Community
College in Senatobia. Others visited with friends of friends and partook
of the food and drink always available at the East Memphis abode for
Friends of Roy.
Adams says he has bought "five or six" cars for U o f M players dating
back decades.
