Maybe it was merely the fact that this was the final Big Orange Caravan stop of the year. Or that a paid vacation to Destin, Fla., was just around the corner at the Southeastern Conference spring meetings.
No one expects to hit a hole-in-one when he walks onto a golf course. Not Arnold Palmer. Not Tiger Woods. Not University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sophomore Davis Bunn.
So how do you hate LeBron James now?
With 200 yards to go in Saturday's Preakness Stakes, Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another looked like yet another pretender, apparently unable to do so much as win two legs of his sport's holy grail, much less become the first Triple Crown winner in 34 years.
The news first arrived in February. Chattanooga sports greats Gibby Gilbert II and Zan Guerry would be officially inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame this Saturday in Nashville.
Poor Florida State. The Seminoles aren't feeling the love they thought they'd receive from the Atlantic Coast Conference when they joined America's Cockiest Conference back in 1991. Duh.
The vast majority of this newspaper's subscribers live in Tennessee. Because Memphis is the largest city in Tennessee, it could be argued that we should all be Memphis Grizzlies fans whenever the NBA playoffs begin and the Griz are in the mix.
"Buckle up." Christie Baughman never failed to deliver that order to her son Tony whenever he slid into a car, either as a driver or a passenger.
Two months have passed since Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams' failed public pursuit of future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning.
The first media questions to Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt during the team's annual caravan stop in Chattanooga on Wednesday understandably focused on his surgically repaired right knee.
Could it be that the Atlanta Hawks have been playing possum against the Boston Celtics in the opening round of the NBA playoffs?
Just in case you didn't already know this, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning will complete perhaps the most cherished triple crown in professional football when he speaks to this newspaper's Best of Preps banquet at the Chattanooga Trade and Convention Center on June 7.
The beauty of baseball is that a single game in May rarely stands out over the course of a 162-game schedule. There are just too many remaining games to make it matter. Of course, that's also one of baseball's greatest flaws.
Avery Pettway freely admits that her uncle Elliott Walden probably never believed he'd have to make good on his promise to take her to today's 138th Kentucky Derby if Gemologist made the field.
ATLANTA -- Former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver used to say that momentum is the next day's starting pitcher.
If ever the good, bad and ugly of the National Football League were all on display at the same time, it was Wednesday.
It hasn't taken former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and McCallie School quarterback B.J. Coleman long to learn much of the storied history of the Green Bay Packers, who selected him in the seventh round of the NFL draft Saturday.
It all started with a teenager listening to her parents. Imagine that. Until Paul Fuzzard told his daughter Michelle that he'd always wished he'd left his native southern California during his college years to experience another part of the country, she'd never given the idea much thought.
Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley had just finished his speech at the Orange Grove Center’s annual “A Breakfast for Champions” on Friday morning when a Big Orange fan approached a member of the media.
Unless Indianapolis general manager Ryan Grigson is the most untrustworthy soul this side of Bobby Petrino, the Colts will follow through with their pledge to make former Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck the No. 1 overall pick in tonight's NFL draft.
When news leaked last week that former University of Michigan and Detroit Lions football coach Gary Moeller was playing in the Porky's Open golf tournament next Tuesday at Council Fire, my first thought was, "Why?"
Kobe Cockroach strikes again. Yes, I'm talking about the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant. And I mean "cockroach" as a compliment. You just can't kill the guy.
All week, as the University of Tennessee's White team players talked trash about how they were going to embarrass their counterparts in Saturday's Orange and White spring game, Orange safety Brian Randolph remained quiet.
Almost every day of almost every week, Chad Brandon serves milk, cereal and ice cream in the McCallie School cafeteria. "And if Chad doesn't do his job, we all suffer," McCallie headmaster Kirk Walker said with a quick smile Saturday morning.
With all but five of his players forced to skip last weekend’s AAU state basketball tournament semifinal in Chattanooga due to ACT testing conflicts, Tennessee Fury 17-under girls’ coach Tyler Summitt knew he was in for a struggle.
Emeritus. It sounds dignified. Scholarly. Respectful. And if anyone deserves to live out her days as the head basketball coach emeritus of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, it's Pat Summitt.
My wife says she wants to come back as a basset hound in her next life, since our lovable long-eared pooch tends to do nothing more than eat, sleep, bark, eat some more, sunbathe (presumably while sleeping), then sleep some more after that.
On any other afternoon at Turner Field, Atlanta pitcher Brandon Beachy would have been the star of the Braves' 7-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday.
It's Friday evening inside Thompson-Boling Arena, and Jon Gruden has more than 350 football coaches in town for the University of Tennessee's annual coaching clinic on the edge of their padded seats.
It would be wonderful to say that Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long changed the future of coaching behavior everywhere with his noble decision to fire disreputable Razorbacks football boss Bobby Petrino on Tuesday.
At 7:30 tonight on ESPNU, the nation's top two high school basketball players are expected to announce where they'll spend their obligatory year of NBA purgatory as faux college students.
I can't think of anyone I'd less rather be this morning than Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino. First, he wrecked his motorcycle last Sunday without his helmet on, which doesn't sound quite like a guy bright enough to command $3.53 million a year.
NEW ORLEANS — His first national championship newly won, Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari stood in the bowels of the Superdome early Tuesday morning discussing his team's future.
NEW ORLEANS -- The day before the NCAA championship game, Kansas coach Bill Self said of Kentucky: "They're probably one of the better teams we've had in college basketball from a pure talent standpoint."
NEW ORLEANS -- It has happened more than once in every game throughout this NCAA basketball tournament. An offensive player drives to the rim. A defensive player appears to get there late. There's a collision around the arc that the NCAA has added under the basket to make the block-charge call easier to officiate.
he idea was hatched more than a year ago, before they ever got to the University of Kentucky campus, before they'd ever done more than play against each other on the AAU summer basketball circuit.
Kansas coach Bill Self says he dreamed about it as early as Selection Sunday, as soon as the brackets came out. "I did look," he said. "I said, 'How cool would it be to play Kentucky in the finals?' When have the two winningest programs in the history of basketball played each other [for the national championship]? From a historic standpoint, I think that's pretty cool."
A sea of blue. Kentucky blue. Kansas blue. That's what the Superdome will look like for Monday night's NCAA title game after the Kansas Jayhawks wore down Ohio State 64-62 Saturday night to join top-ranked UK in the final.
You can say anything you want before a basketball game and maybe people will believe you. So as Saturday night’s Kentucky-Louisville NCAA tournament semifinal game approached, maybe UK’s Anthony Davis was telling the truth when he said, “This is just another game.”
As the basketball Final Four tipoff neared, someone asked NCAA president about the possibility of major college football going to some form of playoff.
Ritchie Jones entered the Louisiana Superdome on Friday afternoon clad head-to-toe in Kentucky Blue. His girlfriend, Rhonda Minch? Not so much.
Louisville senior Chris Smith has heard the talk all week regarding his team's Final Four game against bitter rival Kentucky this evening at 6:09 inside the Louisiana Superdome.
April 4, 1994. Charlotte Coliseum. Sometime around 11:30 p.m. Out on the basketball court stood Boss Hog Nolan Richardson and his Arkansas Razorbacks, joyously celebrating their 76-72 victory over Duke in the NCAA title game.
Pat Summitt deserved better. Not from her Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team. They did all they could against the Baylor Bears and 6-foot-8 Brittney Griner in Monday night's 77-58 loss in the Des Moines NCAA regional final.
The handmade sign flashed across the CBS television feed from the Midwest Regional final early Sunday evening. The proud work of a Kansas Jayhawk fan celebrating KU's 80-67 win over North Carolina, it read: “We're not in Kansas anymore … We're headed to New Orleans.”
No. 1 Kentucky having easily dispatched Baylor 82-70 on its way to its second straight Final Four, the Wildcats' radio crew asked South Regional Most Outstanding Player Michael Kidd-Gilchrist for an interview.
A college freshman nearly 2,400 miles from home, Terrence Jones looked down the University of Kentucky basketball roster, noticed Darius Miller was one of the Wildcats’ most experienced players and decided he needed to get to know him better.
At most universities, the season thus far constructed by the Baylor Bears would be the stuff of legend. Most wins in school history (30 and counting). Second South Regional final appearance in three years when the Bears meet No. 1 Kentucky at 2:20 p.m. toda for a spot in the Final Four opposite Louisville.
His team trailing No. 1 Kentucky by three thin points at halftime Friday night, Indiana coach Tom Crean walked to the locker room telling his Hoosiers, "We're all right. We're all right."
When your basketball uniforms can best be described as "highlight marker yellow," it's hard to imagine your level of play becoming brighter than your threads.
