DADvocate

During my entire life I've had allegiance to only university - the University of Tennessee. I came into this world while my father attended graduate school there. Upon graduating he was hired as a professor and stayed there until retirement.

My father earned an M.S. and Phd at U.T. Others in my family: mother - B.A and M.S.; sister - B.A. and J.D.; myself - B.A. and M.S.; brother - B.S; other sister - Phd. That's a lot of history with one university.

Although, my parents often related the story of my yelling out, "That's my Daddy" as my father walked across the stage to receive his Phd diploma, my earliest memory of U.T. is listening to football games on the radio. As a teenager I was fortunate enough to know football game broadcaster and founder of the Volunteer Navey, George Mooney. I even road with him in his boat to football games a couple of times.

When Mr. Mooney decided to stop announcing games and focus on business, John Ward took over announcing duties and quickly became a legend. (There may have been someone else broadcasting for a year or two.) Ward continued to announce games for 31 years.

To this day the on sentence that sends chills up my spine is John Ward saying, "It's football time in Tennessee."