Former University of Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer will be the keynote speaker at an Industry Appreciation Breakfast in Oak Ridge in September.
The invitation-only breakfast is sponsored by the Oak Ridge Utility District and the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. It will be at ORUD on Tuesday morning, September 12.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
Jessie Hackworth
Jessica Hackworth has been named Roane State Community College’s head softball coach.
She had served as the interim coach. Hackworth succeeds Sue Niemi, who has taken a student services position at the college.
Hackworth, who is from Oliver Springs, was a Roane State assistant coach for five years. In addition to coaching duties, she organized remodeling of the softball locker room, ran fall tournaments, and worked closely with players to ensure their academic success. Roane State softball players have received numerous conference honors for their academic performance. [Read more…]
Head Coach Randy Nesbit and Roane State’s 1992-93 men’s basketball team. (Photo courtesy Roane State Community College)
Roane State Community College is celebrating 25 years with Men’s Basketball Head Coach Randy Nesbit on Saturday, January 28, when the Roane State Raiders take on Dyersburg. The game is at 4 p.m., with a reception to follow.
A 1980 graduate of the Citadel, Nesbit began his Roane State coaching career in the fall of 1992 after serving as assistant to Citadel’s Head Coach Les Robinson. A three-year starting point guard on Robinson-coached basketball teams, Nesbit was a key member of The Citadel’s 1979 team that won 20 games, a first for the college. Captain of the 1980 team, Nesbit was selected to the 1979 and 1980 All-Southern Conference second team and paced the 1978 team with a 54.0 field goal percentage and a 92.5 free throw percentage in 1980, which was the second-best in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA. He tied a school mark with 13 assists in a 1979 game against Marshall, and established the school’s season record of 120 dishes that season, holding the school’s record for most career assists (324). Nesbit played only three years after having transferred from Gulf Coast Community College. [Read more…]
Kyley Dickson tests the field at Bristol Motor Speedway before the Battle at Bristol, the record-setting football game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech. (Photo courtesy Roane State)
This Fentress County farm boy will likely soon have a new title: professor.
Kyley H. Dickson, who grew up on a farm in the rural middle Tennessee county, will be receiving a doctorate in plant and soil science this December from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
And his expertise in his doctorate—the safety of athletic fields—was put to use recently when he and a professor went to Bristol, Tennessee, for an inspection.
They were checking on the safeness of the Astroturf installed for the football game between UT and Virginia Tech, held September 10 at the Bristol Motor Speedway. Now, Dickson is setting his sights on a teaching job at UT-Martin, where’s he’s applied for a professorship. [Read more…]
Johnny Majors, standout halfback and winning coach at the University of Tennessee, will teach a course at ORICL. (Submitted photo)
Register by Aug. 17 for fall term
Want to feel more relaxed, less fearful, and flexible during this election season? Consider taking courses presented by the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning, or ORICL, on yoga, meditation, and tai chi.
As a Tennessee football fan or coach, would you like to take a course from Johnny Majors, College Football Hall of Fame standout halfback and winning coach at the University of Tennessee? He will tell about his life and the secrets of coaching to win.
Would you like to know more about driverless cars, Mozart, the Vikings, Russian fairy tales, Chinese diagnosis in medicine, and who should have power and why?
Learn about Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand? Explore supernatural phenomena, mitochondria, research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, and the God question. [Read more…]
Jasmine Rizk, Katie Welsh, Caelyn Thompson, and Daniel Beckett are pictured above from left at signings to continue their athletic careers in college in May 2016. (Submitted photo)
Four Oak Ridge High School seniors recently signed to continue their athletic careers in college.
Daniel Beckett signed to run cross country with Maryville College. Caelyn Thompson signed to compete in track and field at Milligan College. Jasmine Risk signed to play girls soccer with Carson Newman College. And Katherine “Katie” Welsh signed to play girls soccer with Centre College.
Daniel Beckett signed to run cross country with Maryville College. (Submitted photo)
The Roane State Community College Shooting Sports Team recently received a $4,800 grant from the NRA Foundation.
The team will use the grant to purchase needed equipment such as shotgun shells, cleaning materials, and earplugs.
“The grant from the NRA Foundation will provide the tools we need to properly maintain our equipment,” team coach Kenny Carey said. “We greatly appreciate the foundation’s support for our athletes.” [Read more…]
Jennifer Azzi, left, is pictured above in this photo from a gold medal celebration in 1996. (Photo courtesy David Clary via Alex Myers)
Growing up in Oak Ridge, I learned quickly that the folks here love their high school athletics. All it takes is one trip to historic Blankenship Field on a fall Friday night to get a sense of how this town feels about sports.
However, recently it’s occurred to me that there has been a terrible injustice to one of our own. One of Oak Ridge’s most decorated athletes has gone relatively unrecognized to my generation.
Jennifer Azzi is the athlete I’m talking about. From right here in Oak Ridge, Azzi graduated and went on to play Division One basketball at Stanford. While at Stanford, she compiled a list of accomplishments that would impress any sports junkie. Helping Stanford to win their program’s first women’s basketball national championship, Azzi was also named Final Four MVP. While this alone should be enough for her to be celebrated around town, Azzi didn’t stop there. She was named the 1990 Naismith National Player of the Year, and for those who are unaware, that’s essentially college basketball’s equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. Azzi was also named Pac 10 player of the year for the 1989-90 season. She was a two time Kodak All-American for her play during the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons.
Azzi went on to be an eventual first-round draft pick in the WNBA draft.
And if that didn’t make your jaw drop, here’s the icing on the cake. In 1996, Azzi helped make not only East Tennessee proud, but her country proud as well when she and her teammates on the USA Women’s National Basketball Team won a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics held in Atlanta. Let’s face it, she wasn’t good; Jennifer Azzi was simply amazing. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge Wildcats Football Coach Joe Gaddis, left, sits with Zach Azzanni, University of Tennessee Volunteers wide receivers coach, during an Oak Ridge-Gibbs basketball game at Wildcat Arena on Friday, Jan. 29, 2016. Basketball player Tee Higgins, a 6-foot-5 junior and wide receiver, has committed to play football at UT. Also pictured in front above are Holly Cross and Ric Cross. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
University of Tennessee Volunteers football coach Butch Jones was at the Friday night Oak Ridge-Gibbs basketball game. So was UT wide receivers coach Zach Azzanni.
Oak Ridge junior Tee Higgins, who plays basketball and football, has committed to play football for the UT Volunteers. Although the two football coaches couldn’t say why they were at Wildcat Arena, the Friday night game gave them an opportunity to see Higgins play.
Here are pictures by John Huotari of Oak Ridge Today. [Read more…]
University of Tennessee Coach Butch Jones, left, watches the Oak Ridge Wildcats play basketball at home on Friday, Jan. 29, 2015. Tee Higgins, a junior guard, has committed to play football at UT. Higgins is a wide receiver. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was last updated at 12:25 a.m.
The Oak Ridge Wildcats swept Gibbs at home on Friday, but University of Tennessee football coach Butch Jones stole the show.
Although they couldn’t discuss why they were there, Jones and Zach Azzanni, UT wide receivers coach, were at Wildcat Arena on Friday to watch 6-foot-5 junior Tee Higgins. Besides playing basketball well, Higgins is also a wide receiver, defensive back, and kick returner who has committed to play football for the UT Volunteers. He was named Tennessee Titans Mr. Football in November, recognized as Back of the Year in Class 5A.
Jones and Azzanni also attended a Wildcats football game in the fall, when Oak Ridge beat Lenoir City 55-15 on September 18.
When Jones arrived at the basketball game on Friday, the excited student section—many of them dressed in Volunteer orange—began singing “It’s great to be a Tennessee Vol, I said, it’s great to be a Tennessee Vol!” [Read more…]
Information from WYSH Radio
A former University of Tennessee linebacker was killed in an early-morning, single-vehicle accident in front of Ray Varner Ford in Clinton on Sunday.
Clinton Police Department officers responded to a report of an accident shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday on North Charles Seivers Boulevard near Miller Road and upon their arrival, found a Chevy Tahoe on its roof with heavy damage.
The only person in the vehicle, 31-year-old Daniel Brooks of New Market, had to be extricated from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators determined that Brooks had been headed west on Seivers when his SUV left the side of the road and traveled some distance in a ditchline before striking a driveway culvert, which caused it to become airborne. The Tahoe landed on its front end and flipped several times before coming to rest on its roof. [Read more…]
Kassidi Freeman
Roane State Community College sophomore basketball player Kassidi Freeman of Madisonville earned top academic honors in the Tennessee Community College Athletic Association, or TCCAA.
Six additional players also received recognition for their academic performance.
Freeman had the highest grade-point average (3.83) of any women’s basketball player in the TCCAA. She was named a TCCAA Distinguished Scholar-Athlete.
Roane State sophomores Cayla Oglesby (Lake City) and Danielle Slack (Madisonville), and freshmen Haley Cornellison (Kingston), Madison Hampton (Dayton), Amber Hudgens (Sparta), and Sydney Marek (Cookeville), also received Distinguished Scholar-Athlete recognition.
“I’m very proud of how well our athletes performed academically,” Roane State head coach Monica Boles said. “Their hard work and dedication helped them excel both on the court and in the classroom.”
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