Mike Keith had a crystal-clear image of what was about to unfold.

He saw it all coming.

Keith was there — behind the scenes and then behind the microphone — for the infancy of Knoxville daily sports-talk radio.

First came baby steps. Then came a full-on dash toward what exists today.

The director of broadcasting and play-by-play announcer for the Tennessee Titans witnessed first-hand the evolution of sports gab from the domain of Sunday socials and office water coolers to a proliferation of the airwaves.

“We just happened to come around at exactly the right time,” Keith said. “Our timing in terms of the whole radio industry was absolutely perfect. We were very lucky that way.”

What began as a one-hour show on Sept. 1, 1988 — hosted by current WVLT-TV news anchor Alan Williams — has morphed into a daily 6 a.m.-7 p.m. sports-talk marathon on a variety of Knoxville stations.

You can hear it before your first breakfast biscuit. You can tune in or tune out during that last bite of dinner.

Feel the sudden urge to verbally thrash Barry Bonds? By all means, call in.

Wondering if Tennessee is pretenders or contenders in SEC football? Call in.

Everyone’s voice can be heard. And people are listening.

WIVK radio honchos Bobby Denton and Mike Hammond got together in the late 1980s and came up with an idea.

WFAN out of New York already had gone to a full sports talk-only format in 1987.

Denton and Hammond saw possibilities for the Knoxville market.

“They were the brainchild of all this,” Williams said. “I was the sports director at WIVK and they were wanting to utilize the AM signal more.

“They thought a talk-show format in sports would be great, and they didn’t really give me a specific direction they wanted me to take this.”

For 23 hours a day, 990 AM simply ran a simulcast of the same country music that could be heard on 107.7-FM WIVK.

The other hour belonged to Williams, and a young intern named Mike Keith, who took over each weeknight from 7 to 8.

At first, it was mostly an interview format with Williams tracking down the likes of Dick Vitale and Keith Jackson to get their takes on the sports of the day.

Gradually, the callers began to take charge.

“It just snowballed,” Williams said.

Keith took over the “Sports Talk” show in 1989 and the snowball triggered an all-out avalanche.

“The calls started to build, and in July 1991 we ended up going two hours a night five days a week,” Keith said. “We expanded it three years later and the reason we felt like we were there at the right time is that’s when the whole Rush Limbaugh thing started and he sort of revitalized AM radio.”

But the main reason it worked was Tennessee athletics.

Interest in UT dominates the shows.

It was some early advice from Keith that helped change the future of talk-show host Tony Basilio.

“Back in the summer of ’93, when I first started doing this,” said Basilio, the dean of area sports talk-show hosts. “I was sitting out in the parking lot over at UT’s training facility and I was talking with Mike.

“He looked at me and said this thing hasn’t even begun to do what it’s going to do here yet. That stuck with me and I decided to hang in there and stay here.”

Keith helped Basilio in more ways than one.

“One thing Mike said was the University of Tennessee matters so much in this community and to people culturally that they can’t get enough of it,” Basilio said. “I think that was pretty prophetic, and he was right.”

It starts at 6 a.m.-10 with the Morning Sports Animals of Mickey Dearstone, Jeff Jacoby and Heather Harrington on WNML (990 AM and 99.1 FM).

From 10 a.m.-noon, it’s the News Sentinel’s “Sports Page” hosted by Dave Hooker.

“The response to our show has been incredible,” Hooker said. “We just completed our first year and our ratings have shown people like to talk sports all day long.

“For our midday show to be able to pull drive-time numbers really speaks to the interest there is in this community for local and national sports all day long.”

Basilio caters to a distinct group with “The Edge” from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on WVLS-AM 1180. In the last year, Russell W. Smith took care of the missing hour of talk by hosting “Let’s Talk Sports” from 1-3 p.m. on WKVL-AM 850 and other Horne properties.

“Sports Talk” on WNML from 3-7 p.m. is still the king in Knoxville with a 7.6 rating for hosts Jimmy Hyams and John Wilkerson.

“I just think the fact you can have so many local shows, and be on from six in the morning to seven or later in the evening, reflects on the incredible passion people have for sports and especially University of Tennessee sports,” Wilkerson said. “To go from having a one-hour show originally, to being on the air for 10 hours locally, it really shows you this is a place that can support that kind of passion.”

Keith took “Sports Talk” to its present four-hour format before leaving for the Titans in 1998. Hyams and Wilkerson are going into their 10th year as a team as “Sports Talk” approaches its 20th Anniversary on Sept. 1.

He starts his calls with a “buenos dias” and goes quickly into a rant or theme of the day.

Richard “Ricardo” Harbin is a 38-year-old sports-talk addict.

“It’s just a great sounding board to get your opinion out there,” he said. “I also like to make people laugh, so I do that whenever I can.

“But the great thing is I get to hear what other people are thinking and kind of get the pulse of the community.”

Harbin is one of 16 contestants about to vie for the coveted “King Caller” award to be handed out by the “Sports Page”.

The 1990 University of Illinois graduate has been a faithful listener and caller on the Knoxville sports-talk scene since he came to town in 1992 and heard Keith talking about UT sports on WIVK.

As for Jim Copeland — the controversial serial caller known to many area listeners as “Small Mike” — he has resurfaced as a regular in-studio guest with Chuck Cavalaris on the new “Linescore” show heard 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays on the Horne stations.

It’s proof the callers can sometimes become the show as much as the hosts.

Jeff Henderson, a long-time caller on Basilio’s show and better known during his call-in days as “Beano”, is a daily host with Basilio. Another example is Geoff Brock, who hosts a popular call-in show on Saturday mornings on WVLZ.

“The comments I usually got at that time in Knoxville were usually about the callers,” Keith said. “They would say I really enjoy it when this guy or that guy calls in.

“The people feed off the other people and that’s what makes it fun. It’s like a little community.”

Former UT football coach Johnny Majors called them the “Legions of the Miserable.”

They were the kind of people who just sat around the house trying to think of the next best way to rip UT coaches.

“That kind of hurt my feelings,” Keith joked. “I love Coach Majors a lot, and still do, but I didn’t agree with that because I thought that was where it was going with the fans.

“Talk radio gave fans a chance to express their opinions and add to their ability to be a fan. I could tell it was just going to keep getting bigger and bigger.”

He was right.

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.