Mattingly: A good listener is privy to great stories

Sometimes the greatest and most memorable moments in a lifetime of covering sports come when you least expect them. Occasionally, you hear some amazing stories, eternal truths, perhaps, that stick with you forever.

"You can hear a lot by listening," Yogi Berra is alleged to have said. Lindsey Nelson said Yogi probably never said everything attributed to him, but there's no sense in letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

At former University of Tennessee athletics director Bob Woodruff's memorial service in November 2001, the Rev. John E. Pennington, Jr., said that Bob had an amazing sense of perspective, a sense of balance in his life. Sports fans these days have these qualities ... and in abundance.

Pennington noted that there were times Bob's son Joe would be agonizing, as youngsters do, over a game that had gotten away. Woodruff's response was to the point: "There's always another game."

When Joe exulted over a big win, Woodruff's response was, again, "There's always another game."

Despite an occasional bump in the road, there has always been another game, another weekend, for Tennessee fans.

Consider the "bumps in the road" Gen. Robert R. Neyland faced, most notably in 1947. There were no talk shows in Neyland's day, but fans were still very direct with their opinions about the direction of the program. The General would not have liked today's media milieu.

When things were going badly that season, a Vol fan on the elevator at the Chisca Hotel in Memphis said some disparaging things about the General after a lopsided loss to Ole Miss (43-13) at Crump Stadium. Two weeks later, after a 13-6 win at Kentucky, the same fan said, "There's the greatest coach in the country."

Neyland had overheard both conversations was to the point when he said, "That's not what you were saying two weeks ago."

Since Tennessee only lost 31 times over the course of Neyland's career (1926-34, 1936-40, 1946-52, with a record of 173-31-12), losses were often so surprising Vol fans really didn't know how to react.

Elizabeth Majors once said that she "sent three boys to the University of Tennessee, John, Bill, and Bob. They came home as Johnny, Billy, and Bobby." All that, she said, came courtesy of one of the two daily newspapers. She never let on which paper did so. That was important to her because her name was "John Elizabeth Bobo Majors."

There was a television play-by-play announcer who smoked a great deal in the press box, and everywhere else, in those long-ago days when that sort of behavior was tolerated.

There was one game at Florida, televised by CBS, when Verne Lundquist had a staff minion pass a note through the curtain separating the two broadcast venues, saying, "Get rid of the d--- cigarette." Such is life in a crowded broadcast venue.

Occasionally football spotters get more recognition than they deserve (or want). In 1999, at Tuscaloosa, Ala., the Vol coverage team downed a David Leaverton punt inside the 1. That's not considered good field position for the offense.

The spotter that day quickly passed a note to the play-by-play announcer, saying that, just a week earlier, Alabama had uncorked a 99-yard drive for a touchdown against Ole Miss. The announcer, acting as if Moses had just handed down the Ten Commandments, said, "Our spotter just told me that Alabama had a 99-yard drive against Ole Miss last week."

The irony is the Crimson Tide did it again, mere moments later. Such moments put spotters' careers in great jeopardy.

Steve Early, head of the Vol Network, was a big Baltimore Colts fan, who relished the Colts' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers. He always talked about a mid-1960s Colts-Packers playoff game decided in the Packers' favor by a Don Chandler field goal, one that appeared well wide of the mark on television replays.

Former Vol Network analyst Bill Anderson played for the Packers. Early would, without fail, ask Anderson if the field goal had really been good. Without fail, Anderson would hold up his right hand and say, "I'm wearing a dang ring, aren't I?" That settled the issue, at least until the next time Early asked.

Finally, there was a story told of a rookie sportswriter, in search of an angle for a story. He pointed at the setting sun from the press box at the Polo Grounds and posed the following question to the legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice, a native of Murfreesboro.

"Is that west?"

Rice thought for a moment and said: "If it isn't, son, you have a heck of a story."

If you listen carefully, there are a number of wonderful stories adding greatly to the legendary moments of Tennessee football.

Yogi knew whereof he spoke.

"You can hear a lot by listening."

Tom Mattingly is the author of "The Tennessee Football Vault: The Story of the Tennessee Volunteers, 1891-2006" (2006), to be published in second edition in 2009, and "Tennessee Football: The Peyton Manning Years" (1998). He has overhead a number of interesting stories over the years. He may be reached at tjmshm@comcast.net. His News Sentinel blog is called "The Vol Historian."