With Humor and benevolence, Russell Biven sets sail on new adventures
It’s no act.
Walk into Russell Biven’s home, and it’s just what you would expect after watching him on television for the past 21-plus years. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, not unlike the set of WBIR’S “Live at Five at Four,” which Biven co-hosted for nearly two decades. He was also the weekend sports anchor and anchored the morning news show “10 News Today.”
When Biven decided to leave WBIR earlier this year, viewers surely felt like an old friend was leaving town. Biven, though, is staying in Knoxville and has a stack of plans in the works, at least one of which will probably land him back on TV or with an internet program.
Sitting in his West Knox County home with his wife Ronda and their two children Will, 18, and Kate, 15 (oldest son Allan is grown and currently out of state), Biven says the decision to leave WBIR, Channel 10, was tough.
“No doubt about it, it was hard,” says Biven. “They wanted me to stay. … But we prayed about it and just felt like it was time to go in another direction.”
His final week was filled with loving tributes and good-natured jokes, which was a little different from his first weeks at the station in 1999.
“The first phone call at the station that I ever answered…we had just finished the 11 o’clock newscast on Saturday, and I’m the new guy and picked up the phone,” explains Biven. “I said, ‘Channel 10. Can I help you?’ [The voice on the other end said] ‘Yeah, that new sports guy sucks!’”
Ronda had already given him good advice before he started.
“You’re not going to please everybody, so just don’t worry about that,’” she says. “‘You’re gonna have to get some thick skin.’”
The Journey to Knoxville
Born and raised in Atlanta, Biven made videotapes of himself pretending to be a sports announcer before he was a teenager.
“I had a voice of gold, though!” says Biven with a laugh. “It was velvet! Jim Nantz couldn’t hold a candle to me!”
While they’d known each other since they were 13, Russell and Ronda began dating when they were both sophomores at Dunwoody High School. Future television personality Ryan Seacrest was only a couple of years behind them.
After high school, Biven enrolled at the University of Alabama where he majored in marketing and played basketball.
“I wouldn’t say played,” says Biven. “I was told I was on a reserve team. I was riding with [University of Tennessee basketball coach] Rick Barnes the other day, and he was talking to [former Alabama basketball coach] Wimp Sanderson, and he said, ‘Wimp, was Russell any good?’ And he said, ‘No, not really.’ I said, ‘Wimp, I’m actually in the car.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I know!’ He’s 82, and we still talk about every two months.”
After college, Biven landed a job at CNN in Atlanta.
“I was doing international sports, so I was doing cricket and rugby,” says Biven. “I literally went to the bookstore to buy ‘Cricket for Dummies.’”
International sports, though, wasn’t where Biven’s interests were, and he told CNN vice president of sports programming Bill Galvin that he needed to report on college football. Galvin had interned at WBIR and decided it would be good for Biven to do so, as well.
“He says, ‘Here’s the deal: Bob Kesling’s leaving to go to Tennessee … You’re gonna go to Channel 10 and intern there for three years, and then you’re coming back.’”
At first, the move was stressful. Ronda’s father had recently died, and she was pregnant with the couple’s first child.
“And that’s when Tennessee teams were really good, and he worked all the time,” says Ronda.
In fact, the football team, the basketball team, the women’s basketball team and the baseball team all were having great years.
“I thought, ‘Can’t they please just LOSE a FEW games!,’” says Ronda, laughing. “He really was gone covering everything. And we’d just moved here and didn’t know anybody, so the Weigel’s people became my friends. I’d just stop and talk to the people who worked there.”
After eight months, WBIR offered Biven the chance to co-host the “Live at Five” program. Biven decided to forego his return to CNN and stay at WBIR. And people in town began to notice him. News anchors are local celebrities. Ronda recalls Russell being a little uncomfortable with it at first.
“We would go places, and you would hear, [she whispers] ‘Is that Russell Biven?’ And Russell would say to me, ‘Am I supposed to act like I heard that? Am I supposed to keep walking and act like I don’t know?’ It was so new, and what do you do with that?”
However, when people actually approached Russell, the response was always warm.
“It’s always nice when people do that,” says Biven. “I’ve always been a people person, so it’s never bothered me. I think that’s why this place is so different and special. People are just kind.”
Kids used to come up to the family at restaurants and ask for Biven’s autograph, surprising or confusing the couple’s kids. Now they take photos, and Will often takes the photos for fans.
“It’s funny sometimes,” Will says to his dad. “People will say, ‘Are you Russell?’ And you’ll say, ‘Only if you like him!’”
It didn’t take long for Russell and Ronda to fall in love with Knoxville and make good friends.
Reporting for WBIR gave Biven the chance to have adventures. Highlights included going to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, and covering “American Idol” when Knoxville’s Emily Ann Roberts was competing on the show. But it was really making the difference in people’s lives that meant the most to him.
When a father and his 9-year-old son were separated during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Biven and WBIR helped reunite them. The son was in Knoxville, and Biven and his WBIR co-workers called hotels all over Columbia, South Carolina, until they tracked down the father and had him flown to Knoxville.
“The son didn’t know he was coming into the studio, and then he just ran and jumped into his arms,” says Biven.
Biven says WBIR helped give him a platform to help charitable organizations he believes in, including Mission of Hope, Helen Ross McNabb Center and KARM. But he says the most special moment probably was coordinating with Whitestone Church and several politicians and businesspeople in helping adopted Haitian children get to their adoptive parents in Knoxville after the 2010 Haitian earthquake.
“This was the first time I had ever talked to Jimmy Haslam, and I called and asked him if he could loan me a jet,” says Biven. “I called him and said, ‘Jimmy, this is Russell Biven, and there’s some kids we’re trying to get out of Haiti, and we need to meet them at the tip of Florida, and we need to borrow your jet!’ And his answer, really, didn’t really surprise me. He said, ‘Domestic or international?’ I said, ‘We’ll take whatever.’ He said, ‘Well, if you’re not going to be leaving the tip of Florida, take the domestic.’ And he gave me the jet.”
While Haslam didn’t know it when he agreed to loan the jet, it turned out that one of the adopting families was a Haslam employee.
“I went back to Haiti, and we tried to help them more because there was a little girl in the orphanage that we were helping support with Whitestone Church,” says Biven. “It was important to finish what we had started.”
Only a week before this interview, the father of one of the children adopted in that later trip approached Biven at a speaking event and told Biven that his adopted daughter was just graduating high school.
Relationships
While Biven’s own athletic career never took off, he’s regularly coached basketball, but he seems to believe the players are more important than the game.
“We have kids on our team who have a lot less than I ever grew up with, and I hope every kid that I coach knows that I love them, and I don’t coach them for a season – I’m here for a lifetime. At least as long as I’m living.”
Ronda says that notes that parents send after the season tell the story.
“He’s really encouraging. If he gets on them, it’s out of love. He encourages them and pushes them in a way to be successful.”
It’s the relationships that seem most important to Biven. He has nothing but praise for all his WBIR family. His former co-host Beth Haynes is “totally professional, incredibly kind and a sweet person.” On previous co-host Abby Ham, “She’s just a goober. … Funny and really good at what she does.” On cameraman Eric Foxx, “We could NOT do ‘Live at Five’ without him. I wouldn’t have wanted to.
“Todd Howell is like a big brother to me. He’s a dear friend. … Bill Williams is another one. He’s been huge in my life. When my dad died, I remember driving back from Atlanta, and I just had to pull over. Me and my dad were real close, and I called Bill. He’s lost two sons. I said, ‘Tell me this pain goes away at some point.’ He said, ‘It does.’ He’s just a great human being.”
He says his last week on the air, when he was being celebrated and his family and friends were making surprise visits to “Live at Five at Four,” was “crazy.”
“I never expected all that stuff. It was like a live funeral! I was like a little baby in the corner sucking my thumb. It was awful! I was crying.”
The Future
Biven is currently working at H.T. Hackney helping market the company’s brands, and he says he’s enjoying doing something new. He’s also writing a book of devotionals titled “Anchored By Faith,” which he hopes to have published by Christmas of this year.
“It gives me a good outlet to tell stories about people I’ve met either in television or sports or family, in life, and then bring it back in to a certain Bible verse and a story of faith.”
And he’s looking at options for a television or internet show.
“It’ll be about good news, for sure,” he says. “It’ll have faith in there, but it’ll be good news stories and fun.”
And maybe, with not having to work split shifts, Biven will have more time to do things like playing Fortnite and make TikTok videos with Kate and Will. Both children laugh at how their dad gets crazy when he wins at Fortnite.
“Nobody can hang with me,” jokes Biven.
Humor seems to be a constant in the house, and it’s part of the glue that bonds the family together.
“I love to laugh, and every day he makes me laugh,” says Ronda. “Even if I want to be mad, he’ll say something so dumb that you can’t help but laugh.”
Biven says there’s something else, though.
“I firmly believe, and I grew up this way – my mother taught us that if you’re not living for other people, then you’re really not living,” says Biven. “It’s kind of a waste of breath if you’re coming and going and not helping people. It’s what we were brought up to do, and hopefully what our kids will do as they get older – and hopefully are doing some of it right now. Our faith plays a big role in that in not just helping other people, but wanting to. It’s really that simple. You get a lot of enjoyment out of helping other people. It’s always better not to focus so much on yourself.”
bledsoe@blanknews.com
We miss watching Russel ..on the news ..We hope his new adventure is as great as he is and we Pray that his new life soars like the Eagles . .
My daughter worked at WBIR
Russell was always smiling. A great man.
Hey Russ, just now read the above article. I want you to know there are three reasons WBIR is still my go-to station for local news. First, Carl Williams; second, Bill Williams and third, You.. Miss you man. Thanks for making Knoxville your home. You have done much for this area. Thank Ronda too