Football Time in Tennessee will never quite be the same.
On August 31st, The University of Tennessee’s football team played in front of a sell-out crowd for the first time in what seems like an eternity, but one man was noticeably absent. That man was legendary Neyland Stadium public address announcer and music industry titan Bobby Denton.
Denton, the former program director of WIVK radio, was the voice of Neyland Stadium for nearly five decades. He never missed a game after replacing John Ward, who went on to become one of the best college football and basketball broadcasters of all time.
Denton, the Knoxville radio legend, passed away last April after a bout with cancer.
The University of Tennessee has many football legends in its iconic gridiron history. Names like Manning, Holloway, Pickens, Shuler, Majors, Neyland and Fulmer sit atop the list. Phillip Fulmer and Johnny Majors both played and coached on Rocky Top. Robert Neyland built the Big Orange football program as fans now know it. And Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever wear shoulder pads.
But Denton was a star in his own right. If you didn’t know his name, you certainly knew his voice. His golden baritone echoed throughout Neyland Stadium for 47 years.
He is thought to be the longest-tenured PA voice in college football. He had a passion for the Big Orange and often kept fans in the games through some of the team’s lean years.
Like any other great craftsmen behind the microphone, Denton had his catch phrases such as his trademark “It’s Football Time in Tennessee,” and “Pay these prices and please, pay no more.”
But Tennessee football was only a part of Denton’s legacy. He cast a deep shadow in Knoxville radio at WIVK and beyond. The pipeline he created includes such personalities as Bob Kesling, now the voice of the Vols, Phil Williams, who has an afternoon talk show on WOKI, and Mickey Deerstone, now the program director at WNML where he has his own sports show during the morning drive. Deerstone is also the play-by-play announcer for Lady Vols basketball. Denton also mentored Jeff Jarnigan, another prominent Knoxville radio fixture and the man who now occupies the head chair in UT’s PA booth.
The list goes on, too.
Denton also worked with the Country Music Association and enjoyed a lengthy stint at Talladega Motor Speedway. He was influential is the music careers of many including local star Con Hunley and the band, Alabama. “He was a heavyweight in the music business,” Hunley recently told BLANK. “A lot of people don’t realize what an important cog he was in country music. Most labels would send him new products and depending on whether or not he signed off on it determined whether or not a song would be released as a single.”
“In fact, WIVK was such a strong station that a lot of country music stations programmed off of WIVK,” added Hunley.
Denton even had a courtship with country music legend, and Sevierville native, Dolly Parton. She wrote a song for him, which she performed at WIVK’s 50th Anniversary Party. The song paid homage to Denton’s “Slick Black Hair.”
Later in life, Denton’s black hair became white, but his voice and passion for music and the University of Tennessee, and its football team, never changed. Unfortunately, the last game he called was a heartbreaking loss to Vanderbilt that cost the Volunteers a bowl bid for a fourth consecutive season. “He really wanted to do that game in Bristol next year but it just didn’t work out,” mentioned a soft-spoken Hunley.
Life, football and radio do go on, but the Neyland Stadium experience will never be quite the same. The school paid tribute to its legendary PA man before Tennessee opened the 2014 season with a 38-7 rout of Utah State in a game that Denton would have loved to have been a part of.
Jarnigan took the mic for the first time ever for a regular-season football game during the season opener. He’s called Tennessee men’s basketball for several years as well as the last few Orange and White spring games.
Denton was a legendary PA man, but he also had one of the most endearing personalities. He treated everyone as if they were the most important person in the world.
He was a legend and he will be sorely missed.
In order to celebrate Denton’s life, BLANK caught up with a couple of people who were championed by him, including the aforementioned Con Hunley and Bob Kesling, the radio voice of the Vols. Here are their stories.
I first met Bobby about a year after I got back from the Armed Forces. I was playing weekly gigs at the Corner Lounge and at the Village Barn on Asheville Hwy. He liked my singing and told me that if I ever got a record, he’d play it. So I ended up getting a deal and recorded in Nashville and of course, when we got our 45’s pressed I came flying up to WIVK in my 1967 Plymouth Satellite. I couldn’t wait to get there ya know, so I ran upstairs to Bobby and he said, “Well let me have it, I’m gonna play it right now.” I told him to wait for me to get to my car cause I wanted to hear my self on the radio in the car. He helped me tremendously over the years and he was probably responsible for me getting a major record contract with Warner Brothers Records in 1977.
There was this golf tournament in Chapel Hill, TN put on by a big publishing company every year and Bobby got invited and asked me if I wanted to go. I said, “Sure!” knowing that I was gonna be in awe after he named off a few of the people that were going to be there. We’d play golf during the day and then we’d eat dinner and then people would get together in a room and play their songs. Chet Atkins was first hero and when I saw him I didn’t see too many other people. So we’re in a room and everyone is playing and all of a sudden Bobby speaks up from the corner of the room and says, “Hey Con, why don’t you sing a song?” My heart jumped in my throat and I tried to shuck my way out of it, but I ended up playing…I think it was a George Jones song…and there was a lady in the room who was the publicity director for Warner Brothers. After the evening was over, she sought me out and asked me if I played out anywhere in Knoxville. So she brought some people from Warner Brothers to see me play and next thing I know, I was offered a contract. Bobby was so kind to invite me to this tournament and he kept on me about playing that song and as it worked out, I ended up signing that contract. He was extremely influential in my career in so many different ways. He was like a brother to me.
– Con Hunley
I started working at WIVK back in the 1970’s while I was still going to UT. I got hired to do afternoon sports part time and at that time Bobby was the afternoon disc jockey. You didn’t want to miss work, because you never knew who would come by the station. It could be up and coming artists or it could be Dolly Parton or Waylon Jennings or Conway Twitty. Another thing that was amazing about him was that he was big in NASCAR as well. He was the voice of Talladega Speedway for all those years. So a lot of the NASCAR guys would stop in too.
Bobby was one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever been around. He could sell anything and the reason for that is because he was such a great people person. He genuinely liked people and he liked the competition of selling and promoting his radio station or whatever he was working on at the time. He was motivated by that just like athletes are to try to win a game.
The biggest thing about Bobby was that if you became one of his guys, he would be so tremendously loyal to you. He expected a lot out of you and he didn’t tolerate mistakes and lack of effort, but if you were one of his guys, he was in your corner. Everybody that worked for him knew that and so you didn’t want to disappoint him.
One of my favorite stories of him is from my early years at WIVK. I didn’t have a lot of money and I was putting myself through school, but I finally got my first new car. It was a 1974 Toyota Corolla. It didn’t have air conditioning and had an AM radio but I didn’t have air conditioning in my last car and it was brand new so I was happy as a lark. So I come drive it in to the station and Bobby was up on the landing smoking a cigar. He comes down and looks at me and says, “What the heck is that thing? It doesn’t even have air conditioning. It doesn’t even have an FM radio!” So he had Richard Harris, who was the engineer, come down to the car and said, “Throw one of those FM converters in this thing.” That was a big deal back then because a lot of cars didn’t have FM radios. So I’m thinking, “Gosh, Bobby’s being really nice to me. This couldn’t be any better.” Then I got my paycheck and Bobby had not only charged me for the cost of the FM converter, which I’m sure he inflated a little bit, he also charged me for installation. That month I lost money on that converter, but I’m sure he made it up to me. He loved to have a good time. And when you walk in the doors of WIVK you still feel a lot of Bobby Denton.
– Bob Kesling
