Volume 78/Number 4
Fall 1998
Tennessee Alumnus
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Ward Signs Off

The Voice of the Vols, John Ward, says it's time for him to go.

By Tom Mattingly

The 1998-99 football and basketball seasons will be the last for longtime Voice of the Vols John Ward. He announced last summer that he would retire, along with his color commentator Bill Anderson. Ward's is the only voice that legions of Tennessee fans are willing or able to process in the context of a Vol athletic contest. When they watch Tennessee games on television, they mute the TV in favor of the Ward play-by-play. At games, they listen to Ward on their portable radios. In outposts not served by the Vol Network, they scan the radio dial for the static-riddled, but instantly recognizable sound of Ward's voice. One reason for his popularity is that he's very good at what he does. he has been named Sportscaster of the Year in Tennessee 27 times by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He's also a member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. The Vol Network, with 85 stations, is one of the largest college football networks in the country. Tom Mattingly, editor of Volunteers magazine, captured a lot of what's special about Ward and Anderson in this piece, which appeared originally in Volunteers.

In today's advanced technological world, here's the way you send out a release about significant happenings within the UT Athletic Department, done on something called a Fax -Expander:

"MEDIA CONFERENCE SET FOR WEDNESDAY: The University of Tennessee Athletic Department will hold a media conference in the Team Meeting Room on the second floor of the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center on campus tomorrow (Wednesday, June 3) at 11 a.m. The media conference will involve Vol broadcaster John Ward."

I felt a certain twinge of sadness doing this, but the die was now cast, and, what-ever would happen, would happen. All that was left now was the inevitable speculation on the talk shows.

The result of all this was the announcement on June 3 that Vol Network broadcaster John Ward and sidekick Bill Anderson were stepping down from behind the Vol Network microphone, effective with the last games of 1998-99, thus ending Ward's basketball broadcasting career which started in 1964-65 and a football broadcasting career with Anderson which started in 1968. It was a time frame in which the duo -became two of the most popular sports figures across the width and breadth of Big Orange Country, however you define that term.

"When 107,000 people show up for a football game or 24,000 come for basketball, part of the legacy goes to John Ward and Bill Anderson for creating an aura about our place that has just been tremendous," AD Doug Dickey said. "I appreciate all they have done and all they have meant to us."

Ward was succinct, as always. "I have a prepared statement and I'm going to read it: 'It's time.'" With that, he sat down.

I cannot let this moment, this time, pass without a few observations.
John Ward brought home the story of Vol athletics as no other man could. It goes back as far as I can remember to the time John was the public address announcer at Shields-Watkins Field, through taking over basketball and football broadcasts, and through today when I sit with John and Bill in press boxes through-------out the country, with binoculars in one hand and spotter's boards in the other.

Anderson was co-captain of the 1957 Vol football team. Of his 30-year broadcasting relationship with Ward, Edwin Huster of the Vol Network observed, "You can't imagine John without Bill or Bill without John."

There was the magic year of 1966-67 when the Vols surprised everybody by winning the SEC in hoops and Ward's broadcasts of road games were the hottest show in town. (When the Vols were at home, everybody was at the brand new Stokely Athletic Center here on campus to see the games in person, many albeit with radios listening to Ward's -broadcast.)

Tennessee won the SEC title that year in a triple overtime game at Starkville, Mississippi, when sophomore guard Bill Justus canned two free throws to give the Vols the victory. When the game ended, my recollection is that Ward said something like this: "Wrap it up, tie it in orange and white and send it to Bill Justus, care of Gibbs Hall, Knoxville, -Tennessee."

The beat went on over the years. There were the "Ernie and Bernie" years when Ward did the radio broadcast on an ever-growing Vol Network and then everybody in Stokely went home to watch the taped replay with Ward's radio call of the game dubbed over. One night at Kentucky, when Bernard King was at his best, Ward uttered these memorable words: "We don't editorialize much, but this young man can play this game."

There were also magic moments on the gridiron for Ward and Anderson, like the 1985 Alabama game ("Shula back to throw, left-handed, out into the flat...Broken up... Was that intercepted in mid-air? Ladies and gentlemen, what a play by Dale Jones!"), the 1986 Sugar Bowl ("Powell just came roaring down the greensward..."), the 1995 Alabama game ("80 yards, Joey Kent... Touchdown... on Play... No. 1") and many others. It was a grand and glorious time.

Then there are the numbers. Ward has appeared on weekly coaches shows since 1965 with Dickey, Bill Battle, John Majors, and Phillip Fulmer, a total of 340 shows. In basketball, since 1965, he has appeared with Ray Mears, Cliff Wettig, Don DeVoe, Wade Houston, Kevin O'Neill, and Jerry Green, a total of 337 shows. They started on time, finished on time and were anxiously awaited each week. Ward was the glue, the frame around the broadcast, doing the job the right way, whether it was after a win over Alabama or a loss to UCLA. It didn't matter.

The University of Tennessee Board of Trustees named the fourth floor broadcast area of Neyland Stadium the John Ward Broadcast Center in the fall of 1995, honoring his years of broadcast service.

For my part, I'll remember the nights on the road, studying spot charts, the thrill of the pre-game when Ward and Anderson set the stage for the game to follow and, of course, the thrill of a well-done broadcast. I think I'll keep a set of spotter's boards, complete with a Ward and Anderson autograph and message, this season.

There are two stories which will always be with me when I think of John Ward. One involved a trip John and his wife, Barbara, took on the Orient Express. Just before the train left the station, John and Barbara were in their seats when another man and his wife got on the train. The man walked past the Wards, looked in John's general direction and said, "Bottom [Ward's trademark description of a successful basketball shot]!"

The other was an injunction Lindsey Nelson had in his best-selling book Hello Everybody, I'm Lindsey Nelson. Getting ready to take a cue from Brent Musburger for a 1982 game at Pittsburgh, Lindsey thought about the days Musburger was his spotter and remembered "always be nice to the spotter."
Ladies and gentlemen, I can say for certain that John Ward and Bill Anderson were always nice to the spotter.

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