Bob Kesling reflects on storied career as ‘The Voice of the Vols’

Pierce Gentry: For listeners who might not recognize your voice, just introduce yourself … Say hello for all the listeners out there.

Bob Kesling: My name is Bob Kesling and I'm the lead announcer on the Vol Network, winding up my 26th season as the lead announcer on the Vol Network.

Gentry: We're here to reflect on your career as a whole, which beyond the Vol Network has also extended to several other outlets in the Knoxville area, including WIVK and WBIR. And if I remember correctly, you got your start about roughly 48 years ago?

Kesling: Well, I guess 1974. So it'd be about 50, I guess. One of my first jobs was right downstairs in this building. I got a job as the film editor on the Bill Battle Show, TV show. And back then all the games were shot on film – the highlights for the coaches shows and everything. So I think we had three or four cameras and at the end of the first quarter my job was to go around to those different cameras and get the film that they just shot of the first quarter. I'd bring it across the street here to the communications building downstairs. That's where the developing machine was.

And so I'd hand it to Mack McDougall and Mack would start processing the film. And then I'd go back to the stadium. I would watch the rest of the second quarter. And when that second quarter was done, then I would go around and collect all the film canisters from the second quarter and then bring those back across the street so they could start processing that.

Well, by that time the first quarter was done. And so I would sit in an editing bay downstairs, and it was reel-to-reel film. And so when the cameras would stop, it would put a flash frame on the film. And my job was to take a pair of scissors and cut the flash frame out and then glue the film back together and then go on to the next play and I would do that for every single play. I think I got paid $15 a game, and John Ward said I was overpaid. But anyway.

So I did that and so then when the game was over, John Ward and I don't know who brought the other third and fourth quarter canisters. I'm not sure who did that, but somebody did. I had John on the radio listening to the the Vol Network broadcast and then I was working through all of this. But when the game was over then John Ward would come over here and he'd write a script for the coach's show and Ernie Robertson would be picking out the highlights. And then at midnight we would go over to Channel 6, and we would tape the Coaches Show, with Bill Battle back in those days.

And then uh it was interesting. You're talking about technology – How they distributed the coach's film back then: They got drivers. They made dubs at Channel 6 and then they got a driver. One driver would go and drop a film off in Nashville, Jackson, and Memphis. Another one would take off and go south to Chattanooga and Atlanta. Another guy would go to Johnson City and over to Asheville.

And they would have to drive them by – get them there by – early in the morning so they could run the Coaches Show on Sunday morning. That was how sophisticated it was back in those days to distribute stuff. Now it's just on a satellite – just punch it up and here we go. But, uh anyway, I learned, you know, the grassroots of putting together a TV show – how you did things – and I got a chance to watch John work.

And then I tried to be the best film editor in the SEC, and then two years later John was looking for a spotter. And so I got to start spotting for him during the football games and that's really where I learned how to do play-by-play and do broadcasts: just sitting next to him for 15 years.

Gentry: That was in the late '70s, right? And you were at that time going to school here at UT. Were you studying broadcasting here?

Kesling: I was studying public relations.

Gentry: Oh, wow.

Kesling: Which was in the College of Communications, but I knew I wanted to do something in sports, but really I didn't major in broadcasting because I thought if I was in public relations that would open up a lot more doors for me. Because I didn't know, really, what I wanted to do.

In fact, when I was in school here, there was one night we had a bunch of knucklehead college kids and we went over to old Bill Meyer Stadium here to watch the Knoxville Sox play. They're the AA team for the Chicago White Sox. And there's about 500 people there for the game. So, we just went down behind the dugout to sit there and cheer on the team and everything. And the usher came up and we were in folding rusted metal chairs there behind the dugout and the usher came up and said, "You can't sit here. Those are box seats."

I said, "What do you mean they're box seats?"

"Oh, those are box seats. Those cost more."

I think the tickets for the game were like $4.50, maybe, and the box seats were $5. And we thought it was an outrage. They're going to charge us 50 cents more to sit in the box seats. And so what do you do when you're a hotthead knucklehead college kid? You go marching into the owner's office and you complain about that extra 50 cents that he's charging us.

And somehow before I left the owner's office, Neal Ridley, who was the owner of the team, I had talked myself into a summer job working for the Knoxville Sox. And as it turned out, I was the assistant general manager. I was the number two man on a two-man staff. And I put the flag up and I cooked hot dogs and I sold tickets and I took guys to the doctor and I took the uniforms over to CNS Laundry there on Magnolia to get them cleaned. Took the flag down at night, turned the lights out, locked the gate and that was it.

And so I was doing that and loving it. And I thought, “Well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be the next general manager of the Chicago White Sox. I'm going to be a baseball guy.”

And so I started writing little 30-second voicers, and I would call those in to any radio station and TV station that would answer the phone. And a bunch of the stations in town would carry them. You know, it'd be a 30 second deal like, “Mike Squires hit a three-run homerun in the seventh and the Knoxville Sox rallied from a three-nothing deficit to knock off the Savannah Braves five to four. The Sox have now won four in a row. They’ll try and make it five tonight at Bill Meyer Stadium. This is Bob Kesling reporting. Just little 30 second deals.

Well, WIVK in town would play those. And suddenly one day their sports director Paul Lyle called me and said, "Hey, you know, you sound pretty good on the air. We're looking for a part-time sports guy. Are you interested?" And I said, "Yeah." So that was in ‘74. So I was going to school. I was working at WIVK and then working with the baseball team at night and loving it and it was just an unbelievable experience for me.

And a bunch of the players, which even made it more special, a bunch of the players on those Knoxville teams eventually made it to the big leagues. And so then you'd watch big league baseball and yeah, I know that I know Rich Dotson and Steve Trout and Mike Squires and these guys that made it. But, uh, Pierce, I was going to go and when I graduated, I was going to Nashville. I was going to get a baseball job. I was going to find a baseball job someplace in AAA or maybe in the big leagues or someplace, but I was going to get a baseball job.

And um I'm getting ready to get married. So I've got to find a real job. And so I'm walking out of WIVK after I did my afternoon sports cast and Bobby Denton was uh running WIVK at that time and as I'm leaving after my 6:20 sportscast he says, “Where you going?”

I said, “I'm going to Nashville to get a job Bobby. I need a full-time job.”

He said, “Well we just bought WKDA over there in Nashville and Paul Lyl,e our sports director here, is going to go over there and be their sports director. Why don't you stay here and be our sports director?”

I said, “All right I'll do that.”

And so I did. I never made it to Nashville and I became the sports director at WIVK, and through that then I started doing Lady Vol basketball. I did Farragut High School football. Then in 1980 Channel 10 called me and I went to work for Channel 10.

And I'm not doing this to brag, but I've never applied – I've never sent a resume in for a job in my life. Doors have just kind of opened. But Lindsey Nelson told me something when Lindsey moved back here after his Hall of Fame career. He said, “You're going to get one break in this business. And have you worked hard enough to get that break to take advantage of it?”

And I always have remembered that my entire life. So, I've tried to work hard every day. And I found out when you work hard, doors do open, but you've got to make sure that every day you're trying to get better. And that's what I've tried to do.

Gentry: What did working with John Ward teach you specifically about both sports and broadcasting? What did he impart on you?

Kesling: Preparation. He would always tell us, "I don't need you excited for a Tennessee-Alabama game. I need you prepared. I need you to know what you're supposed to do. I need you to do it at a very high level and I need you to be consistent. I don't want to sit here and worry about whether or not you're going to do something or not or how the quality of …”

He insisted on quality in our broadcasts. And he allowed you to make one mistake, as long as it wasn't a stupid mistake. He allowed you to make one mistake, but you couldn't make the same mistake twice or you were gone.

And he expected you to be at a very professional level. It was interesting: back then, there weren't many games on television, back when I started spotting for him, back in the 70s. You maybe had one a year or something like that. But when it started getting more and more as we got into the 80s, but John would never let us have a monitor in the booth, to see, “Hey, what really happened on that play?”

He told us, “You have to concentrate. And we're radio guys and we get it right the first time. So concentrate and be prepared. Don't be excited. Be prepared and make sure you're involved in the broadcast.”

And it really helped your concentration level. You know, John was a lawyer who never practiced law. But he went to law school here at Tennessee because he said it helped him organize things for business and helped him think and and other things.

So, when he would come in to do a game, he'd have a clipboard and he might have 20 pages of notes, typed notes, and he might use 30% of it, but that just shows you that his prep work and how he did it. And I sat next to him. And the spotter is a guy who kind of helps identify who tipped a pass or who made a good block or verifying who carried the ball and those types of things. You're basically the play-by-play guy's assistant.

But sitting next to him for all those years, he just taught me so much. I had opportunities to go to some smaller schools. Because, you know, I was on Channel 10 at that time and I'd been on WIVK, and so I had a little bit of name recognition. So several small schools wanted to know if I wanted to come do their games. But I thought I'd learn a lot more just sitting next to John than I would being out there floundering in the wilderness by myself and it turned out to be a good decision.

Gentry: Working for WBIR, you went from being in front of the microphone to being in front of the lens. Can you talk about sort of how that happened and how you dealt with that?

Kesling: It's another thing: I was working at WIVK. I was happy. At that time, I was doing some Knoxville Blue Jay baseball games on the radio as well. I was doing Lady Vol basketball and working on the Vol Network, and was busy.

And I get a call out of the blue one day from Channel 10. And Scott Sams, who was their sports director, was going down to Dallas to become the Regis Philbin of Dallas television. And Judy Jenkins was the news director and she called me and said, “We'd like you to audition to be the sports director here.”

And I said, “What is that, what does the sports director do, run the department?”

“No, we want you to audition for the 6 and 11 o'clock anchor spot.”

I said, “Judy, I've never been on television in my life. I have no idea. I can't shoot a camera. I don't know which end of the camera you even shoot. I don't know if I can. You know, why would you hire me? I've never been on television.”

“Well, you've got a decent name in town and, you know, we hear you on the radio and you sound good. We think you can do this. So, can you come over tomorrow and audition for the job?”

I said, "Yeah, sure. I'll do that."

And so, I asked, you know, Bobby Denton, my boss. I said, "Channel 10 wants me to audition. Should I do that?" And he said, "Yeah, go ahead." He said, "Well, you know, it won't hurt you." I said, "Okay."

So, I go to Channel 10. I didn't even have a coat and tie on because I'm not going to get this job. But I said, I'll just go do this. So, I took my script from WIVK that afternoon. And Pierce, you know, when you look at copy, you know, that's 10 seconds and that's five seconds and you kind of time this out, right?

So, I kind of took my notes from my afternoon sports cast at WIVK. I didn't have a prompter or anything. And so, I walk out there and they said, "We'd like you to go three minutes." And I said, "Okay, I'll do that."

And, you know, sometimes, Pierce, you also know that your mouth works really good and other times it doesn't work at all. I mean, it's amazing how that works in this business. But just because there was no pressure on me, on my mouth, I couldn't have done it any better.

And so Judy Jenkins comes out. She wanted me to go to three minutes. And I said, “Judy, did I go too long?

She said, "No, you went 2:57."

I said, "Well, okay, that's good."

She said, "Do you want to do it again?"

I said, "Well, I don't know if I can do it any better. I'll do it again if you want me to, but I'm not sure I can do it any better."

“Well, okay, that's fine. All right. Well, thanks. We'll um you know, we'll be in touch.”

Which I knew what that meant. I mean, I'm not going to get this job. So, took my wife out to dinner that night and we were kind of laughing about the experience. Well, they called the next day, said “We want to hire you.”

I said, "As what?"

They said, "Sports director."

Hey guys, I've never been on television. What are you doing? I wouldn't hire me. And they did. And then they sent me to New York before I even went on Channel 10. They sent me to New York to do promos with the CBS guys.

Okay. So, here I am. I'm 26 years old now and I'm at the Marriott Marquee and I'm at Gallaghers Steakhouse there in New York with all these big shot nationwide sports casters from all over the country. Jim Hill from Los Angeles and Zip Rzeppa from St. Louis and all these different guys. And I'm 26 years old. I got one sport coat to my name. I've never been on television. I'm thinking, “What in the world is going on here?”

So the next day they sent us to Black Rock, CBS headquarters, and they had a script. I didn't even ask. I was so dumb back then. I didn't even know what to ask. And so they had a script. It said, "Hi, I'm Bob Kesling of Action 10 Sports and I'm blank of CBS and watch the NFL on channel 10 and this kind of stuff."

So I said, "Well, okay, we'll just kind of wing this." So there were three stools in there and there was a producer and a camera person. All of a sudden the door opens and here comes Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshshier, the number one team at CBS. And I'm going, "Holy smokes." Wow.

And Pat Summerall, “Hello Bob. I'm Pat Summerall.” I knew exactly who he was. So we started doing these promos and I'm about six octaves. “I'm Bob Kesling,” and “I'm Pat Summerall of CBS and watch Bob on Action 10 Sports,” “and watch the NFL on channel,” and so they said you can ask a couple questions. So I asked a couple of questions and then they leave and then the door opens again and here comes John Madden and Dick Stockton.

And this is before they teamed up Madden and Summerall the year before. And Madden comes in and he's, you know, larger than life. And he's throwing me all over the place. “Hey Bob, good –” I've never met the guy before. “Hey Bob, how you doing?” He's throwing me against the wall and everything. And so we, you know, “Watch John Madden and Dick Stockton on the the NFL on channel 10,” and “Watch my buddy Bob Kesling on Action 10 Sports and blah blah.”

And so I ask him a couple questions and they leave and I'm sitting there, my head's spinning. I'm thinking, "This is unbelievable." And so the producer goes, "Um, Bob, I think you're the youngest guy here."

I said, "Well…"

She said, "How old are you?"

I said, "I'm 26.”

And she said, "Yeah, I think you are the youngest guy. How long you been in the business? You did a really good job. How long you been in the business?"

I said, "I've been in the business about 30 minutes. That's about as long as I've been in the business."

But you know, that producer telling me that I did a good job gave me so much confidence. And so what I've tried to do, Pierce, with young broadcasters, I always try and tell them that you did a good job. And nice going. And you know, you got a chance to get better, but you did a really good job. Just to bolster their confidence a little bit because I think this business is really pretty much about confidence. And then thinking you can do it and then going out and proving you can do it.

So I come back to channel 10. I start working. I can't shoot a camera. I don't know how to edit. I'm sitting next to Bill Williams, the Walter Kronkite of Knoxville news. And I'm just, “What in the heck am I doing out here?” But it got better and then it got better and then it got better a little bit and I just started figuring out how to do television and it was great.

And then, still doing the Lady Vols at that time. And another interesting story was how I got started with Jefferson Pilot, which is now what the SEC network is. So the SEC basketball tournament was here in 1989, and I get a call from Jimmy Rayburn, who was the executive producer of Jefferson Pilot. And he said, “One of our announcers can't be at the tournament. We need somebody to do in between game interviews, postgame interviews and maybe be a sideline reporter. Are you interested?”

I said, "Well, sure."

And they said, "Now listen, the only reason we're calling you is because Channel 10 is carrying the games and you're Channel 10’s sportscaster. If they were on Channel 6, we'd be calling a guy at Channel 6."

He said, "I don't have to put you up in a hotel. I don't have to pay your plane fare or pay your per diem. That's the only reason I'm calling you. Do you want to work?"

I said, "Yeah."

I never even asked him how much money they're going to pay. I didn't care. So, I worked the SEC tournament in ' 89 and then in ‘90 They asked me back to work the tournament again. And then in 1991, I started hosting the pregame show. In '92, started doing play-by-play.

So again, it was just kind of right spot, right time. But I took advantage of that situation. When they called me, I was ready. And I could handle that. That was a big assignment, but I could handle it because I'd worked hard to get to that position. So I've had a stroke of luck a lot of times, but I also think that I've worked as hard as I can to get as good as I can be. I think.

Gentry: That's what I was going to ask is sort of, you know, to what you would attribute your success?

Kesling: Well, you know, it's funny. When I was at Channel 10, I would get up every morning and – I usually got up about 9:00 every morning – and my only goal that day was to beat Channel 6 and beat Channel 8. That was my goal that day. Whatever happened, I was going to beat them and be better.

Now, it didn't happen every single day, but I tried. That was my goal every single day, you know, because it's interesting – in sports television especially. I mean, we all know what the stories are. I mean, you know this week that Tennessee is playing UTEP. How can you make your story about Tennessee and UTEP better than your competitors? And that was what motivated me.

Every day, you know, you think, “Okay, the coach is going to retire, or he's going to be fired, or he's going to get a contract extension.” Everybody knows the same information. How do you make it better? Present the story better to your viewers or your listeners than the other guys. And I think my PR work and my marketing work that I did here at UT, I think that helped me a little bit because I think my whole deal was this is about marketing. This is about your product and presenting it to the public.

And yeah, it's news, but still it's marketing that news and how you delivered it. And that's kind of what motivated me at Channel 10 to try and be a little bit different and hopefully a little bit better than the other guys.

Gentry: Were you still working with the Vol Network while you were at WBIR?

Kesling: Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was still doing all the stuff with John and still doing Lady Vol basketball and I was doing a little bit of everything. I And again, I thank Channel 10 because a lot of TV stations wouldn't let their guys do that.

Gentry: Yeah.

Kesling: I mean, a lot of stations I mean, it would be … I would do the six o'clock news and I'd do a live report from the arena and then I'd call the game and then I'd go back and then put together my 11 o’clock sports cast. And if I did road games, I had to take vacation time and some of that stuff. But, you know, when you've got a situation, you're at the Final Four and you got a one-on-one exclusive on Channel 10 with Pat Summit, that's pretty special. And that's the kind of relationship I was able to develop and get those things.

So, there were a lot of advantages for me to be doing Vol Network and Lady Vol basketball, especially. And we used to have pay-per-view television games. and some also some Vol network TV games and I would do those. But so it was beneficial for me, I think, to be working on the Vol Network and Channel 10. It was kind of like a double-dip, and I think it really helped my credibility in town.

Gentry: Did you ever feel like it was too much? Did you ever feel kind of overwhelmed? That's a lot of work.

Kesling: No. No. I loved it. The games are fun. It's the prep work that is tiring, and wears you out, and the travel and those type of things. But once you sit down in that seat, you know, you kind of feel like you're kind of like an artist and you got a blank canvas and you got to try and paint some pictures and tell people where they are. When I was a kid growing up, and I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, I would sit there at night with the transistor radio under my pillow, not so much trying to learn to be a broadcaster, but I was a big Cincinnati Reds fan, still am.

And so I listened to the Reds game. I was supposed to be going to sleep, but I'd have to – I had to listen to see how the Reds did. Well, if the Reds won then I gotta go find out how the Cardinals did. So I'd flip it over to COX and I'd listen to Jack Buck and Harry Kerry. And then I'd find out how the Cardinals did. Then I'd flip it back over to KDA in Pittsburgh because I got to find out how the Pirates did. If the Reds won and those guys lost, then we picked up a game.

And then in basketball season, I'd flip it around. And I was lucky because we had so many teams up there that you could and the radio stations that you could get. So I would listen to the Dayton games and then I'd flip it down to listen to Cincinatti Xavier and then to Ohio State and it can get Indiana games and get Purdue games. It was amazing. I would just sit there every night.

And I was fascinated by how suddenly you could feel yourself at UD Arena or at St. John Arena or you know at Allen Fieldhouse or these or down at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. You kind of felt yourself in the building and in the moment. I thought that was magical. And you're sitting there, and it's just you and that announcer trying to slug it out and trying to get your team to the finish line and get a win.

I always found I was always intrigued by that and always was. I still love listening to AM radio and listening to basketball games all over the country. Uh just when I'm driving in the car just to listen to these games and now of course you can get it on your phone and get any play you want to.

Still that magic of being able to to put you and a guy in someplace like Paulie Pavilion and you're listening to your team playing UCLA and it's just you and him and you're driving down the road. It's pretty cool.

Gentry: Would you like to sort of talk to us a little bit about how you became the voice of the Voice of the Vols?

Kesling: Well, I think it's kind of another interesting story. John Ward retired before the ‘98 season, and I was still working on Jefferson Pilot then. So, I wasn't working Tennessee football games and I was kind of shocked. I thought, you know, John would keep going because he was in, as far as I could tell, pretty good health. So, I was kind of surprised by it and it took everybody by surprise.

So, John kind of did his, you know, he wanted to drop the mic, but Doug Dickey convinced him he needed to take a, you know, a victory lap and so he did. But I, you know, I was under contract to Channel 10 and I was under contract to Jefferson Pilot. So, I didn't feel that, you know, I was perfectly happy with what I was doing and I figured if UT was interested, they knew where I was. But I was perfectly happy.

I mean, I knew if I gave up the Jefferson Pilot gig, I mean, there'd be 300 people the next day applying for it because it was, you know, a plum position. I mean, who wouldn't want to call SEC football and basketball games on TV, the game of the week? I mean, it was it was a great job.

So, I had not talked to Coach Dickey at all about it. Hadn't sent in a tape. Didn't send him a resume, nothing. Didn't talk to John about it. Didn't talk to anybody about it. The folks at Channel 10, when John made the announcement, they wanted to re-up me. And so, I said, "Well, okay, if you meet these financial demands that I want,” which were pretty modest, but I didn't want them to – I didn't want to work weekends in the summer anymore, because I was working every weekend during football and basketball.

And once I got my Jefferson pilot schedule, I didn't want them to mess with it because we'd had a couple of conflicts where they made me change some things and I didn't like that. So, “you can't, you can't change my JP schedule. Once you approve it, you can't change it.” And so, we could never get on the same page with that. And I just kept saying, "Okay, I'll sign if you guys meet these demands." Well, I didn't hear from them. They wouldn't do it. And I hadn't heard from Coach Dickey.

And the Monday after John's last basketball game, Doug Dickey called me at my house at 7:30 in the morning. “Can you be in my office at 9 o’clock?”

I said, "Yeah."

And I didn't know whether or not he was going to ask me who should we hire or what do you think and what's the job like or are you interested. I didn't know what he was going to ask me, but I showed up at his office at 9:00. And he asked me, "Are you interested in the job?”

I said, "Well, I'm interested in talking about it."

And so we started talking about some of the things that happens, and what his vision was for the job. John did not work for the university. John was a freelance guy. And so Doug Dickey wanted a guy to work for the university. He thought he'd be able to control a little bit more of uh you know what was going on and make sure that you did public appearances and go to Big Orange Caravan stops and all those type things.

And so he was going to kind of change the model a little bit. So we talked on that Monday. He said, "Come back on Wednesday and we'll talk some more." I told Channel 10 that I've been in contact with UT but if you meet my demands, I'll go ahead and sign with you.

Then Wednesday I went back to meet with Coach Dickey, and we kind of talked about financial aspects and some of the other things. And he said, "I'll have a contract offer for you on Friday."

I said, "Okay."

And so I went back to Channel 10. I said, "They're gonna give me a contract offer on Friday if you guys meet my demands. You know, I'd told you I'd still sign with you guys and extend it because Jefferson Pilot had a contract on the table for me too to extend. Because it was lucky timing, because both of my contracts were running out. But Channel 10 didn't say anything.

And so I had the offer in my car over the weekend. Didn't have the guts to look at it. Got up Monday morning. I had a lawyer friend in town who was helping me a little bit on the contract terms and went up to his office and I said, "Uh, well, here's the offer."

He said, "You haven't looked at it?"

I said, "I don't have the guts to look at it. Go ahead and look at it.”

So he said, "Did you ask for this?"

I said, "Yeah.”

“Did you ask for this?"

And I said, "Yeah.”

“Did you ask for this?"

And I said, "Yeah."

He said, "It's all there. Everything you asked for is there."

And I said, "Wow."

And he goes, "Now wait a minute." He said, "Now you know this is over." He said, "Coach Dicky asked you what's going to take for you to come to Tennessee. And he gave it to you. So this is over. We're not negotiating. We're not bickering back and forth. This is over.”

I said, "You're right."

So now I had to go back and tell Channel 10. I've been at Channel 10 for 18 years. So that was like home for me. And I went over there and met with Jeff Lee, the general manager, and Margie Nichols, who was the news director. And Jeff had a big envelope under his arm. And he said, "You know, Bob, you've been part of this Channel 10 team for 18 years. We want to continue."

And he started to hand the envelope to me. And I said, "Jeff,” I said, “I just want to let you know that I've already accepted the job at UT."

And he put the envelope back under his arm, stuck his hand out, and shook my hand, said, "Congratulations."

I’ll never know. To this day, I have no idea what Channel 10’s counter offer was. I have no idea. I might have made the biggest financial mistake of my life taking the UT job, but I never looked back. And I was so thankful for Channel 10, what they did for me, how they helped me, and allowed me to grow as a broadcaster doing all that play-by-play work. I would not have this job if it wasn't for the folks at Channel 10.

So, that was a hard decision to leave. It really was. And to leave Jefferson Pilot, but when your alma mater calls, and you you can kind of get off the road a little bit, which I did because I was traveling every weekend from late August until the end of March, and every weekend. And so my wife kind of was glad that I took this job at least to be home some weekends.

Gentry: You're at the Vol network now. Would you like to sort of just recount some of your … just your favorite moments from this job?

Kesling: Well, you know, the favorite moment – and it happens every home game – is when they run through the T. I mean, just such – it stirs up all those emotions. And you know, having played here for a year … I mean, I got to wear the orange shirt for one year. I had played on the freshman team in in ‘72.

We actually played six or seven games, I think. I carried the ball nine times for 36 yards. And caught a pass against Alabama. And I told Coach Fulmer, he was a graduate assistant on that staff, I said, “I can't believe you don't give me the ball more. I mean, I've gotten, you know, 36 yards.”

So, anyway, but they uh he always told me to “broaden my horizons.” Which meant do something other than play football. But I was very fortunate to get a chance to play here and wear the orange shirt and we played Notre Dame and we played Kentucky and Georgia Tech and Alabama.

I mean, it was it was really a lot of fun. And so that was special. But the games they kind of all run together and people kind of go, “you remember that game,” and then it kind of jogs your memory a little bit. But I do remember the Alabama game here two years ago was one of the greatest, you know, nights. Doug Dickey used to tell us, “pride and tradition never graduates. And if you got pride and tradition, it might waver a little bit, but it never graduates.” And I thought that Alabama game two years ago kind of brought all that pride and tradition bubbling to the surface and really brought Tennessee football back on the national stage.

So that was special. I remember the six overtime game against Arkansas when Casey Clausen hit Jason Whitten right down the middle and the five overtime win at Alabama. The win at the Orange Bowl when Tennessee knocked off Miami. And their long winning streak down there.

But there are so many special moments. You remember the players, you know, Eric Barry and the Deon Grants and the – I mentioned Jason Whitten before – and Cedric Houston and Jamal Lewis and all these guys you got a chance to know. And then you see them go on and be successful in the NFL and in life in general. It's really kind of fun to go to the stadium and those guys will pop into the booth every once in a while, you get to see them. Got a nice note from Peyton Manning the other night on my retirement.

So just these bonds and relationships you've had – it's been awfully special. And you know, in basketball, you know Chris Lofton and Ron Slay and Allan Houston just down the list of all these great players I got a chance to know and be around. And Coach Barnes and and some of the other coaches that I've been able to work with and Pat Summit. I mean I haven't even mentioned Pat Summit.

When I started doing Lady Vol basketball back in the mid ‘70s, uh I got paid 15 bucks a game. And I had to get my gas money out of that. So if we did a road game, I lost money. But you know, 150 people at Stokely Athletic Center back then was a huge crowd. I mean that was big. Nobody wanted to do those games because it was women's basketball for gosh sakes. Nobody wants to do that. Well, I did because I didn't look at it as women's basketball. I looked at it as SEC basketball and I got a chance to get behind the mic and do more games. And that's what I thought was special.

And nobody could have envisioned back then that Pat Head would turn into Pat Head Summitt and suddenly she'd be selling out Thompson Boling Arena and I'd be going all over the country calling games and calling national championships and SEC championships. It was just a magical run with Pat. Every time I tried to quit, I said, "Listen, my schedule's –”

“No, no, you're not quitting. You're going to keep doing my game."

And you didn't tell Pat no. I mean, my schedule was jam-packed. Even when I was doing Jefferson Pilot and still doing some Lady Vol games, so I did games during the week, I couldn't do them on the weekends, but I did them during the week and some games on Sunday, but she wouldn't let me quit.

So, I did those games right up until I took over the Vol Network and then there was just too many conflicts to do, both men and women, so I had to cut back. I had a great lunch with her.

You know, people forget, they think Pat Summit from the get-go just won all these championships. She went to the Final Four seven times before she won her first championship. So, she kind of had that label, well, she can get there, but she can't win the big game. And so, I've been at Channel 10 from 1980 up through 1987. And it's kind of doing the same stuff, you know, Vol Network, Lady Vols, some UT baseball. And but, you know, I was kind of, am I going to be doing this same thing for the next 20 years?

So, I called Pat. I said, “I need to take you to lunch.” We went down to the soup kitchen down in Market Square. And I wanted to ask her, I mean, she'd won that first championship in ‘87. Most people thought when she won the Olympics in ' 84 as the coach that, you know, she'd go off and have her family and that'd be the end of her coaching career. I mean, what's bigger than the Olympics?

But she kept coaching and finally she had the breakthrough in ' 87 when they won that first national championship. And so I took her to lunch and I said, "What motivated you to keep going?"

She said, "Well," she said, "I knew we were close and I just had to figure out what's going to get us over the hump. So, I went to Chicago and I talked to Phil Jackson about running the triangle offense like he ran with Michael Jordan because we had Chamique Holdsclaw and I wanted to get her more shots. So, I went to Phil Jackson. I knew we needed to start playing more zone because all we were playing was man-to- man. We had to learn how to play zone and so I called Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and learned how to play zone and I just looked at how we recruited and how we were uh practicing how we traveled, nutrition.”

She said, "I broke down everything. I had to show people that I was the hardest working person in the building and it paid dividends."

I said, "Wow." And then I looked at her, said, "Well, Pat, I just I'm not asking to call anybody. I just need a little motivation here. I need to kind of get a kick in the pants a little bit because I've been doing the same thing for a long time and I just need to get a little fire started underneath me."

And she leaned across that table and gave me the stare, which you don't want to get.

And she said, "Bob, I have no idea how the people in your business hire people. I don't know how people at ESPN hire people. I don't know anything about the politics of any of that. But my guess is the reason that your phone is not ringing is you're just not good enough.”

She hit me in the head with a hammer.

I mean, I just didn't expect that at all. Now, she goes, "I think you're good because we listen to all your broadcasts. We put them over our game film, so I know what the score is and what time's left. I think you do a great job, but somebody doesn't or your phone would be ringing. So, you need to get to work, get better.”

I mean, she told me the same thing she would tell one of her players, “You need to work harder.” And I took it to heart, and I started to critique myself more, started to listen more intently to what I was doing, trying to pick out little things and maybe I could do better here. And the next year, Jefferson Pilot calls.

It just tells you, you know, a little bit of hard work never hurt anybody. And Pat Summit played a large role really in my career with that one luncheon just telling me I just I'm not very good. You need to get better and I think that's a lesson we all need to learn.

Gentry: In your career, your voice has become really well known. What does that mean to you for you and your voice to have such an impact on the lives of people that live here?

Kesling: Well, I've told this story a little bit and I'll tell it again. And I think this kind of symbolizes and kind of puts it into a little bit of a put a bow on about what you just said. We were at the Big Orange Caravan stop in Kingsport this year and they told me there was a young man that wanted to meet me and I said, "Okay."

So, I walked over and it so happened it was a young man who was blind. His name was Ryan and he had a he had a you know cane there and everything and I said, "Ryan, it's nice to meet you. How'd you get here?"

He said, "Well, I Ubered.

“By yourself?”

He said, "Yeah, I just do that all the time. I go everywhere with an Uber.”

“That's amazing,” I said.

He said, “I came there to – I wanted to hear from Coach Heupel and I wanted to hear from Coach Caldwell and Coach Barnes and you. And I wanted to meet you. Because you're my link to Tennessee sports because that's how I follow the balls is listening on the Vol network.”

I said, "Wow." I said, I asked him, I said, "Have you ever been to a game?"

He said, "No, I've never been to a game."

I said, "Would you like to go to a game?"

He said, "I'd love to."

I said, "Well, we're going to make that happen."

So, we got him tickets to the Kentucky game and his grandmother brought him and the grandmother's husband. So Ryan got to sit in the booth and he had a headset on but he had, you know, one ear covered and one ear open so he could hear the crowd. He'd never heard the crowd before. So when they ran through the T, I mean, he felt it.

I mean, he could hear the fireworks going off and everything. He'd never heard the band play because of the fact that, you know, we don't carry it on the radio and TV never carries the band. And he never heard the band play and he was mesmerized. And so, of course, Tennessee wins. And so, the game is over. I go up to him and I said, "Ryan, did you enjoy the game?" And he said, "This was the best night of my life."

So, that's what we do, you know. I mean, the games are great, but if you can affect somebody and help somebody and do something nice for somebody else, that kind of sums it up a little bit. And Tennessee football and basketball and athletics means so much to the people in the state that it's just special anytime they can grab a part of it. And Ryan that night grabbed a big part of it, and we were happy to have him in the booth with us.

At the Alabama game two years ago, my daughter and her husband took our two grandkids, Jack and George. At that time they were nine and seven, I guess.

And so of course the game's crazy and everybody's standing up the whole game and they're trying to look around to see if they can see the game and dodging and standing on bleachers and looking around and so finally It comes down to Chase McGrath's last kick to win the game. And so he kicks it somehow.

I still don't know how that thing got over the crossbar, but it did. And Tennessee wins the game. And everybody's going crazy. And my daughter Allison looks around. Well, George is gone. Has no idea where. He could be on the light tower as far as she knew. I mean, he's gone. And she panics a little bit.

She's looking around and she looks across the aisle and about four seats down, she sees Jack on the shoulders of this guy and they're jumping up and down and high-fiving each other.

And I said, "Allison, did you know who the guy was?"

She said, "I'd never seen him before in my life." Said, "What happened was he saw George trying to see the game and he said, ‘Young man, you're going to remember this the rest of your life.’ And he picked him up and he put him on his shoulders so he could see the last kick.”

And that's what makes Tennessee sports and the University of Tennessee so special to so many people across the state. When I first took this job, the first thing I did, I got in a car and I drove across the state.

And I went to every single Vol network station, about 70 some of them, and I would say, "You want me to go to Rotary Club with you? Do you want me to meet your advertisers? Do you want me to meet the mayor? What, you know, anything you want to do? I want to learn more about your town."

And it was such a learning experience for me because there are truly three grand divisions in the state of Tennessee. And each one is different. East is different from West and West is different from Middle.

But they have one thing that links them all and that's the University of Tennessee. I mean the people in this state take so much pride in this institution. I mean the blood does indeed run orange all across this state. And I learned that even more

So that was one of the great things. And I didn't get on the interstate. I stayed on the back roads and I saw all of Tennessee from down in Savannah to Paris to Union City to Johnson city. I was all over the state and that was one of the best three or four weeks that I had in this job because I got to meet so many people.

I got to learn how important the Vol network is and what a strong brand it is to everybody and just how special Tennessee sports is and how much they live and die with it.

Gentry: So that sort of brings us up to today. I'd like to discuss a little bit about your recent announcement.

Kesling: Okay.

Gentry: Tell us sort of what your thinking is and the decision you've made.

Kesling: It was tough. Uh, you want to get ahead. You know, us broadcasters, we're kind of like baseball managers. A lot of times we don't get to go out the way we want to go out and you kind of know the posies out there someplace chasing you, but you don't know how close they are. The last five years, every year I would go in and talk to the folks at UT and with the Vol Network and would say, "All right, I want to come back for another year."

And we've done that the last five years. And so this year they kind of said, “Well, you know, we need to have a plan. We need a long-term planning session and year by year is not really fair to us. We need to know because we don't want you to at the end of the basketball season just walk out and we, you know, leave us on alert. So, we got to have some kind of commitment from you.”

And I just didn't feel I could commit to three years, three more years. I just didn't know – I didn't know what type of broadcaster I'd be in three years, if I’d still have the passion in two or three years or, you know, is this a good time to spend more time with the family? We got our fifth grandkid coming in April.

Gentry: Congratulations.

Kesling: Thank you. We missed – I missed so much with my two kids growing up. All their soccer games and concerts, and I really regret that. I mean, because that's what the business is, you know, you've got a game and they've got a concert, you got to go to the game. And so now with these five grandkids … I mean, I didn't get to go to a single one of their football games this year.

They're all playing pee-wee football and I missed every one of them. Well, I don't want to do that anymore. So, we just kind of came to an agreement this summer and, this seemed to be a, you know, 26 seemed to be a good round number and here we are. So, you know, I'm going to miss it and I know it's going to be a big adjustment, but I know it's going to be … I'll be going to a game. It might not be a Tennessee game, but it'll be my grandkids game. So, I'll still be going to games, but it'll just be different.

You know, I've always said that doing games is the next best thing to playing. I mean, I love to play. I mean, I started playing when I was down in Fort Worth, Texas in first grade. I was playing tackle football and I played it all the way up through high school and I played … of course in, you know, junior high in high school I was track team and basketball. I was always playing sports.

So I knew I wanted to do something in sports and you get the same butterflies when you're getting ready to do a broadcast as you do when you were playing football. Because of the fact it's that you know you got to be at your best and are you ready? Have you prepared enough? What's going to happen? You're up, it's live and you can't make mistakes and you get those butterflies. You probably get them too when you start.

Gentry: Oh yeah.

Kesling: You get those butterflies because you're a little nervous. That fear of failure drives the boat a lot. And so you want to make sure you're at your best. So that's that adrenaline rush. And when they run through the T, you get that same adrenaline rush.

And yeah, I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss the adrenaline rush, I think. And just the people I've met. I mean, I've met so many great people down through the years. And it's been a great run. I mean, 26 years. There are not many guys that can say they've been at the same place 26 years doing play-by-play. So, I've been very fortunate and it's been a blast.

Gentry: If there is anything that you could do differently throughout your career, would you?

Kesling: I don't think so. I mean, I really don't. When I really started broadcasting, there were a couple of things I circled. I circled that I wanted to be a network TV guy. I circled that I wanted to be the play-by-play voice of a major school and I wanted to do major league baseball.

Well, I got two out of three, and I think if most broadcasters could get two out of three, they'd be satisfied. And so doing the Jefferson pilot games was just terrific and I did them for 10 years. And but you know it was interesting when I was doing those games on Saturday and uh I would be in Arkansas or I'd be in Starkville or I'd be in Colia, South Carolina – I'd always want to know how Tennessee was doing. And I would always get a better appreciation of how special Neyland Stadium is from being at these other places.

You know, Commonwealth Stadium in Kentucky, okay, they've got some traditions there, but it's not like here. And you'd go to Gainesville and in Gainesville, they've got some, but it's not like it's here. I mean, you just got a greater appreciation of how special game day is at Neyland Stadium and just what a truly spectacular venue it is just because of the fans and the passion of it.

So, I gained a greater appreciation and that's maybe why when Doug Dickey offered me the job, I jumped at it because I understood just how special Neyland Stadium is. Because I'd been on to every single venue in the SEC and I knew that this place is different. And so I'm just glad it's worked out this way. And no, I wouldn't change anything.

Gentry: Any parting words or final thoughts or sign offs for listeners?

Kesling: Well, I wouldn't be here without the listeners. I wouldn't be here without the fans because they listen and they're the ones that built the Vol Network because of their passion across the state. I just want to thank them. And come up and say hi when you see me walking around because I'll have plenty of time to be walking around at the end of the season. So, I'll be doing something. But come up and say hi. And if you guys need any part time handymen around the house, just let me know because I will have plenty of time to do stuff. But I thank everybody. They've just been great.

Gentry: Bob Kesling with the Vol Network, thank you so much for joining me.

Kesling: Thanks for having me, Pierce.

This interview and transcript have been lightly edited for the sake of clarity.