ConnectTheKnox: Recent Episodes

Julia Hurley

Connecting Knoxville to the Nation, one interview at a time.

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley sits down with Dan Goss, an innovative restauranteur and philanthropist. They delve into the unique concepts behind his popular restaurant, Point B, located in Knoxville, and discuss his new venture, Greens and Grains. Dan shares his journey of starting Point B during the pandemic, his dedication to using local and quality ingredients, and his numerous charitable initiatives. From creative menu ideas to community engagement, discover how Dan's passion for giving back makes a significant impact on the Knoxville community. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:40) -  Explaining Dan's restaurant concept (03:14) -  Dan's philanthropy and charity (07:57) - What’s Dan’s new restaurant? (10:13) - Ad - Just Homes Group (10:43) -  What is Dan's family up to (12:03) - What’s Dan’s favorite menu items? (13:15) - Why Dan created a membership card for his restaurant (15:39) - Where you can find more from Point B (16:58) - Closing thoughts from Dan Links Referenced: * Amber’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberlynncarroll/ * Living East Tennessee: https://www.wate.com/living-east-tennessee/ * Contact Amber: acarroll@wate.com

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley sits down with Amber Carroll, the new host of Living East Tennessee on WATE. Amber shares her journey from Nashville to Knoxville, her love for the local community, and how she brings a personal touch to her interviews and segments. They discuss the transformation of Living East Tennessee, the importance of supporting local businesses, and the vibrant culture of East Tennessee. Amber also reveals some of her favorite local spots and her vision for the show in the coming year. Tune in to hear more about how Amber is making waves in Knoxville and beyond. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:55) - Getting to know Amber Carroll (02:05) - Amber's favorite segment on Living East Tennessee (04:11) - What are the new things Amber gets to experience? (05:48) - The opportunities working for the official home of the Tennessee Vols (08:08) - Amber's vision for Living East Tennessee in 2025 (09:50) - East Tennessee's best kept secrets shared with Amber (12:24) - Younger people still encompassing Knoxville's spirit (15:50) - Amber's favorite things in East Tennessee (19:18) - Where you can find more from Amber Links Referenced: * Amber’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberlynncarroll/ * Living East Tennessee: https://www.wate.com/living-east-tennessee/ * Contact Amber: acarroll@wate.com

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley interviews Erika Biddix, owner of the co-working space Aught. Erika shares her journey from launching Girl Boss Offices to rebranding as Aught, highlighting her mission to support female entrepreneurs. They discuss the significance of archaic words in branding, the impact of the pandemic on business models, the challenges and successes of women in entrepreneurship, and Erika's role as an entrepreneurial strategist. The episode delves into the importance of purpose-driven business, flexible working environments, and the support communities that aid women in defining their own success. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (01:00) - The meaning behind Aught (02:27) - Rebranding from Girl Boss Offices to Aught (05:06) - Transitioning from corporate work to being an entrepreneur (06:32) - The biggest self-hurdles for Erika (08:14) - Tips that will make a business last (10:42) - Ad - Just Homes Group (11:12) - The biggest challenges facing women in business (13:32) - Is childcare an issue for working women in Knoxville? (14:26) - Erika's thoughts on return to office (16:33) - What goes into transitioning into entrepreneurship (18:29) - Where you can find more from Erika and Aught Links Referenced: * Aught’s website: https://weareaught.com/ * Aught’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/942222426470098 * Aught’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weareaught * Erika’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555790129038 * Erika’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikabiddix/

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley chats with Charlotte Tolley, CEO of Nourish Knoxville. Learn about the organization’s mission to provide nourishing foods to the Knoxville community through farmers’ markets, SNAP doubling programs, and the East Tennessee Local Food Guide. Charlotte shares the impactful journey of establishing the Market Square Farmers Market and elaborates on various programs aimed at increasing food accessibility and community engagement. If you’re interested in local food systems, community support, and innovative approaches to combating food deserts, this episode is a must-listen. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:45) - Learning more about Charlotte and her work with Nourish Knoxville (02:33) - All of the programs offered by Nourish Knoxville (07:56) - What is Nourish Moves? (09:41) - About Nourish Knoxville as a non-profit (11:49) - Ad - Just Homes Group (12:19) - How you can get involved in Nourish Knoxville's fundraisers (15:52) - Expansion and impact of the Market Square Farmers Market (18:51) - Recap of everything provided by Nourish Knoxville Links Referenced: * Nourish Knoxville’s website: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/ * Nourish Knoxville’s Local Food Guide: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/local-food-guide/ * Nourish Kids: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/programs/nourish-kids/ * Nourish Moves: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/programs/nourish-moves/ * SNAP & Double Up Food Bucks: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/programs/snap/ * How to volunteer with Nourish Knoxville: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/volunteer/ * Become a Nourish Knoxville sponsor: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/sponsorship-opportunities/ * Donate to Nourish Knoxville: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/donate/ * Friends & Farmers: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/friends-farmers/ * Winter Warmer: https://www.nourishknoxville.org/winter-warmer/

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In this engaging episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley sits down with Colleen Cruze, owner of Cruze Farm. They delve into the rich history and growth of Cruze Farm, starting from Colleen’s parents’ dairy farming roots to its present-day success with multiple ice cream shops and a pizza place. Colleen shares heartfelt stories about the family’s perseverance, community support, and the transition of the business across generations. The episode also highlights the deep-seated authenticity and commitment to local heritage that defines Cruze Farm, while discussing the latest ventures including a new event venue run by Colleen's mother. Listeners are treated to insights into the challenges and rewards of running a family farm and the importance of maintaining genuine connections with the community. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:54) - A little about Colleen and the background of Cruze Farm (07:23) - The growth of Cruze Farm (11:11) - Cruze Farm's new event venue (12:27) - Ad - Just Homes Group (13:29) - Where you can find all four Cruze Farm locations (15:11) - Something people don't know about Cruze Farm (18:15) - Cruz Farm's most popular items (29:00) - Where you can find more from Colleen and Cruze Farm Links Referenced: * Cruze Farm’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cruzefarm

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley interviews Cortney Piper, the influential founder of Piper Communications and executive director of the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. They discuss Cortney's journey from Michigan to the University of Tennessee on a swimming scholarship, her transition into the world of political communication, and her founding of a pioneering communications company focused on clean energy. The conversation highlights Cortney's advocacy for special education in Knox County, her instrumental role in shaping Tennessee's advanced energy sector, and her efforts in fostering economic development and job creation through energy innovation. They also touch upon the importance of women in leadership and the collaborative initiatives contributing to Tennessee's status as a hub for advanced energy and nuclear opportunities.

Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:50) - Cortney's time at The University of Tennessee (05:09) - How Piper Communications came to be (10:11) - Spearheading policy to help children with autism (15:44) - Ad - Just Homes Group (16:32) - The work needed to help Knox County students with autism (18:32) - Explaining the NOW Conference (22:47) - How Tennessee is able to expand its clean energy industry (25:00) - Where you can find more from Cortney and her work Links Referenced: * Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council: https://www.tnadvancedenergy.com/ * Piper Communications: https://www.piper-communications.com/ * Cortney’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cortneypiper/ * Cortney’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cortneypipes/ * Cortney’s Twitter: https://x.com/cpiper?lang=en

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In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, host Julia Hurley sits down with Catherine Porth, the visionary behind Let Her Speak, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women in Knoxville and beyond. Catherine shares her journey from corporate life to founding a movement that creates safe and supportive spaces for women to share their stories and become leaders. They discuss the cultural power dynamics women face, the importance of community and support, and Catherine's ambitious vision to expand Let Her Speak's impact globally. Join Julia and Catherine for an inspiring conversation on women's leadership and the transformative power of storytelling. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:32) - What is Let Her Speak? (04:09) - Leaving corporate work (06:03) - Harassment and the cultural power dynamics facing women (10:04) - Trying to change how women are treated in society (14:51) - Ad - Just Homes Group (15:20) - Finding a female ally (21:08) - Where you can find more from Let Her Speak Links Referenced: * Let Her Speak: letherspeakusa.org

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley talks with Wil Davenport, founder of It Begins Within, a leadership and growth coaching system. Davenport shares his fascinating journey from working in a church in Maryville to establishing his own business focused on psychological aspects of leadership development. Through an innovative approach involving active listening and experiential learning, Davenport trains individuals and organizations for real impact. The episode also touches on the importance of female leadership, Davenport's favorite Knoxville spots, and how his training methods are shaping the community. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (01:22) - About It Begins Within (02:42) - An exercise in active listening (09:05) - Ad - Just Homes Group (09:35) - How you can contact Will and It Begins Within (11:03) - Wil's favorite parts of the Knoxville community (13:08) - Wil's favorite restaurants (14:09) - Changes in South Knoxville (15:27) - Wil's dream opportunity to present his coaching (16:45) - Where you can find Wil and It Begins Within Links Referenced: * It Begins Within: itbeginswithindl@gmail.com * Wil Davenport: (865) 414-3900 * Navigating Difficult Conversations in the Workplace with Paul Boyles: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/navigating-difficult-conversations-in-the-workplace-registration-945650535207?aff=oddtdtcreator

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It’s football time in Tennessee! In honor of the start of the season, Julia Hurley sits down with Santa Vol, a beloved icon in the University of Tennessee Athletics community. They discuss Santa Vol's origins, his experiences and relationships with UT players and fans, his extensive participation in game-day events, and his impactful volunteer work, including efforts at East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Santa Vol also shares his thoughts on the SEC's expansion and the recent development of NIL deals while previewing his plans for the season. Tune in to hear how Santa Vol embodies the Volunteer spirit and contributes to the vibrant Knoxville community. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:40) - How Santa Vol came to be (02:24) - Perks of being Santa Vol (03:25) - Santa Vol’s history of attending games (05:31) - Volunteer work (08:47) - What goes into dressing up as Santa Vol (10:41) - Ad - Just Homes Group (11:39) - Adding teams to the SEC (14:59) - Thoughts on NIL (18:20) - Santa Vol’s schedule for the 2024 season (21:02) - How you can connect with Santa Vol Links Referenced: Santa Vol’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MrSantaVol/ Santa Vol’s Twitter: https://x.com/santa_vol Santa Vol’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/santa_vol/ Santa Vol’s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@santa_vol Connect with ConnectTheKnox - Follow the Podcast - * iTunes * Spotify * Or wherever you listen to Podcasts * Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley sits down with Travis Howerton, local entrepreneur, CEO, and co-founder of RegScale. Travis shares his journey through U.S. national security, his roles at Oak Ridge National Lab and Bechtel, and how his experiences led to the creation of RegScale. They discuss the entrepreneurial climate in Knoxville, the region's growth and appeal to tech innovators, and the impact of clean energy initiatives. Travis also delves into the exciting opportunities for young professionals in Knoxville. Tune in to learn how Knoxville is quickly becoming a hub for innovation and clean energy. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:38) - Meet Travis Howerton (01:59) - Why people are relocating to Knoxville (03:18) - East Tennessee as a clean energy powerhouse (05:08) - RegScale’s role in local nuclear facilities (06:25) - Travis’ background (07:12) - What RegScale looks for in students (08:37) - Ad - Just Homes Group (09:09) - RegScale’s growth plan (11:11) - Incorporating AI (12:53) - Who is Travis Howerton? (14:15) - Opportunities for younger people in Knoxville (16:28) - Favorite parts of Knoxville (18:05) - Where you can find out more about RegScale Links Referenced: RegScale’s Website: https://regscale.com/ Connect with ConnectTheKnox - Follow the Podcast - * iTunes * Spotify * Or wherever you listen to Podcasts * Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley is joined by Dana Hart, Executive Director of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Dana shares her compelling journey from Missouri to Knoxville and her deep involvement in the Hall of Fame. They discuss the Hall's rich history, its impact on women's sports, and its various educational programs and international recognition. Dana highlights the importance of the Hall of Fame to the Knoxville community and the future of women's basketball. Tune in for an insightful conversation celebrating the achievements and contributions of women in sports. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:47) - Dana Hart’s background (03:13) - The importance of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (05:53) - Location and cost of the Hall of Fame (08:33) - Hall of Fame induction ceremonies (11:31) - Ad - Just Homes Group (12:01) - Impact of the Hall of Fame (15:08) - Women's Basketball Hall of Fame summer camps (16:17) - Growing women's basketball (19:23) - Women’s basketball and Knoxville (22:19) - Where to find out more about the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (23:06) - Rapid Fire Round Links Referenced: Dana’s email: dhart@wbhof.com Connect with ConnectTheKnox - Follow the Podcast - * iTunes * Spotify * Or wherever you listen to Podcasts * Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

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Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley interviews TenHats CEO Brian Strong. They explore his career journey from various sales roles to his current position in IT and data center services. Brian explains the role of TenHats in providing essential IT infrastructure and support for businesses in Knoxville, highlighting the city’s growth as a tech and energy hub. They discuss the increasing demand for power, potential solutions like nuclear energy, and Knoxville's future prospects. The episode concludes with a rapid-fire round about Brian's favorite local spots, emphasizing the city's community and business appeal. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Intro (00:43) - Brian’s Business Background (02:03) - Knoxville’s Railroad Industry (04:06) - Julia’s Fate Encounter with Brian (04:48) - Brian’s Path to TenHats (06:47) - Learning From Prior Small Business Experiences (10:40) - Explaining TenHat and Its Services (11:09) - Plans for Future Expansion (12:41) - Ad - Just Homes Group (13:11) - The Energy Industry and Knoxville’s Growth (16:22) - The Local Future of Nuclear Energy (18:23) - Knoxville as a Tech Hub (21:17) - Rapid Fire Round (23:36) - Where You Can Find Brian’s Business Links Referenced: TenHat’s Website: https://tenhats.com/ Brian’s email: brian.strong@tenhats.com Connect with ConnectTheKnox - Follow the Podcast - * iTunes * Spotify * Or wherever you listen to Podcasts * Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

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From cheese making to fermentation, Kristin Webber has the knowledge to help you get back to the basics. Julia sits down with Kristin to find out what homesteading is, how Kristin developed her love for it, and why Knoxville has embraced her business with open arms. Plus, we find out where Kristin’s pseudonym “Chicken Librarian” comes from and what her plans are for scaling her business over the next 5-10 years. Links Referenced: Kristin’s Website: https://chickenlibrarian.com/ Events Page: https://chickenlibrarian.com/classes-and-events/2024-events/ Facebook: ChickenLibrarian Instagram: @chickenlibrarian Connect with ConnectTheKnox - Follow the Podcast - * iTunes * Spotify * Or wherever you listen to Podcasts * Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

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Sam Elliott, the Vice President of Development for the Young Professionals of Knoxville (YPK), shares his journey from a pilot to a pivotal community leader, detailing the impact of YPK in fostering a vibrant network for young professionals in Knoxville. Discover how YPK's connections, development, and service initiatives are crafting a promising future for the city’s young talent and how young professionals can get involved, grow their skills, and contribute to their community.

Show Highlights: (00:00) Introduction.

(01:07) Sam's background in aviation and community leadership.

(02:17) Exploring volunteer opportunities and community involvement in Knoxville.

(03:23) How the city supports a community-driven mindset.

(03:51) Overview of Young Professionals of Knoxville and their activities.

(05:22) Professional development events hosted by YPK.

(06:27) Leadership experiences within YPK.

(07:34) YPK’s affinity groups and personal connection opportunities.

(08:10) Discussion on Knoxville’s transformation into a tech and educational hub.

(09:28) Retaining young talent in Knoxville with strategic initiatives.

(10:33) YPK’s expansion into surrounding areas.

(14:05) Community service projects and their impacts.

(16:32) Regional expansion plans into Oak Ridge.

(17:11) Future partnerships and growth for YPK.

(18:44) Importance of community and professional development.

(25:13) Closing remarks and appreciation for Sam Elliott.

Links Referenced: Young Professionals of Knoxville website: https://www.ypknox.com/

Reach Sam via Email: advancement@ypknox.com

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In this episode, we meet John Ewart, the dynamic leader of the Knoxville Chapter of the Associated General Contractors. John shares his inspiring journey from his early days in the Navy to playing football at the University of Tennessee and how these experiences led him to a significant role in shaping Knoxville's construction scene. He discusses the importance of skilled trades like electric work and carpentry, the impact of the Women in Construction initiative, and how he is helping to grow the next generation of leaders in the construction industry. Tune in to discover how John's leadership is building a stronger community in Knoxville.

Show Highlights: (00:00) Introduction.

(01:00) John recounts his early experiences.

(02:31) Explanation of what AGC stands for and its significance in the construction industry.

(03:24) Details on the membership composition of AGC and its community impact.

(05:33) The role of AGC in workforce development, focusing on the Apprenticeship Program.

(06:04) Explanation of what a journeyman is and the value of the apprenticeship.

(07:09) Strategies to combat the workforce shortage in skilled trades.

(09:18) Insights into the Women in Construction initiative and its goals.

(11:00) Discussion on large-scale projects and the importance of blueprint skills in construction.

(13:36) The pivotal role of mentorship and networking in professional growth.

(16:00) The importance of community involvement and service in John's career.

(18:45) How AGC connects with legislation and the broader construction industry at the national level.

(20:43) The impact of social media and networking on professional relationships.

(22:35) Closing thoughts on leadership, community impact, and the future of Knoxville's growth.

Links Referenced:

Connect with John on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.ewart.92/

Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ewart-79645578/

The Associated General Contractors Of Tennessee: https://www.tnagc.org/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1tYTy1NQthNQ4nuE9ZdoJ9Gx5wYMK66xFKV5f2DHMR6jsdLmG1pBXSEqM_aem_AasVxJi0pfAijcboVz04oicdRqrQ2YjpNRhnK1Ni6J0d2U4s8D9xvbaFrQqBtocM2yUk3KDdvGQcb-M-_uZqzpnv

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This episode features Rebecca Ramsey, founder of Big Orange Country for Real Producers Magazine, discussing her role and its impact on the Knoxville real estate market. Julia and Rebecca discuss how Real Producers Magazine uniquely recognizes and connects top-producing real estate agents in the area, differentiating itself from other publications by not allowing agents to pay for placement. Additionally, Rebecca shares how she got into real estate publications, the importance of maintaining a solid network among top agents, and how her work helps elevate the professional standards and visibility of real estate professionals in East Tennessee.

Show Highlights: (00:00) Introduction

(00:37) Rebecca shares the origins of Big Orange Country for Real Producers Magazine

(02:12) Differences between Real Producers Magazine and other real estate publications

(03:20) Insights into the selection process and criteria for featuring agents in the magazine

(06:04) The importance of timing and organic connections in featuring agents

(07:52) The impact of Real Producers Magazine on Knoxville's real estate market

(10:23) How top agents maintain resilience and adaptability in a fluctuating market

(14:18) The role of exclusive networking events in fostering a community of top real estate agents

(19:22) The significance of sharing resources and vendor relationships among top agents

(26:42) Closing remarks and where to find more information about Big Orange Country Real Producers

Links Referenced:

Big Orange Country Real Producers: https://www.realproducersmag.com/locations/big-orange-country-real-producers-efa3/

Big Orange Country Real Producers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigorangecountryrealproducers/

Big Orange Country Real Producers On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realproducers/

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In this heartwarming episode of Connect the Knox, Julia sits down with George Bove, a cherished children's book author who brings the spirit of Knoxville, Tennessee, to life through his stories. George gives us a peek into how he crafts his engaging tales, shares his passion for community service, and introduces his latest book, 'The Little Orange Tea's Great Tennessee Adventure. Show Highlights: (00:00) - Introduction to the episode and guest, George Bove (00:37) - George introduces himself and the concept behind 'The Little Orange Tea' (01:48) - A surprise visit from a character and its role in George's stories (03:04) - Discussion on George's broader range of books and his writing process (04:21) - George's deep ties to Knoxville and his extensive community service (06:56) - George promotes Knoxville to potential newcomers and highlights local attractions (10:16) - George’s new book, 'The Little Orange Tea’s Great Tennessee Adventure' (12:03) - Where to find George’s books, including local and online stores (17:04) - Details on upcoming book projects and the creative challenges involved (20:21) - Future plans for book signings and special events in Knoxville (24:05) - Closing thoughts on the importance of community and family in George's life (28:40) - How to connect with George and final remarks Links Referenced: The Little Orange Tea on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Orange-T-George-Bove/dp/1631775367 The Little Orange Tea's Great Tennessee Adventure on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/little-orange-Great-Tennessee-Adventure/dp/195497874X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3K6HKXSTZEIP5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.LDAj3g9Cs71gPpODHcD-Pw.SyiMNNHyVhi98wzSOw4a_IMx1xB8aBgYWRtb3LdwSlw&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Little+Orange+Tea%27s+Great+Tennessee+Adventure&qid=1714966741&s=books&sprefix=the+little+orange+tea%27s+great+tennessee+adventure%2Cstripbooks%2C97&sr=1-1 Hound Dogs: https://hdknoxville.com/product/the-little-orange-t/ Connect with ConnectTheKnox - Follow the Podcast - * iTunes * Spotify * Or wherever you listen to Podcasts * Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

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In this exciting episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley speaks with Justin Cazana, one of Knoxville's leading commercial real estate brokers and developers. With over 20 years of experience, Justin shares stories about his experiences in real estate, his family’s history in the business, and some projects he's proud of, like improving old buildings and developing new ones. Justin also discusses how Knoxville's commercial spaces have evolved and what he sees for the city’s future. The episode highlights how important local knowledge and connections are in the real estate industry.

Show Highlights: (00:00) - Introduction to the episode and guest, Justin Cazana

(00:43) - Justin describes his role and history in Knoxville's commercial real estate

(04:30) - Justin’s reflection on his early experiences and the evolution of his career

(07:00) - Discussing favorite projects and their impact on Knoxville

(09:59) - Key transformations in downtown Knoxville and future projections

(14:09) - Insights into Justin’s family legacy in Knoxville’s real estate

(17:13) - The process and vision behind turning The Tennessean into a luxury hotel

(23:09) - Upcoming projects and the current state of office spaces in Knoxville

(28:21) - Personal recommendations for first-time Knoxville visitors

(30:24) - How to find Justin and closing remarks

Links Referenced:

Justins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincazana/

Justin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcazana?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Avison Young: https://www.avisonyoung.com/professionals/-/ayp/view/justin-cazana/in/knoxville

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In this episode of Connect the Knox, Julia Hurley engages with grants expert Lisa Shiveler. From her journey to Knoxville to her pivotal role in transforming local educational and community initiatives through grant writing, Lisa offers an insider's perspective on navigating the competitive world of grants. Learn about the opportunities that grants unveil for nonprofit organizations and community projects within the Knoxville area, extending from Crossville to Cocke County. Lisa's insights provide a roadmap for harnessing the power of grants to foster growth and development across East Tennessee.

Show Highlights: (00:00) - Introduction to the Episode

(00:27) - Lisa Shiver Introduces Grants and Their Impact on Knoxville

(01:21) - Lisa's Move to Knoxville and Why She Loves It

(02:51) - An In-depth Look at Grant Writing and Its Challenges

(10:12) - Explaining the Difference Between a Grant and a Foundation

(13:44) - Tips on Grant Research and Utilizing Resources

(16:24) - How Walter State Community College Benefits from Grants

(23:53) - Encouraging Community Engagement and Utilizing Local Resources

(27:22) - Lisa’s Favorite Knoxville and Morristown Spots

(31:05) - Closing Remarks and Encouragement for Grant Seekers

Links Referenced:

  • Visit Knoxville Website: https://www.visitknoxville.com/

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Julia is joined by Kim Bumpas, the president of Visit Knoxville, to discuss the transformation of Knoxville into a must-visit destination. They explore Kim’s journey in the tourism industry, the revitalization of iconic landmarks like the Sunsphere, and the initiatives that have put Knoxville on the map. Their conversation also touches on future projects, the impact of tourism on the local economy, and how to attract and retain young talent in the city. Tune in for the vision and passion driving Knoxville's growth as a vibrant, welcoming community! (00:00) - Introduction to the Episode (01:14) - Kim Bumpas shares her journey and introduction to tourism (05:58) - Sunsphere's revitalization and its importance to Knoxville (09:55) - How Visit Knoxville put the city on the map as a premier destination (14:00) - Starter pack recommendations for families visiting Knoxville (18:25) - Changes in Knoxville's tourism over the last 20 years (23:22) - Upcoming events and initiatives from Visit Knoxville (26:15) - Strategies to retain young talent in Knoxville and the role of Visit Knoxville (29:40) - Where to find internships, volunteer opportunities, and Visit Knoxville resources (30:23) - The best place to start planning your Knoxville vacation (31:10) - Closing remarks Links Referenced: * Visit Knoxville Website: https://www.visitknoxville.com/

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This episode of ConnectTheKnox features a conversation with Stephanie Vozar, Director of Corporate Philanthropy at the University of Tennessee, focusing on her role in forging connections between the university and corporate partners to prepare students for the future workforce. Julia Hurley and Stephanie discuss the impact of these partnerships on retaining young talent in Knoxville, Stephanie's vision for the growth of corporate philanthropy at UT, and her personal journey from Flint, Michigan, to her beloved Knoxville. The discussion offers insights into how education and philanthropy are pivotal in shaping a vibrant, economically robust community.

Show Notes

(00:00) - Introduction to the episode and welcoming Stephanie Vozar

(00:55) - Stephanie's journey from Flint, Michigan to Knoxville, Tennessee

(01:31) - Stephanie’s Transition from Young Williams Animal Center to the University of Tennessee

(02:48) - Overview of Stephanie's role in corporate philanthropy at UT

(05:10 ) - Addressing workforce needs through innovative educational programs

(10:47) - Efforts to retain young talent in Knoxville and the importance of internships

(14:10) - The evolving demands in key industries

(16:33 ) - Future directions for corporate philanthropy at UT and potential team growth

(21:26) - Connecting students with industry opportunities

(24:06) - Stephanie's personal connection to Knoxville and her favorite aspects of the city

(27:57) - Closing remarks

Links Referenced:

  • Visit Knoxville Website: https://www.visitknoxville.com/
  • University of Tennessee Foundation: https://www.utfi.org/
  • Young Williams Animal Center: https://www.young-williams.org/

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Julia Hurley talks with Kristen Combs, the creative mind at Visit Knoxville and the author of 100 Things to Do in Knoxville Before You Die. Kristen's move from Michigan to Knoxville led her to promote the city's rich history, lively culture, and outdoor activities. She shares how her book 100 Things to Do in Knoxville Before You Die came to be, combining her marketing skills with her love for Knoxville's diverse attractions. The conversation covers the growth of Visit Knoxville's, Kristen's journey in selecting the best experiences in Knoxville, and how the city's growth and its community are closely linked.

Show Notes

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:48) Kristen shares her personal journey from Michigan to Tennessee

(05:09) Kristen discusses the inspiration behind her book 100 Things to Do in Knoxville Before You Die

(10:27) The future plans to enhance Knoxville's tourism appeal.

(16:50) Exploring Knoxville's Festivals

(20:00) Kristens Personal Recommendations and Unique Finds

(28:00) Closing Remarks

Links Referenced

  • Visit Knoxville Website: https://www.visitknoxville.com/
  • 100 Things to Do in Knoxville Before You Die" Book Page:
  • Kristen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristencombs

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Zack Roskop, the innovative mind behind Knox Brew Tours, shares his journey from uncertainty to creating a unique craft beer experience in Knoxville on this episode of ConnectTheKnox.

Host Julia Hurley delves into Zack's story of how a simple guided brewery tour in Asheville sparked the inception of Knox Brew Tours, blending his love for Knoxville, craft beer, and community engagement. Zack discusses the challenges of starting the business, the evolution of Knoxville's craft beer scene, and the adaptability and creativity that kept his passion alive during the pandemic. The episode also highlights the importance of community support and connection in enriching Knoxville's craft beer culture.

Show Notes

(00:00) Intro (00:26) Julia introduces Zack Roskop of Knox Brew Tours (00:50) Zack shares the origin story of Knox Brew Tours (03:07) Adapting business operations during COVID-19 (07:00) The growth of Knoxville's craft beer scene and its community impact (14:00) Introduction to Knox Brew Hub (20:38) Zack's personal recommendations for experiencing Knoxville (23:30) The future of Knox Brew Tours and the evolving craft beer landscape (24:58) Ad - Just Homes Group (25:34) The significance of local support and engagement for small businesses (29:41) Zack's vision for connecting people through Knoxville's craft beer community (30:20) Outro

Links Referenced

  • Knox Brew Tours: https://knoxbrewtours.com/
  • Urban Wilderness: https://www.outdoorknoxville.com/play/urban-wilderness
  • Barley's Taproom & Pizzeria: https://barleysknoxville.com/

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John Volpe is the Chief Development Officer of Remote Area Medical (RAM), a major non-profit bringing free healthcare to Americans living in remote areas. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Julia sits down with John to discuss how Stan Brock founded RAM in the mid-eighties, the sadly dire need for free healthcare services in the US, and why volunteers are everything to the organization. John also gives us an inside look at how the Southern Tequila and Taco Festival came to be RAM’s largest annual fundraiser, and he details the impact the organization has had since its founding.

Show Notes

(00:00) Intro

(00:22) Julia introduces John Volpe, Chief Development Officer for Remote Area Medical (RAM)

(00:44) What is RAM?

(01:44) Where RAM sources its volunteers from

(02:39) Stan Brock and the founding of RAM

(04:52) The crucial role that donors play

(05:44) John’s journey to becoming the Chief Development Officer

(07:12) How the Southern Tequila and Taco Festival was started and became an annual fundraiser

(09:41) Ad - Just Homes Group

(10:16) The dire need for free healthcare services in the United States

(11:36) Why volunteers and public transportation are the lifeblood of the organization

(14:33) Where RAM sets up and the types of services they offer

(17:30) Best ways for you to connect with and contribute to RAM

(20:35) The top 3 places John takes people from out of town

(21:20) John’s parting words

(21:42) Outro

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Elise Collier Massey is the owner of Collier Restaurant Group in Sevierville, Tennessee. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Julia and Elise discuss the immense growth that Knoxville County has seen over the last 40 years, the generational differences in the restaurant industry that Elise sees as a third-generation restaurateur, and why being local is so important to her community and success. Elise also shares some exclusive information on her new restaurant, Roma Table, and Julia and Elise praise Buc-ee’s for its empowering effect on Tennessee.

Show Notes

00:00 Intro

00:21 Julia introduces today’s guest, Elise Collier Massey

00:56 Elise gives her family history and how she got started in the restaurant business

05:15 Julia and Elise reminisce over the Pigeon Forge staple, Magic World

06:48 How Elise moved from opening pancake houses to national chains

07:47 The growth Tennessee has seen over the last 40 years

09:56 What it’s like working in a family business

11:29 Elise’s vision for the future including opening her own original restaurant, Roma Table

14:18 Balancing the desire to change and move forward with people’s desire for consistency

15:20 Ad - Just Homes Group

15:56 How the restaurant landscape is different for Elise than it was for her father and grandfather

21:06 New developments coming to the area

23:57 The power of Buc-ee’s in Tennessee

25:30 Why being local is so important to the community

27:06 A rundown of all the restaurants the Collier Restaurant Group owns

28:51 What to look out for from Elise in 2024

29:31 Elise’s must-go place for anyone visiting Knoxville

30:49 Outro

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Marc Gibson is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Julia and Marc sit down to talk about what Tennessee is doing to stay competitive with its peer states including tackling issues of mobility, leveraging AI to keep their workforce competitive, and proper curriculum around farming and finance. Marc shares how capturing funding from large national grants is going to be his greatest opportunity (and challenge) for pushing the state forward especially at a time when a growing retirement population threatens the current status-quo.

Show Notes

00:00 Intro

00:22 Julia introduces Marc Gibson, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at University of Tennessee, Knoxville

00:55 Marc discusses how he works to keep Tennessee competitive with its peer states

03:42 How UT is connecting with small business to help them build and stay in Tennessee

05:40 Why capturing funding from large grants is Marc’s greatest opportunity and challenge

09:28 The value that technology and AI provide to the state’s future

13:40 An example of how ChatGPT can be integrated into schooling

15:56 Ad - Just Homes Group

16:30 Marc gives his thoughts on preparing the next generation to tackle tough issues around policy and technology

17:55 How failing to plan for the future can set the state and workforce back indefinitely

20:02 Leveraging Tennessee’s greatest economic drivers to create a vibrant future

24:04 Julia raises concerns around Tennessee’s growing retirement population

26:32 Marc shares his ideas for the state’s future growth including mobility and curriculum

29:13 Ways for people to connect with Marc

29:55 Outro

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Chad Zurcher is the Director of Baseball Operations at the University of Tennessee. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Julia sits down with Chad to talk about the Volunteer’s incredible connection with the community, the 95 million dollar upcoming stadium renovations, and the powerfully positive impact that NIL deals are having on the players. Chad goes in-depth on the numerous ways that fans can support the team on, and off, the field. Plus, the rippling positivity of Tony Vitello, and a brief glimpse into fatherhood as Chad talks about his new baby boy, Warren.

Show Notes

00:00 Intro

00:22 Julia introduces Chad Zurcher, Director of Baseball Operations at the University of Tennessee

00:50 Chad gives an overview of his position and how the Vols are growing

02:11 What stadium renovations are planned in the next 2 years

03:52 How NIL deals impact players on the baseball team

06:08 The power of fundraisers and connecting players with donors

09:32 Describing how scholarships work and why community support is so crucial

11:41 Julia details her love for Vols baseball

13:05 Ways in which the community can support the team

14:02 How to connect with Chad if you’d like to help out

15:36 Ad - Just Homes Group

16:11 Continuation of how to connect with Chad

16:57 Chad talks about his new baby boy, Warren

18:55 What the players’ schedules look like and how to get more involved as a fan

21:58 Discussing the effect of former pro athletes who have moved to Tennessee

23:16 The impact of Tony Vitello

25:06 Getting the community involved behind the scenes

26:03 Julia asks Chad where he brings people who have never been to Knoxville

27:08 Chad’s parting words

27:07 Outro

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Representative Tim Burchett is a Republican Congressman serving the 2nd district of Tennessee. In this episode of Connect the Knox, Julia interviews Burchett about America’s complicated history with UFOs, the Pentagon’s ridiculous need for secrecy and spending, and how well-intentioned officials can quickly become corrupt or compromised. Rep. Burchett also gives listeners an in-depth look into his family history, how he went from disposing of yard waste to devoting his life to serving the people of Tennessee as a national Congressman, and what he believes are the biggest issues facing our country today.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

00:20 Julia introduces Tim Burchett, Republican Congressman for the 2nd district of Tennessee.

00:52 Rep. Burchett goes over his family history and early life

05:23 The journey from local mayor to national congressman

08:33 Using social media to keep his constituents informed

09:27 Tim’s relationship with Matt Gaetz and other colleagues

10:54 Why people love Tennessee and their state legislators

12:05 UFOs and how the government profits from endless wars

20:52 Ad - Just Homes Group

21:27 The damaging effect of keeping secrets from the American people

23:11 Burchett’s ongoing battle with the Pentagon

24:27 Honeypots and compromised elected officials

26:25 How money helps congresspeople advance up the chain of command

29:02 Homelessness, drug cartels, and other important issues facing America today

32:43 Knoxville’s greatest assets: its food and its people

36:36 Outro

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • Rep. Burchett’s website: https://burchett.house.gov/
  • Rep. Burchett’s Twitter: @RepTimBurchett
  • Rep. Burchett’s 2nd Twitter: @TimBurchett
  • Rep. Burchett Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RepTimBurchett/
  • Rep. Burchett Instagram: @RepTimBurchett

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Dr. H.M. “Hash” Hashemian is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation (AMS), a nuclear engineering consulting firm headquartered in Knoxville. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Julia sits down with Dr. Hash to discuss the positives of nuclear energy, how AMS is doing control systems testing around the world to make nuclear energy even safer, and why Tennessee is such a hub for green energy. Dr. Hash also describes his love for the people and scenery of Knoxville, and how that led him to building his company and personal life in Tennessee.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

00:22 Julia introduces Dr. H.M. “Hash” Hashemian, who is President and Chief Executive Officer of Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation (AMS), a nuclear engineering consulting firm headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee

01:24 What Dr. Hash does in the field of nuclear energy

02:19 Why nuclear energy is important

05:00 Dr. Hash explains how nuclear waste is properly disposed of

07:21 How Dr. Hash’s hires and retains talented workers in Knoxville

09:27 The importance of vocational degrees in building and operating a nuclear power plant

11:27 A description of the control systems testing that AMS does internationally

13:28 Dr. Hash’s admiration for UT President, Randy Boyd and his ability for time management

15:17 Ad - Just Homes Group

15:53 Julia dives into the technical books that Dr. Hash has written

18:08 The role that Oak Ridge National Lab plays both locally and nationally

19:52 An in-depth look at everything happening in Tennessee surrounding nuclear energy

22:03 Why Dr. Hash loves the people, scenery, and history of Knoxville

25:25 Dr. Hash answers Julia’s fire round questions about his favorite local spots

31:34 Outro

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • AMS Website: https://www.ams-corp.com/
  • AMS Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/amsknoxville
  • AMS YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/theAMScorporation
  • AMS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ams-corporation/

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Dr. Keith Carver is the Senior Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice President of the UT Institute of Agriculture, which plays a huge role in our community and the future of our local farmers. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Dr. Carver describes the programs that UT offers not only to students, but also to locals who want to get involved with agriculture or even just learn more about how to take advantage of the local agriculture we have right here in our area. Dr. Carver also walks us through his lifelong career at UT, and shares insights into the 5-year plan for the future of the University.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

00:16 Julia introduces Dr. Keith Carver, who is the Senior Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice President for the UT Institute of Agriculture

01:34 Why Keith came to Knoxville from West Tennessee

02:45 Keith describes his role at UT

05:19 Julia and Keith discuss the value of local agriculture and working with your local farmers

08:05 What Knoxville residents can do to get involved with the programs at UT Institute of Agriculture

10:38 The challenges that Dr. Carver has faced in his career at UT and what he’s focused on in his new role

13:02 Julia and Keith discuss local dairy in Knoxville

15:25 Ad - Just Homes Group

15:55 Dr. Carver’s 5-year plan for the future at UT

19:15 What Keith would do differently if he could go back to the beginning of his career knowing what he does now

21:35 The various events and classes that UT offers to local people who want to learn agricultural skills

24:40 Dr. Carver answers Julia’s fire round of questions about his favorite local spots

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

  • UT Institute of Agriculture Website: https://utia.tennessee.edu
  • UT Institute of Agriculture Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTInstituteofAgriculture
  • UT Institute of Agriculture Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utiag/
  • UT Institute of Agriculture X: https://twitter.com/UTIAg

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Candace Viox is the owner of local restaurant and wine bar, Water Into Wine. Water Into Wine has become a staple in our community, and in this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Candace shares the incredible story of how she decided to open the business and the choices she’s made that led to her success. Throughout our conversation, Candace reveals how she’s been able to overcome the challenges of owning a local restaurant, as well as what drives her to keep moving forward. Candace also shares the tips she gives to friends who move to Knoxville from California, and her plans for the future of Water Into Wine.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:16 Julia introduces Candace Viox, the owner of local restaurant Water Into Wine

01:08 Candace shares why she decided to open her restaurant in West Knoxville

05:57 The choices Candace made to ensure she was creating a bar that aligned with her values and fostered a sense of community and connection

09:48 How Candace has overcome the challenges she faced as a restaurant owner

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14:57 The dreams and plans that Candace has for the future of Water Into Wine

18:47 Candace shares the impact that the community has had on her, her business, and the impact she feels she has had on the Knoxville community herself

23:42 More information on the weekly events at Water Into Wine

24:53 Candace answers Julia’s lightning round of questions about her favorite local hot spots

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Michael Galyean is a viral sensation and content creator who gained international attention when he participated in a recent viral dance number at a UT Football game. But what many people don’t know about Michael is how long he’s been dreaming about dancing on the sidelines at Neyland Stadium, and how involved he is with the local community here in Knoxville. Throughout our conversation, Michael shares insights on how he aims to bridge the gap between West Knoxville and Downtown, how the local community has partnered with him on recent projects, and his goals for the future including his upcoming podcast launch and children’s book release.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:23 Julia introduces Michael, who is also known as the “Blue Shirt Guy”

01:14 Michael describes his connection to Knoxville and how he came to live here after growing up in Delaware

04:10 How Michael went viral at a recent UT football game

07:04 How has the Knoxville community changed over the years and supported Michael’s career

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10:08 Michael’s views on the division between West Knoxville and Downtown Knoxville, and how it might be possible to bridge the gap

14:51 Michael’s goals for his future in Knoxville

18:02 Why Michael decided to write a children’s book and launch a podcast

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23:31 Michael’s favorite Knoxville spots

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

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Transcript

Julia: Welcome, everybody. This is Julia Hurley. We’re doing another amazing episode of Connect the Knox with Julia Hurley, your hostess with the mostest, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s amazing guest is my very good friend Michael Galyean—which I never pronounce his name properly—better known as Blue Shirt Guy. And if you don’t know who Blue Shirt Guy is, you’re about to find out everything that you need to know about the blue shirt phenomenon. Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Michael: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Julia: Yes, yes. All right. So, starting question. Did I pronounce your last name correctly [laugh]?

Michael: No one ever does. I’m not even sure if I do at this point anymore. I feel like if everybody else is doing it one way, I should just join in. But it’s actually ‘Gallion’ like, ‘scallion.’ Galyean.

Julia: Is Galyean a word? What is that?

Michael: It’s like after a ship or something? I don’t know [laugh].

Julia: We’re going to have to look it up. All right. So, very first question out the gate. We want everybody in the nation to know, what is your connection to Knoxville?

Michael: Oh, gosh. I feel like I have a lot of this point. I moved to Knoxville 23 years ago to attend the University of Tennessee. The story that I have been telling a lot—because of my recent viral-ness, but this is true—I came from Delaware. I applied at Tennessee and at Kentucky, and when we were doing our campus tours, Tennessee was our first. And let me tell you this was the first interstate I had ever seen. I had never really seen mountains before [laugh]. So, driving into Tennessee was already just this Dreamland, right? It felt like Hollywood. It was huge. Oh, my gosh.

And I remember coming down James White Parkway and seeing the river, which was gorgeous, and the bridges and all these skyscrapers. Again, Delaware. Two traffic lights, a McDonald’s. That’s it. So, [laugh] we turn the corner and I see Neyland Stadium, and I usually tear up every time I see this. But I’d seen Neyland Stadium and I was like, “I’m going to be a cheerleader in there one day.”

And I just remember seeing campus open up and just go, [singing] “Ahhhh, we’ve got you, little boy, Come on.” So, you know, and [laugh] I believe we stayed at a hotel on Lovell Road—before Turkey Creek was born; again, this was 1999—and I just remember thinking Knoxville was this huge Mecca, right? We went to Lexington. Didn’t fall in love with her. She was no good.

Julia: [laugh].

Michael: So, you know, just from the first—

Julia: Sorry Lexington.

Michael: Sorry. Sorry Lexington listeners. I’m sure she’s fine. But [laugh] no, it just as soon as I turned into Knoxville, it just gave me this vibe of home sweet home to me, right?

Julia: Yeah.

Michael: So, ever since then, I’ve had a—you know, it went from the biggest place, and then when you leave campus and you see the rest of Knoxville, you’re like, feels a little small. What are we doing? And then it opened back up for me, especially with the revitalization of downtown. So, I’ve got, you know, a lot of little pockets of areas that I love and where friends and family are. So yeah, I’m a Knoxvillean now. 23 years strong.

Julia: I love that. I love that story. “Ahhh.” You saw Neyland Stadium, it’s how we all feel about Neyland Stadium. “Ahhh.”

Michael: Yeah. It felt like I was actually running through the Power T [laugh].

Julia: [laugh]. Did you get to run through the Power T?

Michael: Not yet. That’s what I’m going to say. Not yet. I don’t know if they allow civilians just to run through [laugh].

Julia: They do. I think it’s a donation of $100,000.

Michael: Yeah, I’m not going to be running through the Power T.

Julia: [laugh]. I know that you have a lot going on in the Knoxville area due to, it’s not even that recent. It just feels like recently a lot of people have locally seen you, but you had a national exposure moment. On UT’s football field. We were there for it. Our seats were on the very first row and we saw this happening. And I was like, what is going on down there at the DJ booth? So, tell everybody that does not know what the scenario was and how this has catapulted you here in Knoxville.

Michael: Sure. So, I was invited by the dance coach, which is a friend of mine, Kelley Tafazzoli. She reached out to me about a week before we performed, saying, “We have this idea for a little bit.” You know, and there’s a lot of viral security guard, police officers, empires, dancing on the sidelines, and a lot of it's them battling with the mascot or just, you know, doing a little solo moment. And they were like, “We want to elevate it.” We know that—A, I have a dance background; B, I came to UT to be a cheerleader and chickened out, never fulfilled that dream.

And three, [laugh] I’ve been recently participating in a lot of the Jupiter Productions here in Knoxville, which film Snapped, and, you know, Homicide Hunters, and I play a lot of detectives, and police officer, and security guards, so [laugh] she knew I could play all three of those roles well. And so, we just, we put together a little skit in about four days. We had 30 minutes of rehearsal. And we just wanted to just elevate. And that’s, I think they’ve been doing really, really well the past few years is, football’s great; you also got to entertain us during those timeouts and those commercial breaks and really make it a full experience.

So, I was just be glad to be part of it. Even if no one ever recorded it, it was still the best day of my life just to have my dream fulfilled. I mean, it’s Neyland Stadium. You know, you and I went in there when it was empty and it still feels powerful, right? It’s—

Julia: It is.

Michael: There’s electricity in there at all times. So yeah, I kind of went internationally viral. It still is. I was just training in Sweden a couple of weeks ago [laugh]. I don’t know. But ESPN and GameDay just shared it for the fourth time this past week, so it’s still getting buzz. And the best part is, it’s still positive [laugh], all the feedback, for the most part, it’s 99.9% positive. And people are just happy to see joy and dance and just seeing the power of the Vols also so great day.

Julia: Sure, yeah. So, [unintelligible 00:06:53] we’ll talk about the chickening out of the cheerleading later on down the road, but—

Michael: Sure.

Julia: How has the local Knoxville community affected and changed with you? And what are you seeing what the local community do to help you catapult that—

Michael: Absolutely.

Julia: —dream?

Michael: Yeah. So, in the past few years, I—and we’ll touch on this, too—but I’ve been really involved in the Knoxville community in many, many different ways. And first of all, I am an ambassador and a navigator for the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, so I work with them on a lot of, what we like to call, like, client facing, so whether it’s ribbon cuttings or events with the members and kind of interacting with the community. But also with that, I’ve been working downtown a lot, which is new to Knoxville. In my eyes, we kind of have two Knoxvilles: we have our downtown, and then we have the rest of the county, right?

And they are two different worlds. They act differently, they are different, they have different needs and desires, and I’ve kind of—you know, and I live in West Knoxville. I’m on Cedar Bluff, so I’ve kind of been this bridge on my social media for years of that gap of downtown Knoxville is not that far away, it’s accessible, there are things to do. This isn’t 2003 where there was nothing to do. I understand.

But just showing them—

Julia: When I lived there [laugh].

Michael: That it’s not just a t—yeah, yeah. And it was desolate. I get it. Showing them that it’s not just a tourist trap and there’s little pockets and areas of really great restaurants and all that. So, I’ve always been that to my few friends and followers on Facebook and Instagram.

But now that I’ve kind of gotten this platform, there’s some validity there [laugh], and now I’ve been able to really celebrate and promote you know, my friends and neighbors that live in Knoxville and help just be a voice, not just to the locals, but there’s been plenty of people that have moved to Knoxville because of my dance. I’m just saying, I need a commission somewhere. I don’t know [laugh]—

Julia: [laugh].

Michael: I don’t know how to get that check. But I’ve had two or three people go, “We were debating between Nashville or Knoxville, and you and your energy have made us go to Knoxville.” So, you’re welcome, real estate agents [laugh].

Julia: I love you. I love you. I love you. I give you—

Michael: I’ll take it.

Julia: —props everywhere I go. I include you in everything I do [laugh].

Michael: I love it. Perfect. Same, same, and same.

Julia: Yes, and thank you, and thank you. So, Knoxville in and of itself, as small of us a town—a big small town as it is, what challenges have you faced and what challenges do you face and how are you overcoming those here locally?

Michael: Hmm. I mean, I think we can all talk about the first one and that’s just the inflation of prices. But that’s life. That is what we have. That’s what happens when we build a better town. But you know, it happened overnight, it felt like, and I know we’re not the only city. It is what it is. We do have to change with the times, I guess, but it is frustrating.

But I think all-in-all, I think that division of downtown versus the rest of Knoxville is kind of—I’d like to bridge that gap a lot more, and I think that comes with just mindset, I think it comes with education, I think it comes with just cross-marketing. Because I did run a company in Market Square for a while and we stopped promoting to West Knoxville because we gave up, saying, “Those people will never come downtown. It’s so far away.” And now it’s, what, 15 minutes on a bad day? But I think just something between those two, just to say this is one city. We’re acting like it’s two. And you know, whether it’s political or economic, there’s so many, just different divides within city Knox, county Knox, and I’d love to see those come together.

Julia: So, I think one of the things that—I live in West, West, right—

Michael: Mm-hm.

Julia: —out West, and I also see—

Michael: It’s the wild, wild west.

Julia: Wild, wild west [laugh]. We also see that separation and I think that what we see are two avenues of conversation, right? You see the Visit Knoxville, you see, like, the Knoxville Sports Association, and that only talks about everything going on in downtown Knoxville, even though Farragut pays city taxes. Like, pockets of the county pay City of Knoxville taxes. That Sports Authority only focuses on downtown Knoxville and UT. It only focuses on avenues that will create a downtown atmosphere.

And so, I think what we’re seeing is that people in Knox “County”—and I put that in quotations—don’t understand that they are part of the city. And they don’t see the benefit of being part of the city because if they go downtown, they get frustrated that there’s no parking or they can’t find a place to easily go into, they can’t walk in with their family and eat somewhere, or it’s—they’re really not sure what’s going on and there are 32 different websites to get to and they’re very cumbersome—

Michael: Accurate.

Julia: —because we are so blessed to have so much to do. So, how do you bridge that gap?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I… I think what I’ve always found with the people that don’t visit downtown Knoxville often enough, they like to come on, you know, old Boomsday, they come on game day, they come on Christmas parade day, they come on the most hectic days, and then go yeah, there isn’t parking because we’ve got, who knows, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, three parades, Barbie movie. Like, you chose the crazy day. Come down for Wednesday at lunch. Take a lunch meeting in downtown Knoxville, you know? Come to your birthday party on Wednesday night versus sitting in Turkey Creek for 30 minutes; you could be downtown in 15.

So, I think staying away from the crazy, then realizing it’s not that crazy. Yeah, and you’re right. There are a lot of outlets to figure out what’s there to do. I’d say make your own outlet, you know? Go down there and find it yourself. And everyone also thinks downtown Knoxville is Market Square only.

And that was true ten years ago, five years ago, but now we’ve got things like Old City, Historic North, Fourth & Gill, we’ve got South Knoxville now that is booming. So, there are little other areas where you can pop in, grab a beer, grab a bite, and be in and out with the same parking spot [laugh]. So, that’s my West Knoxville—

Julia: Your West Knoxville—

Michael: —hurdle is a—

Julia: —is [crosstalk 00:13:57] [laugh].

Michael: Yeah. When it’s like, we got a park here, but then we got to drive over here. No. But that’s why I still live out West. I love it too. So.

Julia: Yeah. Yeah, West Knoxville’s trying. Turkey Creek’s growing, West Town Mall is… the only mall that I know of in the entire southeast that’s still standing. So [laugh]—

Michael: Correct [laugh]. Correct.

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Julia: So, what are your plans and dreams for the future? And assuming that you’re saying in the Knoxville market, what are you doing to create that feel, to be able to bridge the gap, to be able to speak on behalf of the businesses and business owners in Knoxville? What are you doing for your future?

Michael: For sure. So, to answer the second question first, I’ve been working with things like downtown Knoxville, Visit Knoxville, and my outlets within Chamber to just use my platform, my social media platform, to show off my favorite thing. So, I’ve done a few posts that were quite successful, called “Dancing Through Downtown” where I showcased my favorite things to do in Market Square for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and a date night. Same thing in the Old City. So, just showing those easy-to-grab, easy-to-do, they’re not just there on the holidays, they’re there year-round.

So, I like to use that and just kind of make that bigger, just use that for—I’m about to collab with One Knoxville, the soccer team we have downtown. Not many people know that they’re actually playing because they [unintelligible 00:15:55]—they were waiting for the stadium to be open. So, I’m going to collab with them on just the how-tos, what’s going on, where to park [laugh], our favorite thing. So, I think just putting myself in any organic place, you know? I’m not the expert on everything in Knoxville, believe me. I know nightlife very well, but [laugh] yeah, just using my voice in any way possible to help.

Again, these are my friends and neighbors. I feel like downtown Knoxville—and I keep talking about that like it’s the only place, but they have been really great to me as far as being a safety net when I lost my career two years ago. You know, I built that network of local business owners and, you know, this marketing owner and this real estate—like, that was my safety net. So, I built that network. I was falling and I was caught. So, I love to help celebrate them as well any which way that I can.

The sec—or first question, I need a talk show. So, if anyone on here—that’s my ten-year plan. And I—we’ve always thought that this person was cheesy, but I think I want this career. It’s like a Ryan Seacrest situation—

Julia: Okay, okay.

Michael: —where it’s like, a host, where I can pop in and host things, I could have a daily talk show, I could do Wheel of Fortune, which I think he’s doing now. But just being a personality. You know, I tried the acting gig for a little bit. I’m already enough character. I don’t [laugh] I don’t know if there’s room for me to pull out another character other than myself.

So, love a talk show that is a combination of, like, an Ellen from the kindness standpoint, a Jimmy Fallon from the ridiculous standpoint, and then, like, a SNL Chelsea Handler irrelevance—irreverence kind of thing, where just [laugh], chaos but all comes together in, like, a place of joy and celebration. So, that’s the ten-year plan [laugh].

Julia: Very good. I think Knoxville will have that within the decade.

Michael: I agree. Yeah. I’d love to see that.

Julia: Well, in the ten year, tell me about the book you’re writing, and tell us about your podcast coming up?

Michael: Sure. So yes, I am in production right now with a children’s book called The Dancing Blue Shirt Boy. Wow, it’s so creative, right [laugh]? I don’t know where that came from.

Julia: I love it. I love it.

Michael: Wow. It’s currently being illustrated by a young lady here locally in Knoxville and it’s slated to be out, hopefully, by October, which would be the one-year anniversary of my performance. So, I’d love to just kind of piggyback that with, like, “Hi, here’s what I’ve been doing.” And the book idea came from a lot of different things. Obviously, kind of the story itself is already just well-written.

It combines my journey to get to Knoxville with how the dance came about. But also, you know, there was a lot of young gentlemen that came up to me. I had my first autograph request was by a little ten-year-old dance boy from my studio that I used to teach at, and I was like, “Okay, this is happening. Ahh.” And then I performed again in February for the basketball team and I brought out young dancers. I brought out some former students of mine, some colleagues, so there was about 15 Blue Shirt Boys out on the dance floor. And a customer at my brewery came up that I work at—I also work at a brewery; I have about five jobs; don’t worry about it—she came up and she was like, “My son and I were at that game”—

Julia: [crosstalk 00:19:36] Knoxville [laugh].

Michael: —“You know, that was awesome.” Yeah. I’m just, you know, here to stimulate the economy. But she came up and she was like, “My son and I were at the basketball game and we were watching you dance.” And again, I get—why am I so emotional today? Why did you catch me on today?

But she said he turned to me afterwards and went, “Mommy, can I take dance lessons so I could be as cool as those boys out there?” And I was like, someone—a boy thinks dance is cool? So, I was like, “Okay, I got to write this story.” Because I couldn’t find one on the internet about boys that want to dance where it’s not that Rudolph story where it’s like, let’s make fun of it, or he feels terrible about himself until they need him. There is that little bit of twist of, like, they invite him, but it was like, “We know you can do this. You’re amazing.” It’s more of, like, a self-realization, just go out there and do it, what makes you weird makes you wonderful so go celebrate that. So, excited for that. Hopefully the—

Julia: Oh, [unintelligible 00:20:36] I love that already. What makes you weird makes you [unintelligible 00:20:39]. I love it.

Michael: That might be book number two, so let me copyright that real fast [laugh].

Julia: Wait, [crosstalk 00:20:43].

Michael: Let me copyright that. Scratch that. Edit that out. Edit that out. And then yes, the podcast—

Julia: I have a trademark attorney. I’ll send him your way [laugh].

Michael: Perfect, perfect [laugh]. As far as the podcast, that’s kind of been a recent thing. You know, I love doing podcasts. I don’t know why. Me talking about myself? Weird. But I was on a podcast a few months ago, with Chris McAdoo, which is, he works for the Entrepreneurial Center downtown, he’s just kind of one of those downtown people that’s everywhere.

And we had a really, really good conversation. And the production company was like, “You ever thought about your own?” And I was like, “Ehh, it’s always been on the radar.” But we had a meeting, and I came with an idea called Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda. And it’s kind of touching on what you’ve asked a few times. Like, what are the things you wish you could have done differently or should have done differently?

And it sounds like it might be a little bit of a dark conversation, but I think those choices that we maybe missed out on led us to where we are, or maybe there was a great lesson with that. And some of them I want them to be silly, you know? Maybe you wish you could have jumped out of an airplane. Or maybe you wish you could have, you know, found your first love again, or should have not gone to college and wasted $90,000. You know, whatever the conversation might be [laugh].

Julia: One hundred thousand here. [crosstalk 00:22:10]

Michael: Uh-huh. Yeah, I only went for two-and-a-half years so [laugh]. But yeah, it just kind of went ahead. And they’re quick little chit-chats and then, you know, there’ll be some, like, life lessons in there and just tying that back to thinking about your life differently and kind of being proud of those choices that you made. Or didn’t make.

Julia: Hmm. Every choice you make leads you to where you’re supposed to be.

Michael: Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, I’m glad I wasn’t a cheerleader before because 23 years later, I got to be one and it’s much more fun now. But yeah, the podcast should be out—we’re shooting for probably late August, early September.

Julia: Very good. Very, very good. Well, we have a few minutes left, so what I like to talk about—

Michael: It’s so fast. What, are you kidding me?

Julia: During this last [crosstalk 00:22:59] everybody [unintelligible 00:23:00]—yeah, it’s already been 22 minutes. We, we—you know us. We could talk for days. We could talk for days.

Michael: Accurate. I got one cup of coffee in me. We’re ready to go.

Julia: So, give us the list. Give us a list of—and we ask everybody, like, your favorite grocery store, your favorite brewery your favorite restaurant, your favorite snack shack—

Michael: Oh gosh.

Julia: —you’re favorite dance club. Like, give us a list.

Michael: Okay, wow. I mean, grocery store. You got to go with the Kroger Marketplace on Cedar Bluff. That’s pure class, baby. That’s pure class [laugh].

Julia: The one in Farragut sells furniture. [It’s massive 00:23:40] [laugh].

Michael: Yeah. Well, they all did at the very beginning. They had TVs and furniture, and then the one in Farragut also has the beer bar, so that is—

Julia: That’s right.

Michael: A plus. I mean, gosh, West Knoxville, we’re booming. But let’s go. Favorite brewery. All right, my top three that I tell people. You got to come to Elst Brewery; it’s in North Central. I think we have very approachable beers. If you’re maybe new to the beer world, we’ve got a great version of each beer.

I also think people need to check out Pretentious down in the Old City. They blow their own glass and they make their own beer, so it’s kind of an interactive thing. You can take a glassblowing class, you can sit there and watch them make glasses. But he’s one of the first people I think that made the Old City what it is today. And I don’t know if you know this, but he is one of the top five Etsy makers of all time. So, Etsy came to Knoxville, saw how great we were doing and they deemed us the first Maker City.

Julia: Yeah.

Michael: Which really I think helped, I really think it helped boom, the weirdos coming to Knoxville, the makers, the creators, the artists, the musicians. You know, because we are that kind of child of Asheville and Nashville, where we—a little bit of country, a little bit of rock and roll, a little bit of crunchy, a little bit granola, and we’re all kind of this mix, which is awesome downtown. So, that would be my second. And then number three I believe is, like, Crafty Bastard, which we’ve got out west now. I really think they’re doing great things. It’s very interesting beer, especially in their downtown location.

Let’s see places to eat. Gosh, why are you asking me this?

Julia: Give me three.

Michael: All right. I can give you three. Don’t ever ask for one. Kaizen—

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Michael: —in the Old City.

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Michael: That’s always super approachable and casual, but some of the best flavors you’ll ever have. I love the Brass Pearl, also in Market Square. Seafood, raw bar, but also really great dishes. Oliver Royale if you’re wanting something higher-end—

Julia: Their cheese plate’s—

Michael: Great brunch.

Julia: —phenomenal.

Michael: Oh, I mean, just even their water is delicious. How does that happen [laugh]?

Julia: Well, they don’t get out of the river.

Michael: Right. Here you go [laugh]. Fresh from the bounty. Let’s see coffee shops, maybe?

Julia: Yeah.

Michael: Um, coffee shops. Likewise. I don’t know if you’ve tried likewise—

Julia: Yeah.

Michael: On Magnolia. Really great venue, just cozy, super cool. K Brew is always a classic. They’ve got plenty of locations and they’re still good quality. And then I also love Old City Java. I talk about the Old City a lot.

Julia: So, I lived in downtown. I lived down there when no one—like, the Old City Association had five members and [unintelligible 00:26:36] who was talking about coming. I mean, they weren’t even there yet. I mean, that’s when I was in the Old City. And the only thing there was Old City Java, and what used to be Manhattan’s, and I don’t even know what it is now. And I would—

Michael: Jig and Reel. Jig and Reel.

Julia: No, no—is it J—[unintelligible 00:26:53] was across the street.

Michael: That was, uh, Patrick Sullivan’s.

Julia: Patrick Sullivan’s. No, no, no, no. No, the one across from that.

Michael: Spicy’s.

Julia: With the big [taco 00:27:02].

Michael: That was Spicy’s back in—

Julia: Spicy’s? Okay.

Michael: My day.

Julia: Right.

Michael: 2000, maybe?

Julia: So, I lived above that.

Michael: Yeah.

Julia: Yeah, I lived above that.

Michael: Okay. Right on.

Julia: Yeah. There was nothing down there. Like, there was Hannah’s—

Michael: No.

Julia: —Sullivan’s, and Old City Java. I was there for the opening of Jig and Reel, that’s how long ago this was [laugh]. But Old City Java is honest to God, still today one of my favorite coffee shops.

Michael: Well, probably because the front door is so short, you actually fit in it perfectly, though, right? It’s such a small little front door. You feel—I am so tall today [laugh].

Julia: [laugh]. I feel very large and in charge.

Michael: Yeah, it’s very Alice in Wonderland. You’ve got to really duck in and under. But no, they’re great. It’s a really—it’s a good place.

Julia: That’s—all right, one last question. One last question. If people visit you from out of the area that have never been here before, what is the first place that you take them to? Where is it or what is it?

Michael: Probably my favorite building in town—and it’s such a cop-out—but the Sunsphere.

Julia: [laugh].

Michael: You can’t go wrong. I love it—

Julia: I love that because—

Michael: It’s gorgeous.

Julia: Yeah.

Michael: Well, people have no idea what it is, and to me, it’s a disco ball. But you know, I rented it out for my 40th birthday a year ago, so that was—so it was just one of those it turned 40 the same year I turned 40, we’re both Knoxville icons, and we both get lit at night. So—[laugh].

Julia: [laugh].

Michael: I thought, what a perfect match.

Julia: I love you so much.

Michael: You’re welcome.

Julia: Yeah, you’re awake at nine o’clock. By 8:45, I’m like this. Done.

Michael: Oh, yeah. Nine o’clock, we’re just waking up. Yeah.

Julia: Yeah. No my—

Michael: I love it. Night owl.

Julia: Wow. This has been one of my favorite podcasts. I love having you on anything that we do. Thanks for being on American Dream TV, selling Knoxville, our internationally known television [crosstalk 00:29:13]—

Michael: So much fun.

Julia: It was great. We appreciate everything you do. We appreciate Kelley bringing you on with the dance team because she has given us such insight and creativity to UT sports that’s not just players on the field, and we appreciate all of that. Everything you do for the chamber, Michael, thank you. We look forward to listening to your podcast. We look forward to reading and buying your book in October, and hopefully—and not, hopefully, but we will, you know, make sure that we beat Bama just in enough time to buy your book and celebrate it [laugh].

Michael: Please, absolutely. We need that [laugh].

Julia: So, thank you again for being on the show. Listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m Julia Hurley, your hostess with the mostest. Thanks for tuning in, and until next time, bye, everybody.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Pierce LaMacchia is the Founder, Owner and Operator of K Brew Coffee. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Pierce shares the incredible story of how he discovered that entrepreneurship was the only path forward for him and convinced his brother to drop out of college to help him start K Brew at 24 years old. Throughout our conversation, we discuss the importance of embracing change, how to evaluate if a college education is the right path for you, and the most important advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Pierce also shares his hobbies outside of running K Brew and his future plans for the business.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:21 Julia introduces Pierce LaMacchia, Founder, Owner, and Operator of K Brew Coffee

00:49 Pierce describes growing up in Knoxville and how he started K Brew

04:27 How embracing change has helped Pierce succeed and scale his business

06:48 Why college isn’t always the answer for everyone and the best advice Pierce would give to aspiring entrepreneurs

12:24 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

17:50 The vision of entrepreneurs and the importance of building relationships

20:05 The nuances of building relationships when you’re a female entrepreneur

21:19 Ad - Just Homes Group

26:14 Pierce’s future plans for growing his business and the opportunities he’s exploring outside of K Brew

28:35 Pierce answers Julia’s lightning round of questions about his favorite Knoxville spots

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • K Brew: https://www.knoxvillebrew.com/
  • Just Homes Group: https://www.justhomesgroup.com/
  • knoxvillebrew.com: https://knoxvillebrew.com
  • Dr. Joe Chiro: https://goseedrjoe.com/

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Transcript

Julia: Welcome back, everybody. It’s another amazing episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation. And today’s podcast guest is founder-owner-operator of K Brew, one of our favorite coffee places in all of Knoxville, Pierce LaMacchia. Pierce, thank you for being with us today.

Pierce: Thanks for having me, Julia. I’m super excited to be here.

Julia: [laugh]. Are you jazzed up on your own coffee today?

Pierce: So, jazzed up. Every day. On my own coffee [laugh]. I have to control myself.

Julia: [laugh]. It’s so good. So, we’re going to start it off the same way we start everybody off. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your connection to Knoxville.

Pierce: Yeah, I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, but Knoxville, Tennessee, is home. I moved here when I was five years old—my family—and family is all still here except for my older brother who lives up in Boston now. But yeah, grew up here, love Knoxville. You know, back in the day, I feel like it was [late culture 00:01:04], UT Vols, movie theaters, and restaurants and now it’s just exploded. We’ve got festivals, we’ve got concerts, we just have so much going on, I can’t even keep up with it. 2013, started K Brew and, you know, that’s a whole story in and of itself.

Julia: Well, that’s why we’re here. Tell us all about it.

Pierce: [laugh]. So yeah, my younger brother and I started K Brew in 2013. I was working at a local advertising agency and I just realized I needed to do my own thing. I was definitely not the best employee. I was very headstrong, trying to be a leader when that was definitely not my title.

And yeah, I was actually just having trouble sleeping as I realized that I needed to start my own thing, I needed to succeed or fail, run my own business. And so that, sort of, compelled me to start K Brew. And call my younger brother up, who was a sophomore at UT at the time, and said, “Hey, you want to drop out of school? I’ll quit my job and [laugh] we can go start this thing.”

Julia: A parent’s dream [laugh].

Pierce: And, you know, long pause on the phone, as he’s wondering the next five years of his life, what it’s going to be like, and he’s like, “All right, man. Let’s do it.” And so, yeah, happened very quickly after that. You know, we were open six months after that phone call. And then I feel like every year after that has just been a new element of growth, you know, figuring something new out.

And now we’re at four stores, we’re at a coffee roastery, we’re at a bagel bakery. I’ve got my bagel hat on to represent all my amazing bakers.

Julia: I love that.

Pierce: The bagels are baked fresh every morning and delivered every morning to all four stores, and we roast a lot of coffee. I think last year, my coffee roaster estimated that we roasted 93 million beans. So, you know, we roast a lot of coffee out of that, host a lot of events out of our roastery; it’s kind of an entertainment space and coffee roastery. So yeah, we’re having an awesome time, we’re having a lot of fun, you know, serving coffee and bagels to your city. It’s just, you feel like you’re fueling your city every single day.

And that’s what we love. We love being a place for meetings, synergy to happen, making connections, and all that stuff. So, you know, our mission at K Brew is to create and enable human connection. And so, that’s how we train our staff, that’s how we structure our stores. We want human connection to occur, especially in a year where a lot is happening online and not a lot is going on face-to-face. We really want to push the face-to-face.

And so, whether that’s a solo person coming in who can create some human connection with a barista, or it’s two people coming in and their goal is to have some human connection, we just want to facilitate that. That’s what K Brew is all about. And really the coffee and the bagels and the stores are just the tools that we use to accomplish that mission of human connection. So, super fun.

You know, I’m honored to be leading this thing. We got about 90 employees now. It’s hard to believe. We started off with, like, four employees and I was working behind the bar, slinging coffee. But yeah, roles change, vision changes and the growth is really just taken off, especially here the past couple of years. So, I’m loving it.

Julia: I think that what you just said encompasses why so many businesses don’t succeed and why yours has, is you literally just summed as vision changes, things change. And you have rolled with that change. Like, all right, this is changing. Let’s go let’s make a new vision. Let’s make a new growth plan. Let’s make some new employees. Let’s make [something 00:04:39]—

Pierce: That’s right.

Julia: —new. Change is okay. We’re rolling with it. Let’s embrace it and grow. That’s challenging.

Pierce: I’m a change person. I mean, I love new stuff, I love different stuff, I love change. And that can be its own challenge in business, right, because you do need to hunker down and just focus on one thing for a while sometimes. But you know, it’s great that you brought that up because in 2019, we realized that our first vision, we had accomplished it. When we wrote our first vision in 2013, it was to become Knoxville’s coffee company.

And you know, this isn’t to be disparaging of any other, the amazing coffee companies in Knoxville, but we really felt like that we had become that. And so, we said, “Okay, we’re going to check that vision off and we’re going to very quickly discover, you know, that bigger, broader vision, frankly, that we can take to other cities, as well.” You know, you can’t become Knoxville’s coffee company to California, but you can take this idea of creating an enabling human connection, you can take that anywhere. And I feel like there’s a lot of markets that desperately need something like K Brew as a community hub, as that place that human connection is happening. So, I love that you bring up a pivoting the vision, changing it, improving it because, yeah, that is a lot of business. And you know, we’ve been in business almost ten years now. Chances are, we got a new vision. I mean, heck, I was 24 when I started K Brew. Like, the idea that I had some perfect business vision at 24 is probably a little absurd.

Julia: Well, I think hilarious. You’re like, “Hey, kid, let’s drop out of college. Let’s make a coffee shop. Let’s go.” And [crosstalk 00:06:18].

Pierce: And, Julia, my parents were—

Julia: You are winning business awards.

Pierce: —my parents were so pissed at me.

Julia: [laugh].

Pierce: Oh, my God. I remember my mom saying, “Well, how’s he going to finish school if he’s running K Brew at the same time?” And I said, “Well, he’s not.” And she’s like, “Pierce.” [laugh]. I was like, “It’s his choice. He made it.” But yeah, it took them a couple of years to realize that Michael had made the correct decision. So.

Julia: Well, sometimes school is not the answer. It’s not the answer for everybody. And if it were, we wouldn’t have entrepreneurs.

Pierce: For sure. It’s a kind of a controversial subject these days, but you know, I’m pretty—yeah, I mean, I recommend people to really investigate if college is for them. I know a lot of young guys in particular—and I’m sure there’s a lot of young girls; I just don’t talk to as many of them—but there’s a lot of young guys who just want to get out and make money and start their own business and, like, hustle. And, you know, for me, I feel like that four or five years might have been spent better, you know, starting my business at 18. So again, entrepreneurship is not for everybody, just like college isn’t for everybody, and I feel like people need to—or young kids in particular really need to take a hard look at that.

Julia: What would be your best advice then into somebody… everybody—like, I’ve had my business a decade, right, and people are always saying, “Oh, I can’t believe you’ve made a decade. I can’t believe how much success you’ve had. I can’t believe, I can’t believe, I can’t believe.” And I’m like, if I would have started this pre-college, had I not gone to school—I had $100,000 in debt, right—so I leave college, I’m $100,000 in debt, the starting pay back then was $14 an hour. I think I’ve got a job making $24,000 a year as a bank teller, right?

Pierce: Hoo.

Julia: I’m making $0, I have rent to pay, you know, I had [insurance 00:07:57] your student loan payments, start the next day. They’re not, like, “Oh, look at you. Let me give you six months. So, they don’t care.” And the interest rate is, like, 25% on $100,000. I didn’t pay my student loan debt off until, like, five years ago. I’m [unintelligible 00:08:11], right?

Because I kept deferring it because it just was never enough. It was never enough. It was never enough. I started my own real estate firm. I started selling real estate, I realized I could start a coaching real estate company because now I’m an expert after a few years. I’m selling 100 homes a year. This is a system, it is a model, it can be recreated. It can be taught. Other people can do it. And I thought, how interesting. Had I had that $100,000 to start a business, how much further I would be in my life today? Not that I’m not far, but I could be further.

Pierce: Yeah. I think you’re pretty far, Julia.

Julia: But I also wanted that 80-hour workweek. And we all know it takes you know—Elon Musk says sleep in your office for the first few years. That’s what you do: you eat, breathe it, sleep it. That’s all you do for the first [few 00:08:55] years. And it builds itself and you create it. What advice outside of that would you give?

Pierce: You know, these days, when young people ask me if they should start their own business, I say, “No.” Or they say, “What’s your advice for someone who wants to start a business?” I say, “Don’t.” And I do that very intentionally because there’s plenty of motivational material out there. There’s plenty of people screaming at them going, “You can do it. Start your own thing.” You know?

I say, if I tell you not to do it and then you still go out there and do it, you should be doing it. Entrepreneurship is a calling, it’s something that compels you, it’s something that makes you do it. And you do that at the expense of—or I guess, counter—to everybody telling you you shouldn’t do it. And so, you know, I just feel like there’s a flood of motivational stuff out there. I really think that very few people—just percentage-wise—should probably be an entrepreneur and go out and do their own thing.

Because it’s grueling. Most of the people I meet who run their own business are various eccentric, very, you know, different. I’m definitely like that—

Julia: I’m like that [laugh].

Pierce: —is a little strange a little quirky, a little psychopath or something, you know? Yeah so [laugh]—but we had to. We were compelled to. And everybody in the world could have told me not to do it and wouldn’t have mattered. Even the voices in my head saying this is a foolish idea, it didn’t matter.

So, you know, it is a little bit of a joke, of course, when I tell a young person that, but there’s a lot of truth to it. You know, should they do it? Probably not [laugh] but that’s life, you know? And they should take risks and enjoy it. And, you know, just for any young person out there, all I would say, is count the cost.

If you spend four years at various coffee shops in a city and you intentionally get to know as many people as you can and just have a business card with your name and your phone number and maybe some of your passions and your hobbies, and tell a story and talk about your interests, you did that for four years instead of going to school for four years, maybe that’s the right path for you. Because your network is going to be monstrous. You’re probably going to have multiple job offers. But you know, I never want to disparage the engineer, the lawyer, the doctor, the people who really need to go through college and really need to get that certification. Like, that’s awesome, too.

But just count the cost, you know? Nothing is default. Entrepreneurship is not default; college isn’t default, you know? It’s not a system. We’re not on a manufacturing line that we all should be doing the same thing. So, you know, there are some serious downsides to going to school these days with the debt and all of that but, you know, if you’re looking to be a doctor or lawyer or whatever, there’s some serious downsides to not going to school.

You know, one of the best things that some of my buddies have done over the years and some of my mentees have been just a gap year. Just take a gap year. Like, go travel, go be an apprentice, go learn a blue-collar skill like welding or something, or you know, go get into car sales and just like, learn how to sell. You know, do something for a year so that when you make the decision to go to college, it’s really you making it, you’re not just following some, you know, preordained path. So, that would be my recommendation. You know, I’m certainly not anti-college, but I certainly don’t think that everybody should be going. And you know, especially with the internet and all these other tools we have at our disposal, just count the cost is what I’d say.

Julia: Yeah, I agree with that. I think there’s always a path. I always knew I didn’t belong where I was, but I really wasn’t sure how to get out of it. So, I was stuck. I was like, “Well, I don’t really love all the things that I’m being taught. I don’t see how I’m ever going to use them. I’m not sure this conversation is going to take place in my future. This is where I am right now.”

Couldn’t see where I needed to be. And then being offered a career where literally, I set the tone for what I’m going to do, what I’m going to do, and how I’m going to do it, and then bring people along with me, it’s like, “Oh. Oh, this is what this is. This is what I was meant to be doing.” But not everybody has that drive, either [crosstalk 00:12:56].

Pierce: We had the same—we had the same college experience. I mean, I was the exact same way, sitting there. And, and [laugh] how that manifested itself for me is a lot of, like, debating professors when I shouldn’t have been and just being—

Julia: I kicked out of [the classroom 00:13:08] so many times.

Pierce: —being a little dick. Like.

Julia: “Just go. I’ll give you a C. You just get out of my class.”

Pierce: I know. I should have just, like, withdrawn. Like, if that was going to be my attitude. But instead, I stayed in because my mentor, my main mentor at the time—and I love him to death—but he said you’ve got to go to college. And so, I listened to him. You know, he’s very successful, owns resorts, and you know, big time. And so, he had never gone to college, but he said, you know, “Times have changed. You’ve got to go.”

And so, I listen to that. But looking back on it, yeah, I mean, it’s probably the same sort of experience of just not sure how this is all going to work. And then, of course, to make matters worse because I’ve never been a good student, I was a fifth-year senior. So, now I’m in for five years, miserable, you know? And I think I graduated with, like, a—Julia, listen to this. I think I graduated with, like, a 2.75. Something like that.

Julia: You did better than me. I graduated with a 2.63.

Pierce: Oh, man.

Julia: I graduated with a 2.63, and the only reason I’ve had that is because—and I’ll never forget—two very specific professors who could—they—two people out of four years, two people saw me. They really saw me, right? So, one was [Dr. Berger 00:14:17], and he was my senior thesis advisor.

So, we had to write a freshman thesis and a senior thesis. Both were just—I was like, “Why am I doing this?” But now that I’m writing my own book, I kind of—I’m like, “Well, I was thankful for that.” But other than that, learned nothing throughout that process. Zero capability to use in the future. Useless to me.

And every time I would present my thesis to him, he would read it and he would look at me and he would—[unintelligible 00:14:38] the paper would be bleeding with three red markers, and [he would 00:14:42] give it back to me and he would say, “If you’ll just finish it… if you’ll just finish it.” I mean, I was like, this is torture. This is a waste of my time. And he’s like, “Yes, it is.”

Pierce: Like, just get through it.

Julia: You don’t need to be here, but if you persevere through this uncomfortable situation, I promise everything you’re learning from me right now will teach you what you need in the future. So, I remember that conversation so clearly that even now, today, when I’m doing something I don’t want to do, but I know that if I can get through it, to the other side of it, I’m going to—it’s going to be fine.

Pierce: There you go.

Julia: I think of him in my brain, handing me back my senior thesis going, “If you’ll just do it.”

Pierce: There was your $100,000 lesson, Julia.

Julia: There’s my $100,000 right there.

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Pierce: So, the reason I bring up my GPA is because it’s hilariously ironic that, like, two or three years ago, I was voted the alumni of the year [laugh] at UT. And I was like, clearly they did not survey my previous professors. I mean, they would have been, like, “Uh, who do you want? Absolutely not.” But yeah, it’s very ironic. And now it’s interesting, getting a little bit of maturity, getting a little bit of—what’s that?

Julia: I gave a speech at my alma mater.

Pierce: Oh, my gosh.

Julia: Yeah. And I was like, they let me in the door. And they like me. And I was like—

Pierce: Amazing. They like me now. Yeah.

Julia: [unintelligible 00:16:29] you like me [laugh].

Pierce: Yeah. I mean, getting a little bit of perspective, a little bit of maturity, and kind of stepping away, you know, from my college experience, like, now I genuinely love the university system and what it does for the city. And you know, anybody I’ve ever met, most of the people I’ve ever met who work for UT, who are there, really genuinely care about the kids—

Julia: Oh yeah.

Pierce: You know, like, really genuinely care about the education and about Knoxville as a whole. And so, it’s one of these things where it’s like, now I have a lot of respect for it and now I really see what they’re trying to do and what they accomplished in many cases. It’s just trying to fit a square peg in a round hole—I think that’s saying, yeah—square peg through a round hole, you know? And I was that square peg and there was no fitting me in that system. So, you know, fair enough.

Julia: It is what it is. And some of the professors that stick it out with you, they’re like, “Well, we knew you were going to be somebody. We just didn’t know when.” [laugh].

Pierce: Yeah. Or what.

Julia: Or what.

Pierce: Yeah. Prison or wealthy? One or the other [laugh].

Julia: We didn’t know if you’re going to be homeless… [laugh].

Pierce: Yeah. Homeless or leading the revolution. There’s only [laugh]—yeah, homeless, dead in the gutter, or leading the revolution.

Julia: Right? So, you can never tell. But there’s a very specific personality to entrepreneurs when we can gather and tell our funny stories, and the things that we envision. I mean, our visions, when we get into a room together with several other people, I mean, it’s just how big can your idea be, really? And then somebody else’s is going to top that, and it’s going to top that. And then you have a roomful of people who just created a whole new world. It’s just the way that we think.

Pierce: Yeah. Well, and this is—you know, I’ve refined over the years, just kind of going back to your original question of, like, what to tell young people who are thinking about starting their own thing—or just people in general, I mean, whether you’re 50, or 18—and to that point of getting in the same room, I’ve worked on what is that one piece of advice that I want to give them. Because it used to be, “Oh, read this book,” or, “Do this.” And all I tell them now is build your relationships. Like, you can do this on a spreadsheet.

I’ve got a fantastic app that I always preach called Covve, C-O-V-V-E, and it’s a personal CRM, right? And so, it tells you when to call people, when to check in. I’m running, like, 120 or 130 people on that platform that I’m just keeping up with. That’s what I tell people now—young people now especially—who asked me what my one piece of advice for them is. Build that network, call people, check in. Don’t just send text messages. Ask to get lunch or get a beer. You know, call them.

It’s amazing the power now that something like a phone call has in this age of you know, Facebook messages or texts. And so, that’s really what I see as being the single most powerful thing that somebody can do to really set themselves up for success. Because every good thing in my life, I mean, this interview included, just comes from meeting people, building that relationship, and then just kind of seeing what opportunities come from it. So, I’ve just—yeah, highly recommend that. And I’ve got so much more room to grow in that area. I’m just looking forward to being that, like, 80-year-old guy who’s got a big black book, you know, and he could just—“Who do you need to call?” You know [laugh]. I love that vision.

Julia: “What connection do you need?”

Pierce: That’s right. I love it.

Julia: I think we’re on the same page there. I tell women—I get a lot of requests from younger women. A lot. And they’re like, “What do you do? How do you do this? How do you navigate this?” I’m like, well, I do the relationship. Like, you need to build your relationships. But it is hard to build relationships when there are very few other female entrepreneurs.

Pierce: Mmm.

Julia: Right? So, for us, it’s not building the relationship so much as it is navigating the conversation properly. Because there’s a stark contrast to male versus female conversations. Stark contrast in business. And we do it subconsciously; we don’t even know we’re doing it.

So, the language of sales, understanding the conversation shift and tonality and how to just—how do you—how are you been out on the golf course, playing golf when it’s five guys in you? How are you going to approach that conversation when somebody gets a little too drunk? Things are going to get said. People are who they are, right? They’re going to let their guard down. Is yours going to be up? Is yours going to be down?

So, it’s a conversation change on top of their relationship. So, I always recommend doing a language of sales course, understanding, like, Ninja Sales. It’s really just about verbiage—

Pierce: Very cool.

Julia: —and personality change. So, adding that is always a bonus.

Pierce: That’s so cool. Yep. I love it.

Julia: You’re so cool [laugh]. I love [crosstalk 00:21:16].

Pierce: I’m trying to be. With my bagels hat, you mean?

Julia: You’re awesome [laugh].

Pierce: Look at that bagels hat. Yeah. And here’s the thing. I mean, and I’m sure this comes up in the girls that you’re mentoring, it’s like, my pool of relationships, I would say 5% of them are true entrepreneurs. I mean, I have fantastic relationships, people that I really love and I love checking in with who are attorneys and doctors and like—or just, you know, working for Clayton Homes or Axle Logistics or whatever.

I mean, frankly, I find that a lot of entrepreneurship conversations can get really honed in on business and most of the time, since we’re doing that in our day job, you know, maybe I like a little break. Maybe I want to talk about sports or something. That’s a lie. I really don’t care about sports. But [laugh].

Julia: You talk about [crosstalk 00:22:07] [laugh].

Pierce: Yeah, traveling. Something I actually care about. But you know, it’s not just people in your field, it’s not just people in your industry, it’s not just people who are doing what you are doing. It’s about having all those—you know, to use an ’80s business buzzword—synergistic relationships of people doing all different types of things. And that’s the way connections are made.

Because if your pool is just people like you, if somebody needs something like what kind of connection are you going to be able to provide them? What kind of value are going to be able to provide another entrepreneur? Like, what value would I, as a coffee shop owner, provide to another coffee shop owner who had the exact same number of stores, like, somebody who was, in my exact situation? I couldn’t really provide them much value, right, because they’re in the same season of life and all this other stuff. So, you know, it’s about people who you respect first and foremost, you know, and maybe you respect that corporate employee, that doctor, whatever. If you respect them, if you like hanging out with them, build the relationship and it’ll pay you back, you’ll be able to provide value to them, and it’d be really good for your success.

Julia: Well, I agree 150% with that. It’s building outside of yourself is also very hard to do because finding interest in other people when you don’t know anything about that particular thing is a completely different conversation. So—

Pierce: It’s just so easy for me, though. I don’t know if it’s easy for—I feel like this is easy for you as well. Like—

Julia: Yeah, it is [laugh].

Pierce: —just your person—yeah. It’s like, when I meet somebody who knows everything about iguanas, that is like—

Julia: Like, why? This is amazing. Teach me.

Pierce: Yeah.

Julia: Yes.

Pierce: When I meet somebody who just knows everything about coffee shops or business, I’m like, “Bro, I don’t want to talk to you.” [laugh]. You know, like, I’m doing this, you know, 24/7. Do I really want to talk about money or, you know, whatever investments—

Julia: Well, that’s a good conversation—

Pierce: —but, oh my gosh—

Julia: —to have with new people. I get asked this all the time. So, I will get emails, text messages, I will get random inbox messages, “Can I pick your brain? I’d love to buy you coffee and pick your brain.” So, what I always advise my people that I mentor and that I coach is, please don’t do that. Please don’t do that. If you have respect for that person’s time, find out something about them that you’re genuinely interested about—

Pierce: Love it.

Julia: Don’t ask them to meet you out for a coffee. Bring them coffee and then bring them something of value. And if you’re being valuable to someone, they will see that you’re making the effort, even if they don’t have a use for you or what you’re offering at that point. If you say, “Let me bring you coffee,” or, “Let me bring your office lunch. I noticed on a social media post that you did blank, blank, or blank. I have a valuable proposition that could fix this, this, or this, and I would appreciate your time to offer you something of value.” But don’t be like, “Hey, I want to. I want something from you but I’m offering nothing in return.”

Pierce: Love it.

Julia: Right? So, I mean if I wanted to know all about iguanas. I’d be, “Here’s a heat rock. Please teach me.” Tell me everything about iguanas. I mean, they’re 20 bucks [laugh].

Pierce: Now, I want to find somebody who knows everything about iguanas. I’m kind of curious.

Julia: I don’t know anything about iguanas. We’re going to have to find somebody. I’m going to bring them—I’m going to bring you coffee at your own coffee shop and you’re going to teach me about iguanas.

Pierce: Yes. Yeah, you can call me Jeff Irwin.

Julia: [laugh]. I love it. Yes, exactly. Okay, so we could talk for days, I think. We have five minutes. So, plans and dreams for the future? Give us your growth plan here.

Pierce: Business-wise, continue to grow K Brew. I think we’re looking at additional markets right now, so maybe out-of-state opportunities. I think K Brew has national reach potential; really excited about that. Loving, loving real estate right now and your field. I think there’s so many good opportunities out there.

And I’m no real estate expert, but I think that, you know, there is maybe a downturn coming and so I’m just preparing for that. Loading up capital and just kind of getting ready. Hopefully, take advantage of some distressed assets [laugh]. And yeah, you know, some small side businesses. I’ve started DJing at local, I guess, lounge, I guess you could say. Having so much fun doing that.

At this stage in my life, I’m very focused on—like, K Brew is kind of on just a set growth trajectory, and so I’m very focused on what can I do that feeds my soul and doesn’t cost me a lot of money or makes me money. And so, the DJing thing is definitely one of those things. And then another weird one that I got into earlier this year is stump grinding. And so, I bought this, you know, huge commercial stump grinder and just go around people’s houses and grind stumps. Great money. So, much fun, and it—you know, my day job now is behind a computer, like, a lot, and so I’ve missed getting outside in nature, you know, smelling the wood chippings and all of that, it just really fires me up. So, I’ve been loving being a redneck, I guess you could say.

Julia: I love that for you. I actually built a tipi in our backyard, just because we’ve had to cut our camping trips completely out, due to my [crosstalk 00:27:27]—

Pierce: [laugh].

Julia: —and I’m working behind a computer 12, 15 hours a day. There’s a tipi in our backyard with [crosstalk 00:27:33]—

Pierce: Oh, my gosh.

Julia: I mean, I was like, “I’ve got to get outside in nature.” I have to be outside.

Pierce: Yeah. Yeah.

Julia: Totally [crosstalk 00:27:39].

Pierce: Same here. So, that’s been a fun little weird one. And then, you know, a home reno here, too, you know? But that’s pretty much it business-wise, you know, dreams, visions, that sort of thing. Like, yeah, just enjoying it.

Julia: All right, three minutes or less. So, we’re going to do, like, the Pierce LaMacchia top list. Top grocery store. Where’s your favorite grocery store?

Pierce: Uh… grocery store. I just kind of like Kroger. Like, there’s several good Kroger’s around here and I’m just—I’m a basic guy. I get—I’m on meal delivery services, full disclosure. I don’t do any cooking. I do enjoy cooking, but I just don’t have time for right now, so I’m—I don’t really visit grocery stores very much.

Julia: All right. Gas station?

Pierce: Gas Station. Oh, jeez this is, like, so weird. I don’t even really think about it. Um… Weigel’s.

Julia: Yeah. The big Wiggles. I love them.

Pierce: Yeah, I love their corndogs, actually.

Julia: Oh, their food selection in general. That—

Pierce: Pretty good.

Julia: —slushy coffee thing they have? Oh, my God. Don’t even—

Pierce: Well, no, you can’t say that. That’s terrible. You should go to K Brew instead.

Julia: It’s not coffee. It’s a slushie that has coffee powder in it.

Pierce: Oh gosh.

Julia: It’s a slushy. It is a coffee-flavored slushy.

Pierce: Okay.

Julia: I can’t. You got to try it.

Pierce: Okay, I’ll give it a try. I’ll give it a try.

Julia: If you make one at K Brew for me that’s—

Pierce: [laugh].

Julia: —coffee [laugh]. [crosstalk 00:28:58]—

Pierce: Absolutely not.

Julia: And then make one.

Pierce: Oh, gosh.

Julia: That’s your challenge.

Pierce: Okay. All right.

Julia: All right. Favorite restaurant. Or give me three, if you have three.

Pierce: Yeah, I think three is much more realistic. Pizzeria Nora on North Central. Gavino’s on Kingston Pike, and Simpl Food Arts in South Knox.

Julia: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very good. All right.

Pierce: Which I think they’re changing locations soon.

Julia: I think they posted on Instagram this past week.

Pierce: So exciting. Yeah. I love [Kendall 00:29:30], Kendall and Dave. Dave is at Pizzeria Nora. Very cool, eccentric business owner. Kendall is awesome. They’re there at their stores every single day. I haven’t met the owner of Gavino’s yet, but I’m sure he’s a big, jolly Italian guy, based on the food selection.

Julia: Well, let’s put it out there in the world. Pierce LaMacchia wants to meet you. Pierce LaMacchia—

Pierce: Yeah, there you go [laugh].

Julia: [laugh]. Whatever you put out there, you’re going to get back.

Pierce: I just want to thank him for his amazing pasta and pizza.

Julia: Yeah, he does have really good food.

Pierce: Golly.

Julia: Probably what I’m going to have for dinner. All right. Last question. When someone visits you from out of state that’s never visited Knoxville, where’s the first place you take them?

Pierce: Usually Radius. I mean, if they arrive in the afternoon, we’ll go get, like, a mid-afternoon cocktail. Josh and his crew up at Radius are just absolutely fantastic. If it’s sometime in the evening, we love the Vault, beneath Vida. So yeah, I mean, I’m a cocktail guy; that’s kind of like where I want to go. And then you know, if we’re doing dinner, any of the places that I mentioned and just walking around Market Square.

Julia: I love that. I love that. All right, well, we’re out of time, which is hilarious. I mean, it genuinely feels that we talked for five minutes, but we are out of time. I appreciate your time today. I know Knoxville is going to love learning more about you because you’re growing and you’re part of our community; you’re growing our community. Thank you for bringing something new and amazing and fun, and employees, and local, and we really appreciate everything you do.

Pierce: Thanks. Yeah.

Julia: Y’all, if you want to visit K Brew, give us our loc—give us the top location so people here that are listening from out of the state can figure it out.

Pierce: Yeah, four locations. I’m not going to say the addresses because you’ll never remember them, but you should remember knoxvillebrew.com, Knoxville B-R-E-W dot com. And you can also follow us on social media at@knoxvillebrew. All of our location information is there. We’d love to see you.

Julia: Love it. Thank you so much, and everybody out there in the nation, thank you yet again for connecting Knoxville to the nation. I’m Julie Hurley, your host. Thanks again for visiting Connect the Knox. Bye, Pierce. Thank you so much.

Pierce: Thank you, Julia.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Alexis Hornbuckle is an incredible athlete and member of the Knoxville community. As the first female athlete to ever win the Collegiate and the WNBA National Championships in the same collegiate year, she has become not only a local legend, but a legend in all of women’s basketball. Throughout this episode, we explore how playing for UT and being coached by Pat Summitt was a dream come true for Alexis, and the way that has shaped her career in the WNBA and beyond. Alexis also shares why she moved back to Knoxville after her WNBA career, and how she’s helping the community through her coaching programs.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:22 Julia introduces Alexis, the only female athlete to win the Collegiate and the WNBA National Championships in the same collegiate year

01:46 How Alexis wound up being recruited to UT Knoxville

03:31 What it was like for Alexis to be coached by Pat Summitt, and how the experience shaped her career and the city of Knoxville

06:54 How the economic crisis of 2008 affected Alexis’ career

09:41 What it was like to come back to Knoxville after Alexis’ stint in the WNBA

10:40 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

11:41 Alexis gives some insight into the origins of her coaching career and how she’s giving back to the community through coaching

15:26 What Alexis feels that Knoxville can do to retain more of our young athletes and college graduates

18:29 The positive changes Alexis has seen in Knoxville, and what she hopes to see in the future of our city

21:50 Ad - Just Homes Group

23:55 Alexis answers Julia’s lightning round of questions, starting with Alexis’ favorite restaurant

28:00 Where you can follow Alexis on social media and find out more about her coaching programs

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buck1422/
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hornbuckle14
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hornbuckle1422
  • Dr. Joe Chiro: https://goseedrjoe.com/

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Transcript

Julia: Welcome, everybody to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s podcast guest is none other than famous Alexis Hornbuckle. And the reason that she’s famous, for everybody out there that doesn’t follow you at sports, I don’t know who you possibly could be, but she is the only female athlete to have won, what was it? What was it? Two national championships in a row, one for collegiate and then a national WNBA championship in the same year. Is that correct?

Alexis: Yeah. So, it’s the only one to win the Collegiate and the WNBA in the same collegiate year.

Julia: Yeah, that’s kind of a big deal. And Alexis is right here in Knoxville, Tennessee, so please introduce yourself to our crowd and say hello.

Alexis: Hi, everybody. Thank you, Julia, for having me. I’m excited. I appreciate it. Like she said, my name is Alexis Hornbuckle. I’m not originally from Knoxville, I’m from Dunbar, West Virginia, born and raised, but then I came over, followed Pat Summitt and the Lady Vol, came and played basketball, 2004 to 2008. And like you said, was blessed enough to have a career, six years in the WNBA and 11 years overseas, moved back to Knoxville out here, just personal training, basketball training, camps, clinics, bartending, mobile bartending, giving back to the community, XHunger, girl, whatever I can do [laugh].

Julia: [laugh]. You are a busy lady. Let’s get into, like, the meat of it. How did you end up at UT? What was that recruiting process like?

Alexis: Oh man, how I ended up at UT, it’s pretty simple. And I was about 12 years old, I believe, about sixth grade. I watched a documentary on Pat Summitt, and the Lady Vols, their Cinderella season that year. You know, they had, like, ten losses, nobody expected them to win. They’re documenting this process, and their—I forgot if it was they missed curfew or didn’t do something correctly, I don’t remember the reasons why at this present moment, but Pat had four trash cans on each corner of the court and they are running, you know, until they hit all the trash cans.

So, they throw up in all the trash cans, like no, you will do what you’re supposed to do, basically, you know because if you don’t, this is the consequences of that. And just to see that that didn’t fold that team, it actually brought them together. It actually kickstarted that back half of the season and took them on that national championship run. And I looked at my dad like, you know, “That lady’s crazy. Like, I got to go play for her.”

And the recruiting process, I was blessed to be a top recruit and was recruited by literally all the colleges all over the world. And Tennessee stood out after I made that decision. Like, I just started bleeding orange and there was nothing, really, that was going to sway that. And not a lot of people get to fulfill their dreams, you know, like, set a goal, fulfill it, especially young athletes when it comes to collegiate or even the pro level. So, I was just, like, “You know what? I’m doing this.”

Julia: I love that. What was it like to play for the most winningest—most winningest, which doesn’t even grammatically makes sense, but that’s what we say: the most winningest coach in all of sports? You’re welcome, America. It was Pat Summitt. What was it like to play for Pat Summitt?

What was it like to be around someone that it has, I mean, a prolific change in the history of sports, period. Not just women’s sports—

Alexis: Right.

Julia: Sports, period. Because very few people get that. I mean, there are NFL coaches that have retired with that kind of prestige. There are very few people in general that have that big of an impact on all of sports. And we had her right here in Knoxville for as long as we keep her. What was that experience like?

Alexis: That experience was surreal, to be honest with you. You know, you’re an 18 to 22-year-old kid, so taking it all in at that present moment didn’t happen for me personally, but a lot of things that I understood before I came in and while I was there and especially after was that—I gave that lady the utmost respect, as everyone else did, you know, that it didn’t matter how old you were or who you were. And having that was just, like, you don’t want to put her on a pedestal because it’s like your coach, right? She’s running you, she’s [laugh], she’s making life not so easy, right, on a training perspective. But from another perspective, this woman knows how to win, she’s very caring, very loving, just very intense.

And so, she’s determined to bring the best out of you, and that’s by anybody that she’s surrounded by, from a manager to an office assistant to assistant coaches to the players to [Tyler 00:04:50], you know, whatever it is, and to have that and be there and play under that. It was exciting. It pushed me to want to give everything I possibly could because I noticed she did that every day, and anything else less is a failure, you know? So, she exuded excellence and confidence and it trickled down, you know, from the top. It started with her and it just filtered out throughout the whole organization, and to be a part of that is a true blessing.

Julia: How did that impact your time at UT? How did it impact Knoxville as a whole? And how has that carried on through your WNBA career and choosing to come back to Knoxville and contribute?

Alexis: Man, for me—and Tennessee—I just think that was—she’s a game-changer, you know? She’s a life-changer. That’s obviously shown with that record before she passed to be the winningest coach, man or woman, in any sport. That’s a tremendous accolade and achievement. And I think it gave Tennessee a state—more of a state of pride when it came to not only Pat Summitt—I call it the Summitt State—but [laugh] but also to Tennessee Sports, you know? There was a seven-year drought. There wasn’t any championships for a while, so people got a little discouraged. You know, how we do here on [Rocky Top 00:06:07]. We’re kind of hard on—

Julia: Call for blood. We lost one game; they’re out.

Alexis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re kind of hard on our coaches and athletes as fans. But realistically, nobody ever gave up on Pat and that said a lot in that drought. But, you know, coming back and doing that, I think it just put the state right back to a sense of comfort, and… the posture change, like, you know, we’re still here. Respect us. We’re still champions. We still got the winningest coach, you know? We’re still one of the top schools that have the most NCAA championships. We are here and we’re here to stay. And she did that. And so, to be a part of that, I think, number one, it was life-changing for me, but I know it was a game-changer for the entire state and especially the city of Knoxville.

Julia: So, changing focus a little bit, economically speaking—and this may not have affected you during those years because you were in college and playing, but it affected you after—you were there in 2004 during the height of the biggest housing boom, the economy was the greatest it’s ever been, people have more money than they’ve ever had, and then you graduate and go to the WNBA in 2008 and the entire world falls apart. How does that affect you? How did that affect your sport? How did that affect your career and everything moving forward? Especially all over the world?

Alexis: Oh man, I think it affected the overseas the most. I mean, the WNBA in and of itself, you know, started with a lot lower budget, you know, even obviously, it’s made leaps and bounds to get to athletes to where they’re at now, but starting out. I mean, as a rookie, I was only making I think it was like 38 or $40,000. Do you what I’m s—yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People think it’s, you know, it’s just like y—

Julia: Ya-okay [laugh].

Alexis: —you go to the league and you’re making a million dollars.

Julia: Different conversation for a different day [laugh].

Alexis: For a different day, definitely. But also that’s for a four-month season, right, because you’re only getting paid in season. But also, what do you do after that if this is your career? Overseas is where he felt that the most though because at that time, the dollar stood for something, you know what I mean? Outside of the Euro we’re the highest, so over there that affects your contracts, how much they’re able to give, how much they’re willing to give.

You know, you might have played for a team and they just paid you I don’t know, let’s just say 10,000 a month, and then the very next season—and they know the type of player you are and everything else—“Hey, listen, we only have seven-and-a-half.” You know? And maybe you could squeeze eight out of it, but if not, you got to go find another team. So, it really forces you—it forced us to move around a lot more unless you were kind of locked into to those multi-year contracts. But that’s where I felt the most was in [crosstalk 00:08:43]—

Julia: Yeah the ’08 crash was a tough one for every single person I know. Here in Knoxville, we are somewhat protected, I guess we could say that we’re, you know, no income tax state, a no [unintelligible 00:08:52] income tax state, a no death tax state, a no inheritance tax state. So, we were somewhat protected. But that bubble did burst here as well and bringing all of our people together and just saying, “Hey, listen, we have hundreds of people, hundreds of businesses who lost everything they own.” Multi, multi, multi-millions and billions of dollars were gone, but that affected everybody from the top down, every place, every person.

So, the ’08 crash played a massive… what’s the word I want to say? Like, a gathering of the—we’re going to push through. So, that perseverance, and being an athlete coached under the most winningest coach in the country in the world, you know, across all sports, having that perseverance really helped push through. What was it like after that stint in the WNBA to come back and start to rebuild?

Alexis: For me, it was tough. And it was more so because of how I left the league. It wasn’t really my decision at the time, so that was tough. And then that transition, from a mental health perspective, honestly exceeded any type of financial changes at that time because I wasn’t even thinking about that. I’m thinking that every—the game that I love to play and grew up doing since I was four years old, is, like, kind of being blocked right now.

So, that’s all I’m worried about. Like, am I going to get back to playing? How am I going to get back to playing? Will I be making enough money to continue to make this my livelihood, right? So, I guess in a sense, that’s where it came in, but that was kind of the latter thought for me at that time. So, it’s hard for me to answer that question from an economical standpoint, to be honest.

Julia: Sure. Sure. Well, your mental state affects your economics—

Alexis: Yeah [laugh].

Julia: Every time because you can have a dollar and turn around and make 50 out of it, or you can have a dollar and have nothing. I mean, that mental state, that ability to stay stable—and again, I’ve talked to so many athletes on this podcast and so many non-athletes, and they all have the same conclusion on mental health, it is one of the most important things that we can work toward. And I know that Knoxville is working on that with their current athletes. And I’ve had a few athletes on here, like, “Man, I wish I had the care and the ability back when I was an athlete, to be able to push that forward.” You are here now, coaching, you’ve got a great—I see you all the time on Instagram, you’re [unintelligible 00:11:14] to get some great coaching camps coming up for basketball for kids, especially during the summers, you do a lot of things to give back to this community. How is that growing your business in Knoxville, how long has that been going on, and what can we do as a community to grow that with you?

Alexis: Oh, thank you, Julia, for asking. It started three years ago, when I moved back. It’ll be three years next month, actually. And I moved back, current—I was then living in North Carolina, doing the same thing as far as basketball camps and clinics and training and mentoring and coaching, but I moved back because I’m like, listen our Lady Vols are—you know, we’ve been getting better, you know? Kelly has us on that upward incline of success.

But I remember being—the former players coming back and being around, right? So, I was like, oh, you know, it’s only three hours from Charlotte, but at the same time, that’s three hours. What happens if I’m right there, you know, and just being able to let the girls know, like, I’m here, you know? I’m not here to do anything but be here for you, you know, as a Summitt baby, I’m willing to learn and give those lessons. And they have that in their coach, but as a player, sometimes there’s a disconnect from player and coach, so I just wanted to be something outside of that current team, but knowing that I’m a part of that history and that legend and that sisterhood.

So, that was one of the factors. The other one was to leverage my name. I gave a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and everything I had, you know, to the University of Tennessee and the Lady Vol program, my teammates, and coach. And I was like, you know, I can come back and do the same thing and have young girls and young boys willing and, ready not only to learn more about sports and life but be more aware of the seasons, and what’s happened in Tennessee and Tennessee athletics and realizing that these athletes struggle with the same things y’all do as kids. They have opportunities to help in the community and this is why, you know, if you have a desire to do that, here’s someone you can look up to and do that.

And I said, I can be one of those people and I can also be a bridge, you know? Julia, you’re great at doing that, at connecting people, and in the basketball world, we call it you know, facilitating point guards [through 00:13:16], right, so to me, that comes natural. And that was probably the second-biggest factor and it was a no-brainer, you know? There’s a lot of good trainers and coaches and organizations going around. I mean, I went to school with Bobby Maze. He has his own gym and program, B. MAZE ELITE.

So, you know, I gave him a helping hand for a few months when I first came down and it was—I came to help [laugh]. I came to serve others. Honestly, that was the ultimate decision. I wanted to make sure that I can be in a good mental space. I had at that time, teamed up with the Revitalist Clinic, and helped their mission to push mental health, and went through ketamine treatments. And it was life-changing, right? It changed my whole perspective on that type of therapy. And now just being involved and partnering with Onrise, another mental health organization, as you also know. So—

Julia: Oh, yeah. They’re very good. We’re very happy to have them in the Knoxville market. For sure.

Alexis: Oh, yeah. And I’m excited to be a part of that team. You know, of course, Derrick Furlow put me in a position to be able to do that, as he does so many other opportunities. And then just being here, Julia, it’s brought me to basketball. It’s brought me to personal training outside of athletes, you know, everyday people, moms, dads, elderly, I think my oldest client is 72 years old [laugh].

Julia: Oh, [laugh] that’s awesome.

Alexis: Yeah, works her butt off. But it’s just things like that, coming to serve the community, coming to serve others, making sure our state, you know, close—my parents or close, so home is close to me, you know, and being able to make sure that I continue to give all the praise and all the glory to God, and that’s how I live this life, man.

Julia: We all know that real estate is location, location, location. Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell a home right here in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area. Call Just Homes Group today.

Julia: I’m excited. We’re excited to have you in Knoxville. It is rare that students come back, and I know that it’s something that we’ve been working on, I’ve been working on it with Derrick for a long time, trying to get more of the teams and the athletes to want to stay. And as I own my own brokerage and own a couple of businesses, I’m like, “Hey, come work with me. Stay here. Let me get you more involved in the community.” Please stay. You’re young, you’re intelligent, you’re very disciplined. Stay. What can we do to get more people to stay, in your opinion, when they leave college, if they don’t go pro, what can we do to get him to stay in Knoxville?

Alexis: I think just the awareness of, these are the options that you have. And I know that there’s little things being done on the outside, but if there was something that every athlete kind of knew or kind of was—almost, this is the transition from collegiate athlete, whether you go pro or not, building that community, you know, like a retire—even though we’re not retired, but, like, a retired or a veteran, program. And there’s out there, and so we tap in, but there’s not one collectively where everybody knows about, right? Or, if it is, you know, it might be something you had to pay X amount of dollars and if I’m in between, you got to still remember, I’m a college student entering life. I may not have X amount of dollars to be a part of this community.

So, being able to find free avenues and just connecting dots, connecting people, connecting the Knox, like you do.

Julia: [laugh].

Alexis: [laugh]. But being able to do that. And keeping it out there circulating. You know, follow these athletes, follow these players that come back, let them know, reach out to them. If you don’t have their direct phone number or a way to contact them, social media is always going to be the best way. It might not get the fastest result but the messages will be seen and a response will be given if it’s approached in the right way.

So, I think just coming off and saying, “Hey, listen, I don’t want anything from you. I’m just letting you know, as an BFL, as an LVFL, this is what’s out here for you in Knoxville if you so choose to stay.” It’s bigger than sports, [unintelligible 00:17:21]—and Derrick can attest to this and if they don’t already know that, man, send them his way because, you know, that transitioning, he has a full curriculum on it, he wrote a book on it, he’s lived it. So, getting them connected with people and athletes who have been where they’re at and connecting that and then letting it just continue to filter out, you know, because networking is huge. And if you haven’t been taught that, then learning that as quickly as possible is a game-changer. It changes—

Julia: It is a game-changer. Knoxville offers so many opportunities for that. We’re such a big small town, or a small big town. I can’t decide which one it is, but we’re both.

Alexis: Yeah, I think we’re a small, big town. I think we’re a small, big town.

Julia: We’re a small, big town.

Alexis: Yeah.

Julia: [laugh]. So, something that everybody agrees on, every person that we’ve interviewed on this podcast so far agrees, Knoxville is the best for networking opportunities, still an intimate space, and many of the athletes—I’ve just interviewed Chris Lofton about an hour ago and he said the exact same thing. He’s like, “Listen, the name means something. When you’re here and you’re plugged in”—

Alexis: Absolutely.

Julia: —“You can do amazing things for other people just using your own name. You can do so much for other people.” So, Knoxville is one of those places that makes you feel like you not only belong, that you have ownership, you’re part of it, and you want to make it great. What changes have you seen Knoxville make that have been unbelievably, like, never imagined that would happen? And how do you feel like the future of Knoxville is going to stay moving forward?

Alexis: Well, honestly, everything’s changed when I came [laugh] back. I was like, “Wow, where am I?” But in a good way, you know? It’s just more modernized, it’s more up-to-date, more up-to-speed, and more visible. And I think that’s important because you can offer so many great things and if people don’t know about you, it doesn’t matter. You know that from a business perspective, and kids know that, and parents know that from a recruiting perspective if you live in smaller towns or states.

And just seeing the businesses that’s grown, you know, from the food and service industry to the commerce to the Strip is completely different, you know? And it’s starting to look and feel more like a downtown. Like, I live downtown, so you know, it feels more like that. It was very barren when I was in school, wasn’t a lot to really do… [laugh] there really wasn’t a lot to really do l[laugh]. And I was like, “Nope, it wasn’t.”

And I think that that’s a game-changer because now people—it’s more inviting, it’s more welcoming, people—there’s more things to do. We have great, you know, restaurants and shopping centers, you can eat great food with, you know, people who are invested into their craft. So, you got chefs who are very proud to say, “Hey, no, I am the top chef in East Tennessee when it comes to seafood. When it comes to this.” And when you get those people in their niches, in our little, big town city, it filters out all across the nation, you know?

Because people come in to visit their friends and their family or watch sporting events, and they’re trying these places and they’re bringing people back and they’re coming back and helping Knoxville grow. So, that has to continue to happen. And, you know, people follow athletes and actors and entertainers, so that’s one way for us to be able to utilize ourselves but also be used by others in collaboration and partnership and getting the word out and spreading it and pulling people back for whatever reasons, whether that’s for charities events because there’s a lot that happens in Knoxville and for great causes. What is—EDGE Foundation is one big one. And that’s—

Julia: Yeah we just did that together. We did the, um—

Alexis: Yeah, kickball.

Julia: —kickball with [Kurt 00:20:48] [laugh].

Alexis: The kickball with Kurt and friends.

Julia: That was fun. I got so sunburned [laugh].

Alexis: Did you? Yeah, no, I was—I don’t even know. I was living my best life. I had a great opportunity. But also, Julia, when you asked about what can be done to draw people—the athletes—back, it also comes to follow through because people get very excited, and people we call, you know, fanboy fangirlish, like, “Oh yeah, I would love to help you. I have this, I can do this, we can do this.”

And then the athlete reaches back and it’s a whole lot of, “Well, I got to look into this. I got to talk to this person. I got to do that.” So, just realizing that we are people with dreams as well, and goals and visions, so there’s no need to sell us on those dreams, on y’all’s dreams. There’s no need to, you know, beat around the bush.

If you can’t directly help, we would gladly accept just a direction. “Hey, I have a buddy. Hey, I have a friend of mine. My cousin does this.” You know what I’m saying? Whatever it is because we never mind doing the work.

Julia: Exactly.

Alexis: All you need to let us know what door to knock on and we’ll get in, once we’re in, you know?

Julia: You’ll figure it out.

Alexis: We’ll figure it out. Yeah.

Julia: You’ll figure it out.

Alexis: We’ll get the work done.

Julia: Athletes are the best. Athletes are the best employees. I’m such an advocate. I’m like, “Please give these athletes an opportunity to interview with your companies. Please let them know what you do, if they can do it too.” Like, I haven’t been I have a dream of, like, having an entire athlete agency at some point, millions of real estate agents, all athletes.

Alexis: Listen, it definitely can be done. And I think that’s a huge thing. So, don’t only just offer the help, actually give it or send them to somewhere where they can get it, even if it’s just a simple book or a reference, you know? Just continue to move us forward because once we get our hands on it or that door is open, we will definitely move the community forward or whatever project or sport forward. So.

Julia: Well, I tell people, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is the second largest world fan base in the world. Florida is number one—ehh [raspberry]—but that’s okay. Tennessee is number two in the world for the largest fan base. So, wherever you are in the world, look it up. There's an alumni there.

Alexis: Who’s number one?

Julia: Florida.

Alexis: Okay.

Julia: Gatorade. It’s the Gatorade. Everybody knows Gatorade. Anyway [laugh].

Alexis: That’s true. That’s true.

Julia: It’s the Gatorade. It’s not the Florida Gators. Nobody loves them. I’m kidding. Everybody loves them because they’re in the SEC and they make us money. We appreciate your hard work. But it’s Gatorade. But Tennessee is number two, so anywhere you see orange, there’s an alumni somewhere, and somebody from Knoxville, Tennessee, is always available to you. And I love that we’re such a big, small town. We’re very glad that you came back. So, lightning round—whoo—we’re going to go fast, but not too fast. Um, favorite restaurant Knoxville? And you can have more than one.

Alexis: I can have more than one? Okay. Oh man, favorite restaurant in Knoxville? Well, my favorite, um, I love Jackie’s Dream, not only because she—

Julia: Oh, God. I was just talking about them last night.

Alexis: Yeah. You know, that’s my home girl. That’s a [audio break 00:23:45] friend right there. So, that’s one of them. Man, you put me on the spot. I don’t even know. Chophouse. I love—I like going there a lot.

Julia: Chophouse is good. Chophouse is good.

Alexis: Yeah Chophouse is good. Chivo’s Taqueria. Yeah, like, Stock & Barrel burgers. It depends on where I’m going, you know? [unintelligible 00:24:01], I’m big on their brunch. Man, there’s a lot of little places.

Julia: Knoxville got a lot of food [laugh].

Alexis: Yeah it does.

Julia: What’s your favorite outdoor activity?

Alexis: Oh, my favorite outdoor activity would be, like, just being on a boat on a lake. Maybe jet skiing. Yeah.

Julia: Okay, which lake’s your favorite lake?

Alexis: Well, I’ve only been to—well, of course, I’ve been on Loudoun. And then, what’s the one… see, this is I how know I don’t be knowing stuff. You put me on the spot, Julia.

Julia: [laugh].

Alexis: Norris Lake. Norris Lake. [unintelligible 00:24:37] Norris Lake better.

Julia: The cleanest lake in this entire—you see all the way to the bottom.

Alexis: Yeah, Norris Lake I like.

Julia: Norris.

Alexis: I’m way more comfortable on Norris Lake. Yeah.

Julia: Yeah. Norris Lake is very, very clean. And very shallow. Only pontoon boats because it’s so shallow.

Alexis: Yeah.

Julia: But it’s a really beautiful lake.

Alexis: Yeah. It’s really—I [crosstalk 00:24:51] that.

Julia: Yeah. All right. Favorite bar, pub, or brewery.

Alexis: Oh bar, pub, or brewery? Big fan of Yee-Haw, shout-out—

Julia: Okay.

Alexis: That’s definitely, probably—that’s my little duck-off. I like that spot. They got good food, too. They got—

Julia: I’ve not been there yet. I haven’t had time.

Alexis: Favorite [unintelligible 00:25:11]—

Julia: I have not had the time.

Alexis: Go check them out. You should definitely check them out. Their outdoor space is amazing, they do Cinema Sundays where they, like, on their outdoor space, they—it’s free movies. Of course, there’s food. Then you got the bar. So, it’s family and dog-friendly.

Julia: Very important.

Alexis: Yeah. And then my all-in-one is if you want somewhere where the kids can go running around and still—or just go be a big kid, just go to Main Event.

Julia: Oh, I do love Main Event.

Alexis: Yeah.

Julia: Do love Main Event.

Alexis: Yeah.

Julia: That place is very interesting. I love it there. Their food’s actually not bad.

Alexis: No, no.

Julia: Not bad at all.

Alexis: Pretty good. It’s pretty good.

Julia: Pretty good. The pizza is not bad.

Alexis: Yeah.

Julia: Okay—

Alexis: I been a bartender there sometimes, so, you know.

Julia: Oh, well, we’ll have—you’ll have to text us and we’ll come over. You’ll have to tell us when you’re there.

Alexis: Perfect. Perfect.

Julia: Yeah, we will—because our office is just right down the road.

Alexis: I know. I know where you’re at [laugh].

Julia: [laugh]. We’ll pop over for, like, shooting—what is that? Laser tag?

Alexis: Laser tag, yeah.

Julia: Very fun.

Alexis: I get it in laser tag. All right.

Julia: [laugh]. All right. Um, best kept secret. So, if somebody from out of the area—so, like one of your old teammates or something comes and says, “Never been to Knoxville. Take me somewhere very cool.” Where would you take somebody that’s never been here for their first what—anything? Their first anything.

Alexis: Their first anything? Oh… oh, that’s a great question. [pause]. Because I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all. I think it depends on who’s visiting, for one. I’m very analytical, Julia, so—

Julia: Yeah, yeah.

Alexis: This is very—

Julia: I love it.

Alexis: This is [laugh] very hard for me. Um… hmmm, I’d probably take them to Chivo’s, and that’s because they have good food, solid drinks, the atmosphere is real chill, you’re downtown and you can kind of just figure out what move you’re going to make next, very comfortably. Nobody can be disappointed, from appetizers to the entrees to even the desserts. All their stuff is made with fresh ingredients. Can’t go wrong.

Julia: I love it. That’s a good suggestion. Everybody has a different place. Everybody I’ve interviewed has a different spot [unintelligible 00:27:20] people.

Alexis: Yeah.

Julia: Very eclectic group. All right. This is the end of our conversation, however, I want all of our listeners to be able to find you, follow you, and get to know your camps because it is very important to keep kids involved in sports. It gives them discipline it gives them opportunity, and when you see talent and is trained by talent, you can’t go wrong. Where can people find you? Where can they contact you? Where can they be involved?

Alexis: Absolutely. Y’all can follow me on Instagram buck1422. On Twitter Hornbuckle14. Facebook, it’s just simply [AlexisHornbuckle 00:27:49]. Reach out. You will be responded to by myself or somebody on my team.

Also, all summer long, you know, at 9 to 11 in the morning, YWCA Phyllis Wheatley, we’re doing skills lessons, okay? One hour ball handling, one hour shooting. It’s two separate. You don’t have to commit to both; you are more than welcome to. But we’re here to develop the kids. It does not matter your skill level, I guarantee I can teach you something, I guarantee we can add to your game and your life and way of thinking, so please reach out, and I look forward to working with y’all and y’all’s support. Thank you.

Julia: Listeners, again, Alexis Hornbuckle, the only champion that we’ve had to win college and WNBA in the same year, right here for your kids in Knoxville, Tennessee. If there’s anything that you need to know about the future, always visit us and give us a call. We’re so glad you joined us today on Connect the Knox, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Thanks, listeners.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

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Chris Lofton, legendary UT Basketball star, joins me on this episode of ConnectTheKnox to discuss why Knoxville has such a special place in his heart and his upcoming career goals. Throughout this episode, we discuss what it was like for Chris to celebrate having his UT jersey officially retired, and why sharing that celebration with the Knoxville community was so special. Chris also shares the little-known story of how he wound up at UT for his college basketball career, and how he feels about the upcoming season of UT basketball.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:21 Julia introduces Chris, and Chris shares why Knoxville is so important to him and his basketball career

02:26 How going to college at UT changed Chris’ life

04:00 How Chris’ career has evolved after leaving UT and the career goals he’s currently pursuing

05:14 Chris describes what it was like celebrating having his UT jersey retired recently

06:22 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

06:53 The changes that Chris has seen in Knoxville since he first arrived here

09:55 Why Knoxville holds a special place in Chris’ heart

10:58 Chris explains why he feels outsiders to Knoxville think Knoxville is a small, country town and what our city is really like from his perspective

12:18 How Chris feels about the upcoming basketball season for UT

13:17 Ad - Just Homes Group

13:51 Where Chris trained on campus during his legendary college basketball career

15:20 Julia asks Chris her lightning round of questions about his favorite Knoxville spots

17:45 What Chris feels Knoxville has to offer to new, young residents

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • Chris’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/c_lofton/
  • Dr. Joe Chiro: https://www.goseedrjoe.com

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Transcript

Julia: Welcome everybody to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s podcast guest is one of our all-time most famous basketball players, truly, if not the most prolific long-range shot expert in the country, Mr. Chris Lofton. Chris, thank you so much for being with us today.

Chris: Thanks for having me. I’m excited. Been looking forward to it.

Julia: Good. Wonderful. We’re so excited to see your face. We just—every time we get any time with Chris Lofton, everybody in Knoxville, the crowd goes wild. We’re so excited to have you here [laugh].

Chris: [unintelligible 00:00:50].

Julia: So, for those of the people that don’t know anything about you—and that’s what this podcast is about is really and truly introducing outside people in the nation to Knoxville and what is important to Knoxville, why people like you are so… Knoxville, even though you’re not from Knoxville, is why it’s so important to know what people like you have done for us and what we’ve been able to do for you, and why that’s such a symbiotic relationship and important. So, we’ll start with the very basics. What are your connections to Knoxville, Tennessee?

Chris: Just, I mean for me, you know, I grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, small town, playing basketball, and you know, University of Tennessee gave me the opportunity to play basketball there in the city of Knoxville when nobody else wouldn’t. So, Knoxville is my second home. I’m always there. I love Knoxville. I love the fans. I love everything about it, so Knoxville is a very special place to me.

Julia: Are you telling me that Tennessee was the only D1 college to recruit you? Is this the story that I don’t know?

Chris: Absolutely. Yeah, my senior year it was, you know, Tennessee or a small NAIA school in Georgetown, Kentucky. And you know, so that’s why Tennessee—Knoxville—will always have a special place in my heart.

Julia: Well, I’ll bet all those schools are just not happy about that decision [laugh]. We look back on the Chris Lofton years and it’s just, like, “Wow.” It was almost like you weren’t a real person, your talent and drive… I j—did not know this, so that is so interesting. Tell us a little bit about how that four years in college transformed your life here in Knoxville and some of the things that you learned along the way, just kind of as a person and a young person. You’re very young now, so it’s like all the contributions that you’ve been able to make and the influences that you’ve had, how did Knoxville impact that for you?

Chris: Knoxville has a huge impact on my life because when I got here, I was 18 years old. When I left, I was, what, 22? 23? And, you know, I was from a boy to a man, you know, I was grown. So, you know, Knoxville, you know, those four or five years I stayed there was special because, you know, I went through some tough times, rough times in life, you know, being away from home that long, you know, not being around mom and dad, you know, I had to figure out things out on my own. So, it was special.

You know, it was tough times but, like, you know, like… as you know, like, when you… you’re going to grow up, there’s going to be tough times, like, adversity, and you can either run from it or run through it, and you know, Knoxville made me run through it and it made me a better person I am today and you know, a better man. And, you know, Knoxville will always be, you know, a special place for me. It’s like I said.

Julia: What was your major at UT?

Chris: Oh, so I majored in African American history.

Julia: Okay. What are we doing with that today?

Chris: Uh, nothing exactly, but you know, I always knew that, you know, me being a basketball player, I wanted to do something along the lines of coaching, training [stuff 00:03:47]—

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Chris: You know, commentating. I did some commentating in high school games this year, so you know, just along those lines. Probably doing something with basketball.

Julia: Oh, one thousand percent. Absolutely. So, I see you on Facebook all the time that you were coaching—or you all over the country? I see you everywhere. I see pictures of you at Little League games, supporting other kids’ successes, commentating. Tell us a little bit about where your growth period is now that you—you went semi-pro didn’t you? For a little while?

Chris: Yeah, I played in European basketball for ten years. And you know, I finished that in 2019 was my last year and, you know, ever since then, I’ve been just trying to figure out what’s next, you know? 2020 Covid hit and it was kind of—it put a pause on my basketball career, kind of ended it, so you know, now I’m you know, doing a little bit of different things, like, I’ve done some training skills, I’ve done commentating high school games, I’ve done some speaking engagements. So, I think right now is just trying to figure out, like, what avenue I really want to focus on to pursue. But you know, I ain’t going to lie to you; I like doing different things, like you know, having all these different avenues I’m doing, but I feel like eventually that I probably [want a 00:04:55] college staff or NBA coaching staff is one of the goals.

Julia: And we all hope that goal gets reached for you. I know that everybody in Knoxville would be absolutely beyond excited to have you here, but you know, we won’t to talk about our needs here on basketball, per se. Your jersey just recently got retired, and there are, what, 50 maybe in the history to ever have a retired jersey, in all sports at UT, I believe. Is that correct? So, like, one of 50 people?

Chris: Oh, I really don’t know that. Never been—

Julia: That’s [laugh]—

Chris: —[crosstalk 00:05:26]. I don’t know [laugh].

Julia: Tell us a little bit about that night.

Chris: Oh, it was special, you know? That whole weekend was special. You know, leading up to how they told me, you know, back in the fall, how they told me what’s going to happen and then, you know, with me, it was just special because so many people came out to, you know, show support for me. It was just special. Old high school teammates, my old college teammates, old coaches from elementary school, high school, football coach.

And of course, you know, Vol Nation came out to support. So, it was just special. My parents were right there with me. So, it was—I’m telling you, I look back and it was, like, especially—I wish it didn’t end. Like, we had a great time. Like, my family, my friends and family from Maysville came down as well.

You know, took them, you know, showed them around downtown Knoxville, and [unintelligible 00:06:12] they talked about how they had the best time of their life that weekend. So, it was special, and you know, I was glad I got to share it with him.

Julia: That is—that is—you know, downtown Knoxville is so special. It’s grown. You got to see it the way that I saw it. We’re almost the same age, so you know how Knoxville used to be [laugh] and what it is today. Did you imagine at any point in time—or what did you imagine it would have turned into back then because the Strip has completely changed, and for those of you that don’t know, the Strip is Cumberland Avenue. It is also Kingston Pike. So—

Chris: Right.

Julia: —we have three names for everything here. It’s completely changed. Tell us about your experiences there. Because there was a news story that came out, a guy do it in the News Sentinel here about the changes on Cumberland Avenue and asked for stories. And of course, some we can’t tell—

Chris: [laugh].

Julia: —and some we can. But what has [laugh]—we all laugh about that. So, what are the changes that you’ve experienced in Knoxville? And some of that—and a lot of that I know that you’re going to say no or you’re going to be humble about it because that’s your personality, but a lot of that was your era of sports, the era of people ushering in sheer will and talent to bring in the fans that brought in the hotels that brought in the money that people were starting to pay attention to Knoxville. And that started happening during your four years at UT and that really changed the outlook for Knoxville because we are so sports oriented. What changes have you seen that have been really positive? And if you could add changes, what would those be?

Chris: Yeah, I’ve seen, like, just the new facilities, the new—everything’s new on the Strip now. Like, it just looks totally different. Like, I liked the old Strip because it was some of the best times of my life, being there after football games, being packed, you know, getting food, just hanging out. You know, you got the, you know, the bars scene, just like college students just having fun. Just out there on the street, talking, you know, just—and you had your choice of what to do, you can stand outside and talk, go into the bar, club, eat.

It was just that camaraderie that I loved, you know, during the Strip days. And, you know, I feel like right now, it’s hard to do that, you know? I don’t think [unintelligible 00:08:15] lot to do that on the Strip right now. I know a lot of people will be in Old City and stuff, but that Strip is just special to me because that’s where everything was and, you know, but you know, sometimes that old, you know, change is good, you know? I guess maybe the new students like it how is now, you know? But you know, people our age and older probably like the old Strip because it was—seemed like it was more fun. But you know, kids is different these days, or they might like it the way it is now better.

Julia: I feel like we had, like, three generations of goers. So, not necessarily age generations, but three generations of fans, and we all had the exact same experience on the Strip, and now it’s such a stark contrast that it’s not recognizable. But these kids seem to love it the way it is. I just mi—I miss Hannah’s [laugh].

Chris: Absolutely. [unintelligible 00:09:01] RT’s. Remember RT’s?

Julia: I do. Do you—now what was it? Was it Archie’s that had the Saturday night [foam 00:09:08] dancing. Do you remember that?

Chris: I don’t remember that. I just remember [unintelligible 00:09:12] walked up the steps.

Julia: Yes. I think that was still RT’s, I’m pretty sure, you know—

Chris: It was.

Julia: —[unintelligible 00:09:16] and the OC. There was so many things. So many things. Okay. Anyway.

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Julia: You have traveled the world, the whole world, and you still love Knoxville, Tennessee, like it’s your home. What about Knoxville is so special compared to all these major places that you’ve been? I mean, you could choose to be anywhere, a fan anywhere, play anywhere, do whatever, and Knoxville so close to you and to your heart. What about Knoxville is different and special?

Chris: I think for me, like I told you before, like, Knoxville took a chance on me, you know? University of Tennessee gave me a scholarship to play basketball when nobody else would. So, there was—you know, there always going to be a special place in my heart and he gave me the opportunity, you know, when I was struggling, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was scared, like, I was nervous. Like, maybe I wasn’t made for college basketball, you know? Maybe not as good as I thought I was.

And you know, Knoxville gave me that opportunity to come play here. And you know, I say one day I’d be living in Knoxville, probably, you know? I would say that. And you know, I’ll come back, you know, quite often to—you know, I got friends there, I do some work there, so you know, it’s always a special place to me.

Julia: Yeah. Hopefully, do some coaching here [cough cough].

Chris: Right [crosstalk 00:10:50].

Julia: [laugh]. So, what do you personally think—I ask the same questions of everybody and no two people have had the same answers yet—what do you think is the biggest misconception from the outside of Knoxville, Tennessee?

Chris: Most biggest misconception. That’s a great question. Um, I think people, like, think, like, it’s all, like, country and all, like, small, but, like, we got all here, you know? We got whatever you want to do, in Knoxville we got it, you know? Whether you want to go out, you want to relax, we got chill spots, good food, great restaurants, great scenery, we got Market Square, you know?

Like, we got all of this you really need, you know? Like, we ki—it’s like a small town living but it’s not. But, you know, you can raise a family here. I think is a great place to raise a family. I feel like we got—we’re like a Swiss army knife; we got the jack of all trades.

Julia: [laugh]. “Knoxville: The Swiss Army knife of cities.” [laugh].

Chris: We got the Swiss army knife. We got it all here.

Julia: I’m going to use that. I’m going to use that. Care of Chris Lofton, “Swiss Army Knife of Cities.” You are welcome [laugh].

Chris: If you want it, we got it.

Julia: That is the best—that is honestly the best one. I’m going to share that with everybody before this even releases. I’m going to text it to everybody who’s been a member of the show so far. We are the Swiss army knife. That is the best. That is the best.

Okay, so we’re going to ask about it, and we know we can give a roundabout answer. How do we feel about the upcoming basketball season for next year? We just finished the season. People were calling for Rick Barnes’ head. They always call for the coach that’s not winning the national championship.

My God, we could win every game but that win and that’s the end of the world. Kill him now. So, Vol fans, if you’re not a Vol fan yet, and you’ve never seen Vol Twitter, be prepared when you move here. But tell us a little bit about your predictions for next season. Have you gotten to know some of the players and how they’re feeling? What’s going on there?

Chris: Well, not yet, honestly because you know, the transfer portal, where people can transfer now in and out, so I have to see—go to practice and see the final roster, and but I’m sure by, like, June, July, I’ll know. So, can I get back with you on that?

Julia: Absolutely.

Chris: But I will say, I have the most confidence in our coaches, to have a Coach Barnes and the coaches have. I know they’ll get the right players in and they’ll do it the right way. There’ll be practicing hard this summer, getting ready. So, I have nothing but respect for them and I know it’s going to be a great season.

Julia: We just shot a TV show in the practice facility and that’s the first time I’d ever been in the basketball practice facility; like, I’m in the football side all the time with my NIL kids. And so, the first time I’d ever been in the basketball practice facility, one of the most beautiful facilities I think I’ve ever seen. How often did you spend time in there outside of actual practices? Like, what did it really take to become the Chris Lofton?

Chris: Well, you know, they didn’t have that when I played. They got it, I think it opened up my senior year for a little bit, but you know, so we didn’t use it a lot. So, I started using it when I was a pro playing overseas when I’d come back in the summer.

Julia: Nice.

Chris: So, I got my most used out of it then, you know, a lot of them. But you know, like, we used Thompson Boling Arena, and then sometimes we had to go to, like, T-Rec. Stokely was still there, so we had to use the other gyms, you know, if Thompson Boling wasn’t available.

Julia: What was your favorite place on campus to work out? Mine was the Bubble. And I miss the Bubble every day. I miss it.

Chris: Well, we worked out with the team, so we didn’t work out anywhere else, you know? We had the team weight room. I mean, I went to the T-Rec a couple of times, I remember, but you know, for the most part, I lifted with the team in the weight room.

Julia: We’re so excited to have you on this podcast. I’m asking you questions all over the shop and not necessarily all about Knoxville. I’m just getting to—I love it when I get to spend time with you. You’re the most positive person I’ve ever met in my entire life.

Chris: Appreciate—

Julia: It so amazingly just… giving. You’re just a great guy. So, I want to get you out on your own time because I know you have something else going on. So, we’re going to do a three-minute lightning round of, like, super great questions. Favorite restaurant in Knoxville.

Chris: Favorite restaurant in Knoxville. I got to name one, Julia? I got to name one?

Julia: You can name three.

Chris: Oh, like, Sullivan’s is one of my favorites.

Julia: Oh yeah.

Chris: I love S—

Julia: Sull—nobody’s listed Sullivan’s yet. That’s a really good one.

Chris: I love Sullivan’s. I’m there a lot. I used to stay out that way, so they get a lot of my money.

Julia: [laugh]. Take my money.

Chris: Yes. Market Square, I like Stock & Barrel. I like [crosstalk 00:15:14]. I mean, Calhoun’s… Ruth’s Chris. I like steak.

Julia: Oh yeah.

Chris: I like Connors.

Julia: Ohh. Connors is top-notch.

Chris: Yeah, I would say—

Julia: Top-notch.

Chris: —those are my favorites. Oh, Scrambled Jake’s for my brunch.

Julia: Oh, their break—oh my gosh. So, I feel like I ate 2200 calories in one sitting at one brunch one day. I didn’t eat for the whole rest of the day and half the next day. I was like, “That is a one-time event.” [laugh].

Chris: Yes.

Julia: Scrambled Jake’s is really good, actually. I haven’t been there in a while. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m glad you brought that up. All right. What is your best-kept secret? So, let’s say that you have somebody that calls you up and says, “Hey, I’m in town. Take me somewhere that no one else would know about.” What is your best-kept secret for when you entertain other people?

Chris: [unintelligible 00:16:03]. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s the best kept secret because people know it, but I like—you know, if I got a friend I like taking them to Market Street and go bowling.

Julia: Oh, yeah. Oh, what is that? Maple Hall.

Chris: Maple Hall. That’s—

Julia: That’s it.

Chris: —that’s what I like to do. I like going on there because, you know, you got whatever you want. You can, you know—if your friends want to drink, we can bowl, eat, and they got all sorts of options downtown to do.

Julia: They have that private event center on the top floor. Did you know about that?

Chris: Yeah, I did.

Julia: I had no idea. I went there for a Legends of Tennessee Football Camp fundraiser. We show up to the bowling alley. There’s no signage and unless you just know to walk through the bowling lane to get upstairs. So, I’m just standing there and I’m waiting and I’m waiting and I’m waiting, and the lady says, “Ma’am, what is it that you’re waiting for?” I said, “Well, I’m just supposed to be here for some private event, but that no one seems to be here.” She goes, “Well, if you’d to walk all the way to the back across the hall,” and it’s—you overlook Old Knoxville. I didn’t even know. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I didn’t even know this was here.”

What a great spot. What a great spot. Okay. How do you think—let’s see. I have one last question. It has nothing to do with restaurants. What do you think about Knoxville’s ability to bring younger people here, and what it’s going to take to keep them here? So, one of the biggest things that I’ve been working on—I know you know Derrick Furlow—that I’ve been working with Derrick on is keeping the young athletes when they graduate—if they don’t go pro or semi-pro—keeping them here and helping them build businesses. What do you think is the biggest challenge to that and the biggest opportunity to help them stay here to be part of Knoxville long term?

Chris: I think for one, like, usually when people leave, they’re comfortable, you know, where they came from, you know? Some people want to go home, some people want go to bigger cities and, you know, bigger markets. But I think I would tell them as a former athlete, like, Knoxville fan base, Vol Nation is different from any other fan base. Like, they want to—I feel like they want to help you. They want to help you succeed in life, not just football.

So, I feel like if you have opportunity to stay here and, you know, start out, you know, get a job, I would definitely recommend it because just being an athlete from Tennessee, it’s special. And you know, people love that. If you’re nice, help people, serve, make a difference, people like—people take care of that.

Julia: They really do. And that’s what we’re trying to work on is giving more opportunities. We want you to stay. It’s like, please come home. Please come back to Knoxville. We want you to be here so badly. Because we want you to be here so badly. It’s like, please come and stay and contribute because we just appreciate you so much.

All right, I’m going to let you go. Before I do, how do people get a hold of you for a speaking engagement? What is the easiest way for people to find your information? Because I didn’t even get into your whole life story. That would take an entire podcast on its own, but you have so much positivity, how to get out of struggles, how to maintain, how to move forward. You literally have one of the best motivational stories I’ve ever heard. How do people get with you to get you on their stage and get on your calendar?

Chris: I’m on social media. I’m on Twitter, I’m on Facebook, I’m on Instagram. So, reach out to me. It’s just Chris Lo—

Julia: What’s that username?

Chris: Just type in Chris Lofton and I’m there.

Julia: [laugh].

Chris: C underscore Lofton.

Julia: Yes. C underscore Lofton. That is it. Yes, correct. Chris, thank you as always for taking time to spend time with me. Next time you’re in Knoxville, let me know. Dinner’s on me. And we really appreciate you. Everybody, I’m Julia Hurley. Our guest today was Chris Lofton, literally the most prolific shooter in college basketball history. I’m telling you, go back and watch this guy. Listen, I’m Julia Hurley, bringing Knoxville to the nation. Thank you for Connecting the Knox.

Chris: Thanks so much.

Julia: Bye.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Andy Jeffers is the owner of Sports & Entertainment Media here in Knoxville. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we discuss how he got his start running such a large media company from the heart of the Scruffy City, and we also discuss the surprising amount of businesses that are based right here in Knoxville. Andy reveals what it’s like to work with NASCAR and how much travel is really required to film live sporting events. Andy also explains why he loves coming home to Knoxville and why other cities all have their charms, but can’t compare to home for him.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

01:49 Andy explains how his father started Sports & Entertainment Media and what Andy does as the current owner

07:38 Why baseball is Andy’s favorite sport

10:37 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

11:07 The most profitable sport that Andy’s business covers

12:59 Andy describes how much he travels for his business and what it’s like coming home to Knoxville after so much time away

16:22 Andy and Julia discuss the various cities of Tennessee and how they all have their own culture

19:05 Andy describes some of the little-known aspects of Knoxville, including the arts that you can find here and the truth behind the Cocaine Bear movie

20:45 Ad - Just Homes Group

25:25 Where you can find more information about Sports & Entertainment Media

29:21 How COVID impacted Andy’s business and how Nascar was on the forefront or creating protocols to return to live sports events

32:52 Julia and Andy describe how Knoxville has a kinder, chiller vibe than larger cities

Links Mentioned in This Episode

  • Sports & Entertainment Media website: https://www.entsportmedia.com/
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/Entsportmedia
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Entsportmedia/
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/entsportmedia/
  • Andy’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyVJeffers
  • Dr. Joe Chiro: https://www.goseedrjoe.com

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Transcript

Julia: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox, connecting Knoxville to the nation. I’m Julia Hurley, your host of this podcast, and thank you to our sponsors. Today’s guest is Andy Jeffers, owner of Entertainment Sports… with, with an S [laugh]—

Andy: It’s—yeah—

Julia: Entertainment Sports Media—

Andy: Sports and Entertainment. Yes.

Julia: —which I got wrong and said ‘sport’ earlier, as in just, like, one sport. But no, we got all kinds of sports though. Owner of Entertainment Sports Media, Andy Jeffers, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Andy, thank you so much for being on our podcast today.

Andy: Ma—thank you. I appreciate it so much and it’s always nice to catch up with you. And yeah, so it’s been fun. So, this is kind of my off-season a little bit, so I’m kind of—this is my download and clean up and organize part of the year.

Julia: Well, is this your logo up here?

Andy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah this is, uh—this is the Sports & Entertainment Media logo. And so, I do a lot of swag and stuff, obviously, for clients, but a lot of the guys and stuff out on the field and cameras, when we do a lot of production stuff, it helps to identify and have that kind of brand out there so people kind of know what part you’re with. If you’re with the video guys, audio guys, a band, or a race team, or sport or—so it kind of helps single you out a little bit so we can find each other.

Julia: That’s good. That’s good news. Nice to be found in a crowd of 150,000 people [laugh].

Andy: Sometimes yes. Sometimes.

Julia: All right, so nobody has a clue what you do, but everybody knows what you do. And I find that fascinating. So, help us know what Entertainment Sports Media is.

Andy: Okay, so Sports & Entertainment Media, so was founded by my dad, and I added the media to the business. So, his—it was Sports and Entertainment Marketing. Dad was a, he was a field writer, a sports writer, political writer for a newspaper in Johnson City, and he also owned his own advertising firm in Boone, North Carolina, and in Johnson City, Tennessee. So, with that, he had years of experience in racing and, obviously, sports and worked with, you know, several different basketball and college-level-type conferences. He also ran into some campaigns and stuff like that.

So, when he graduated from ETSU back in the day, he knew this is kind of the route he wanted to go. So, in the late-’70s, he opened up what was Lynn Jeffers and Associates, and when they moved to Johnson City, then that’s when he started the sports entertainment marketing. So, when I took over the business, I added media because of my background working with a broadcast degree from the University of Tennessee and also working with Barry Rice and Link Hudson at VFL films, in the athletic department, where I ended up working later. But those guys really taught me a great deal about writing and editing and videography. And then all the projects they worked on, there were several other little projects I got to work on that went beyond sports.

And so, that has really helped me kind of build a bigger spectrum of about how to edit on the production side of stuff, and you know, there’s different long-form editing. And so, from that, I learned a great deal from those guys. And then I went on to work for Beyond Media, which is in a Knoxville business that taught me long-form editing on shows for DIY, Discovery Channel, History Channel, stuff like that. And all the time, I still was doing some freelance and working at the University of Tennessee. So unfortunately, like, in 2004, my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor and so at that point, I needed to kind of come over and help him.

And then, like I said, my whole life, I’ve been around NASCAR and racing. And Dad, everything he did working with ESPN in late-’70s, he did a lot of PR stuff for teams. ’80s, ZSPN came along, dad worked for CBS and all those guys, so, doing all the in-car cameras. And so, unfortunately, when he was diagnosed, I had to come in and step up. And I kind of helped run the business.

And then he passed away 2006, in December, and so I’ve kind of taken that. When I changed the name from marketing, I added the media to it. And so, from there, I’ve continued to do the in-car camera stuff, did a little bit of work, probably for another ten years with the University of Tennessee. It was always great to go back and work with your buddies. And so, always am indebted, and I love Barry Rice and Link Hudson. Those guys are masters at what they do in imaging and branding and everything like that.

So, I continue to do the NASCAR stuff. So, working with NBC currently and Fox as they cover the season. And the biggest thing and probably the joy I get out of is doing I love streaming—live streaming—music and concerts. So, we do several different kinds of things like that. Also dabble in, do some rental with some of the equipment.

A lot of people, streaming has gotten really big, from a high school sports standpoint and in smaller sports and some stuff like that. So, I’ve done some swimming, soccer, some basketball. And overall, that’s kind of what my company does. We can do, you know, post-production-type commercials. The other thing I’m doing is also right now in the process of getting the whole drone license.

Julia: Oh fun.

Andy: So, I love doing aerials and I love taking the drone and flying it places. And I’m the only person that would travel to Hawaii and I take a bunch of camera equipment, so [laugh]. But I came away with some great images. And so, I kind of have this nature, I love going out and taking sunsets and hiking, and that’s probably maybe that’s the piece that I get some of the photography part of stuff. But overall, that’s kind of what my business does.

And so, year in, year out, travel a lot. But try to keep the connections and stuff and trying to, you know, continue to grow like everybody does. You know, you push yourself. But I really, really want to push to try get back in a little bit more and do more music than I have in the last couple of years.

Julia: Have you partnered over a GEODIS Park in Nashville at all?

Andy: No. I haven’t.

Julia: I'll connect you. I’ve got season tickets there for the soccer stadium, GEODIS Park, and they have a booty-ton of concerts coming in. And we get to get—we get seven days ahead of time to get tickets to every concert. I mean they’ve got major—they’ve got Shania Twain, Pink—

Andy: Oh cool.

Julia: Is coming.

Andy: Wow.

Julia: The GEODIS Park. I was like, tha—I’ve got tickets to all these random concerts that I don’t—I mean, I was like, “Okay, let’s get this.” Who knew? Who knew?

Andy: No. Oh, I didn’t at all. Wow. I’ll have to look into that. So cool.

Julia: Yeah. Very cool. I’ll connect you over there with my guy. Or I think it’s a girl at this point. I’m been—my rep’s been replaced twice. So, they just keep promoting them.

Andy: Yeah, well, it’s a sign of good work, right, so when you get promoted.

Julia: Isn’t it, though? Isn’t it?

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: Yeah. They’re killing it over there with the live music. So, that would be a great connection for you. So, tell us what’s your favorite sport? Because you have managed so many sports. You do advertising for so many sports, you’ve filmed so many sports. What’s your personal favorite sport?

Andy: Baseball. I played baseball in college, and so—and obviously high school, but baseball was always my love. And so, I’m a die-hard Cubs fan. And with that, I tried walking on at the University of Tennessee. And so, I played my first two years in JUCO. And with that, there was this, like, my career kind of ended in that. I had a good try-out, I will say that, but I looked down and coach wasn’t even looking, so I was like, “Well, this is all for naught.”

But I gave it my effort and I tried, and so when the career ended there, that’s kind of when I went over and I found Barry Rice and Link Hudson. And that’s when I was like, okay, well, I love that competition part of things. So, I truly do find fire and I was like, I need that fuel. And the best thing that I could find was being part of the team in, you know, documenting what they do. So practices, coaches shows, highlight videos, stuff like that.

And that’s where I really, like, kind of generated a lot of, like, okay, it’s not the full, like, you know, flex of, like, getting the competition fulfillment, but it does give you that, “Hey, I got a team.” And you felt like part of the team wherever you were at, whether it was basketball, baseball, or with the football team, and I enjoyed doing that a lot. So, it kind of—but that was my first love of baseball. But yeah, it’s something that, you know, I still enjoy watching the games. And I did go to all seven World Series games for the Cubs—

Julia: Nice.

Andy: —so that was—has been a feather in my hat, I guess. One of my top life moments, I guess.

Julia: No doubt. That’s—when the Cubs won the World Series, I was like, well, there were about 100-year prediction. So, it did happen in my lifetime.

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: [laugh].

Andy: They did.

Julia: I was like, “There’s that.” That’s so funny. So, baseball is my second favorite sport. We go to all the baseball games. We have season tickets to UT games. We’re very excited. We have wonderful seats. And we’re right behind the first base, three seats up.

Andy: Oh. Oh cool.

Julia: Right behind first base. We’re right—we can smell it. I mean, it’s like we can smell the dirt when they run by and [unintelligible 00:09:51].

Andy: Oh, man.

Julia: And everybody in my family hates baseball [laugh].

Andy: Really?

Julia: I’m the only baseball fan. So, I’m like, “It’s Easter Sunday. We’re going to a baseball game”—

Andy: We’re going to the baseball game.

Julia: —and everybody’s like, “It’s Easter.” I’m like, “I’m going to a baseball game.” [laugh].

Andy: And the good thing is it was a good team to go watch this year, so—

Julia: Yeah, they were fantastic.

Andy: No, it was—they were phenomenal. Very talented team.

Julia: Very talented team. Very talented coach. So—

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: —so UT has been very lucky this year.

Andy: Yeah, no I—

Julia: [crosstalk 00:10:19] very lucky. In all aspects.

Andy: Been nice to be in the win column a lot of the sports over there, so pretty cool.

Julia: Yeah. Well again, had to happen in my lifetime. I was, like, willing this to happen. Like, Cubs. This is going to—everybody’s going to get it. Everybody’s going to eventually turn around here. So, tell us about—okay so your favorite sport is baseball. What’s your most profitable sport in your business?

Andy: Oh, NASCAR, hands down. You know, doing the in-car cameras and doing the sales and obligations on that end of things is probably the most profitable thing, hands down. So, even more than music or any of the other stuff. I mean, it’s just something that I love. That in itself is, you know—I enjoy that because you get to work with—on the national level—Fox sales and NBC sales group. You also get to do a lot of production.

So, I stage manage, too, during the weekend, so I’m up in the booth with the announcers. So, it’s not your normal stage manager-type position at the racetrack because I, kind of like, work on the sales end of things, too, a little bit with our guys in the booth. But I love the history of the sport. So, there’s a passion I have for it, so I really do try to add as much as I can to help.

We have tremendous stat guys. They’re phenomenal. So really, when it comes to the history or stats like that, they have it covered. But there’s little things that you can kind of throw in to help the broadcast, so I love that part. Again, you’re part of a team, you’re part of doing something and putting on a great show.

But yes, from th—there’s only two separate things in racing: there’s the stage-managing part, and there’s the in-car cameras, and that is what takes most of my time during the week, traveling and then at the track. It takes a lot of time making sure that the decals are placed for sponsors who purchased the in-car cameras. So, you got to make sure that you got everything covered from the side of the seats, to the inside, to the graphic that’s on screen. And you’re trying to bring as much value to that partner or client that’s on the telecast. So, I enjoy doing that and that’s probably that’s where the biggest amount of my income comes from.

Julia: So, how often are you gone? Like, let’s say—you’re in Knoxville, Tennessee, but you’re really here how often?

Andy: I’m probably gone more than I’m here. And I say that because, like, last year… I’m trying to think. So, we started the season—it was really cool—we started at the Clash, which was normally—it’s always run in Daytona. But last year, NASCAR really went outside the box and we raced in the Coliseum in LA. So, where the USC Trojans play football, we had a race inside that. It was phenomenal.

And so, the construction of that is mind-blowing in itself. That’s a whole podcast on its own. But so that was early—or excuse me, that was late January last year and I was very fortunate last year because the Superbowl was in LA. So, I actually stayed—and NBC had that, so they had asked me to work the Superbowl. So, I was in LA for the Clash—so that was for Fox—and then when NBC had the Superbowl, I just stayed out for another two weeks.

So, that was a two-week process. And then flew straight to Daytona and the season started. So, end of January to the first weekend of November, we had one off weekend. And so, I’m on the road from Thursday to about Monday every week. So, that’s how much time I’m here. So, mainly Monday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, I’m home to do laundry [laugh] and, you know, and then office work. You get tons of calls and conference calls and stuff like that to prepare for the next week.

But that’s kind of the typical schedule. But yeah, gone majority of stuff. So, when you come home, it’s always nice when you get back in the area and you’re, like, “Okay, that’s new. That’s new.”

Julia: Yeah.

Andy: “Okay, wow.”

Julia: Especially now [laugh].

Andy: Yeah. Oh, there’s so much building going on around in you know, downtown or the airport. So, if it’s anything comes from South Knoxville to the airport I know about it because that’s my track every week, twice a week. But you know, just getting out, being home, that kind of downloading, I just, I love being here. It’s hands down, Knoxville is one of the, like, greatest places to live.

I travel a bunch. And so, from the West to North to Midwest, I love cities, I love traveling, but when you come home and you make that approach coming over the mountains, in the fall especially when it’s just beautiful, there’s nothing like, you know, living here and stuff like that. The people who are genuine, you know, and all the neighborhood and surrounding areas of Knoxville and stuff like that. So, I really do like it. The one thing I’ve noticed a lot though, like, coming back, and even in this fall, is how much tourism Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg is doing and what they’re bringing into the area.

Julia: It’s a lot.

Andy: Holy cow.

Julia: It’s a lot.

Andy: And just visually, seeing the amount of people renting cars because when you do rent a car—like, there’s a couple of races I’ll drive to and not fly to, but I’ll get a rental car, and they’re like, “Yeah, we don’t have anything,” or you know, “Hey, if you don’t like this, tough, because [laugh]”—

Julia: Because it’s all you’re going to get.

Andy: —“This is all we have.” Yeah. And so, there’s a tremendous amount of tourism coming. And I guess the mountains and people love doing that, which it is, I mean, it’s gorgeous, but it’s also it’s like our little secret, so it’s kind of like hey, you know. But there are also so many beautiful areas around this area to love. I think, you know, Nashville is blowing up so fast and so much.

Julia: I never thought Nashville would be there.

Andy: No, and it’s—

Julia: I miss old Nashville.

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Andy: I miss the old Nashville. And that’s what I was about to say is, I am—I’ve seen Austin do the same thing and it’s to the point where they’re a little bit losing their identity. And so, like, what Nashville to me was always Music City. And it still is and I mean, I love it, but there’s a lot of I want to say disrespecting—

Julia: Oh yeah.

Andy: —the guard that had built a lot of what Nashville was. And so, now so many corporations and so many people are moving in their daily. So like, you know, people will have a misconception because Tennessee is such a long state, and they’ll all be like, “Oh, so you’re from the Johnson City area.” And they’ll kind of lump in everything. “Well, yeah, that’s where I grew up at, but I live in Knoxville.” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s Nashville area.”

I’m like, “No.” [laugh].

Julia: No, that’s another seven hours [laugh].

Andy: Yep. I said, “Knoxville—Tennessee is a huge state. It’s like, it’s a long state.”

Julia: Yeah.

Andy: And so, you know, some people, especially on the West Coast or something, they, like, “Well, I’ve been to Memphis before,” or, “I’ve been to Nashville.” And so, it’s kind of funny, I’m like, “Well, you if you ever get a chance, you need to visit Knoxville.” It’s its own identity, it’s its own place. Music-wise, we have some of the most talented musicians living in this area. Hands down.

Julia: People have no idea what Knoxville has to offer.

Andy: Oh, yeah.

Julia: Yeah.

Andy: I mean, it’s a tremendous place. And like I said, like, there’s favorite places. I love Sonoma. I love going to Napa Valley. I love Phoenix. I’m a sucker for the West Coast in the fact that the sunsets, I love the mountains, the flying the drone, and doing photography out there is beautiful.

Julia: I was this close to buying a condo in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This close. I wanted to be there forever. We went for a week. I did not want to leave. I did not want—

Andy: Beautiful.

Julia: I had to get back for the dog, but I did not want to leave.

Andy: Yeah. And it is, it’s like, I always tell people if you can, go out West and just see the difference in the mountains. But then there’s something about our mountains, like, you know, they’re not as picky and high right, but it still—

Julia: But they’re home.

Andy: It’s home and there’s something, it’s like a big hug when you come back.

Julia: That is exactly, verbatim, how I described Knoxville to one of our podcasters, Almeida, who owns A New Hue and she does plaster—she’s from Argentina, and she has a business in Knoxville, a huge business in Knoxville. Had her on the podcast, and she said, “I just can’t describe how Knoxville makes me feel.” And I said, “It feels like a big hug. Every time you’re home you feel hugged.” It is exactly how I described it.

Andy: Yeah. No, it’s just—it’s genuine. And I don’t think we’ve lost our identity yet. I think there’s so much creativity in the arts especially, you know, like I said, for music but not only from a visual or something like that, but there’s just so much going on. Business-wise, there’s so many in this area.

I think, one of the things people are surprised about, probably more than anything is how many businesses are based here in the Knoxville—you know, Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg area, but you know, Maryville and all that. And I’m like, “Yeah, guys, it’s huge.” You know, but then of course everybody wants to say, “Well, is that Cocaine Bears movie, is it a true thing?” And I’m like—

Julia: Oh, God. I’m so embarrassed by that.

Andy: I said, “That’s what you want to know about Knoxville?” I was like, [unintelligible 00:19:44].

Julia: I honestly thought it was a story about the Butcher Brothers. I really did. I was like Cocaine Bears. I was like, “Is this a story about those bankers that used to snort cocaine off big piles of money in Knoxville?” I thought it was the banking industry. But it was an actual bear [laugh].

Andy: It’s an—and to read that story, it’s phenomenal. Like, so the guy accidentally, you know, did land down in South Knoxville. He fell out of a plane, but… well he jumped out of the plane with money and cocaine, but he dumped a bunch of it in North Georgia and that’s where the bear ate it. But that bear can be found in Kentucky right now. And Waylon Jennings owned the taxidermy bear.

So, it’s a fascinating story, and so when people ask me like, “Hey, Knoxville. Is that a true story?” I’m like, “Ahh, yeah, kind of. Obviously, it’s going to be made into a movie, but yes, the factual parts of the story are yes, this was a drug runner.”

Julia: We have so many amazing things in Knoxville. Off-the-wall things that people don’t—that is exactly why I started this podcast because connecting—I get asked, as a real estate agent, why is everybody flocking to your area? I need [unintelligible 00:20:52] I get hundreds of phone calls a week of, “I need to be there. So-and-so told me I need to be there. It’s affordable. Find me something. Why do people want to be there?”

And I’m like, “Well, there’s everything is here.” And they have no idea richness and the business entities and the opportunity that Knoxville brings because we really don’t talk about it. And we don’t talk—

Andy: No.

Julia: —with the people that have these companies like you do, even though you’re never here but you’re always here. And nobody knew what you did, but they all know what you did. And they know you’re Knoxville. And I think that’s one of the biggest things is Knoxville has the opportunity for you to learn from people who have national and international bases right here in Knoxville.

Andy: Oh, yeah. No, and you know, technology has helped so much, too, you know, being able to be based out of somewhere, but like, from manufacturing or a corporation, it’s amazing how many places are here. And people are always stunned when I say, “Yeah, that”—like, we’ll be on the West Coast, I’m like, “Yeah, that company is Knoxville-based.” “Huh?” “Yep. They’re out of Knoxville.” “What?” I’m like, yeah, as I said, Knoxville is a great little place.

We always have—and this is kind of funny—and I think everybody probably has a friend or a story like this, but I had—it was—and my dad even experienced this. So, the Bristol race, everybody would come in from—at that time—Bristol, Connecticut. A lot of ESPN people, New York. Fox now or NBC, you get a lot of LA and contingent, and everybody kind of comes together. But the eastern part of Tennessee, Knoxville all the way up and down, people come here, and then what happens, normally, because flights out of tri-city are difficult, they’ll fly out of Knoxville because it’s so easy, so you get to Dallas, you get to LA, or whatever.

And people, when they fly in, they are like, “Dude, you live in one of the most beautiful-est places. Like, oh my gosh.” Like, and several times, we’ve had people who have used—bought a second home, Sevierville or up in the mountains or, you know, north of here, Kentucky on the lake.

Julia: It happens all the time.

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: People will be here to visit and they’ll say, “Oh, my gosh, I would love to have an investment property.” And of course, I’m like [wha-tch]. But they all want to be here at some point, and it’s just part of it. This is an attractive place to be. But it’s not just for retirement; it’s to enjoy. Younger people are moving here and changing the trajectory of the opportunities and the growth.

Andy: Yeah, you’d be surprised how many people in NASCAR over in the Charlotte area have property in Dandridge on the lake, or out west or up north and just around the area, Tellico or whatever. It’s amazing. And they love it because they’re just like, “Dude, it’s a way, it’s out, we love Tennessee. We love what’s going on there.” So, it’s always nice when you have people that are, like, “Man we love—like, me and the wife went on a trip and we came through there and we stopped and, man, what a beautiful place.”

And one of our guys, he’s got a—he brought his car. In South Knoxville, I guess there’s a guy who does a lot of rebuilding. I’ve never heard of it. And again, here’s a guy who’s, like, notoriously, like, well-known nationally, who rebuilds these old ’50s and ’60s cars. And he said, “Yeah, I’m coming to Knoxville.” And I was like, “For what?” And he’s like, “I’m bringing the car down.” He said, “This guy, we found him and he does amazing work.” And I was like, “He lives five min—or his company’s five minutes from my house. I have never seen this.”

So, there’s always things to find. Out and I am blown away all the time. But just the history, I love it. It’s just an enjoyable place to be. And like I said, people are nice. Trust me, I travel all over this country and there are some places that I’m like, “I know I do not want to live here.”

Julia: [laugh]. I know, “Please just get me in and out.”

Andy: Yes, yes. This is a work trip. I got two nights in a hotel. Let’s get out of here. You know?

Julia: That’s hilarious. So, where can people find information about your company?

Andy: Yeah, so you know, a couple things you can do is obviously, website. So, www dot and then it’s entsport—E-N-T sport—no S [laugh] media dot com. So, entsportmedia.com. Or on Twitter or Instagram, Facebook, you can find Sports & Entertainment Media, but it’s entsport—entsportmedia.

And so, those are places you can find me. Of course, I’m on Twitter. I try to do social media and try to be as positive as possible. I don’t, kind of, dwell in the negative. But I try to promote races and I try to promote, you know, when our guys are doing good things. I get a little angry when our football team gets knocked down and we don’t get invited to the Heisman trophy, but other than that.

Julia: Yeah, that was pretty rude. Although I found that a blessing a little bit.

Andy: [laugh].

Julia: I did. I was like [unintelligible 00:25:40]—

Andy: It could be.

Julia: It was such a blessing if you think about how many of our quarterbacks deserved one and didn’t get one, and then became pro, pro, like, amazing multibillion-dollar owners of corporations, like, very successful building blocks. And I was like, “You know what? That’s a blessing.” He’ll just be amazing. It’ll be fine.

Andy: Yeah. He just—I just think [unintelligible 00:26:00] is, he’s an amazing athlete, but he’s an amazing guy.

Julia: Yeah. Have you read a book?

Andy: I have not.

Julia: Oh, it’s so cute. He wrote a little book for his brother.

Andy: Oh, wow. Okay.

Julia: He’s a good kid. I mean, he’s an author already.

Andy: Yeah. Yeah, he’s… I mean, just everything I have read and stories and things, and then people I know at the athletic department are like, he is an outstanding guy. So, those are the kinds of things that you do hope that, once the NFL—he rehabs and NFL comes knocking, he gets that opportunity. He’s going to work hard and—

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Andy: I just look at how he’s developed and stuff. So, you know, just, I don’t know, I’m always getting bitter about the Heisman trophy, and always feel we get left out of everything sometimes. But—

Julia: I feel like Tennessee is left out of a lot. Our baseball team gets slapped on the wrist constantly. Our football team gets left out of a lot of things. And I feel like we’re like, “You know what? That’s cool. We’re just a bunch of dumb silly rednecks down here. Just go ahead and ignore us. Ignore us. Keep going and we’ll be just fine.” [laugh].

Andy: [laugh]. Yeah, we’ll do our thing. So. But yeah, it’s… that’s the only part that, like, really drives me crazy sometimes. But it was fun because everybody knows I’m a huge Tennessee fan, so all the Fox, NBC guys who live in New York or LA or outside the skirts, they’re like—man, when we beat Alabama, I got more texts. I’m like—and I was in Vegas because, like, I didn’t get to go into a home game because my schedule didn’t work out.

Julia: Oh, man. Oh, you missed—oh that just breaks my heart for you. Now—

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: —now it hurts for you.

Andy: Yeah, because I cannot stand Alabama. Like, I’m old school. Like, my grandfather, that was the game. It wasn’t Florida. It wasn’t any of the other, you know, oh this—

Julia: Our truest rival is Alabama.

Andy: It’s Alabama. And so, my grandfather, my dad, and so, like, I can’t stand… I can’t stand them. And so, like, when we beat them, I mean, I was in Vegas and I was like, “Oh, this is the best.” So, I found a cigar bar real quick in Vegas and I proceeded to celebrate because I got tired of getting—every Alabama fan will always send me a text of them smoking cigars. So, I fired them off. And I was like, “Here we go.” [laugh].

Julia: Well, they took our thing, took our song, and it’s like, now we’ve taken it all back. So, [laugh] it’s [crosstalk 00:28:11]—

Andy: Yeah, we got it back, but then they get ranked higher than us. So, how does that happen? I don’t know. But anyway—

Julia: It is what it is.

Andy: —I digress. Yeah.

Julia: I appreciate always being the underdog. I feel like it gives us a leg up to keep fighting more and I feel like that’s what Volunteers do, so that’s what we’re just going to keep doing.

Andy: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. So, we’re a tough breed, that’s for sure.

Julia: That’s for sure. Well, I’m so glad to have caught up with you because I never see you—

Andy: Yes.

Julia: —anymore. You do travel constantly, and I feel like we haven’t seen each other [laugh] since Covid at least.

Andy: Oh, yeah. No. And that’s probably one of the things that, like, it has been so, like—so during Covid, and—so NASCAR was, you know, was the first sport back. Like, NASCAR—

Julia: Yeah. We appreciate that, by the way.

Andy: NASCAR did—

Julia: It was the thing to do.

Andy: Oh, it—well and but that… and that’s what people kind of laugh about sometimes, but it’s, it’s—Fox and NASCAR really did a, I mean, amazing job of putting together protocols to how to get back to sports and how to cover it. Now, yes, there was no, you know, body-to-body contact and so you had a car, but you still have teams. And that’s the thing people always—“Well, it’s drivers. That’s easy to do.” I’m like, “Yeah, but the teams all have to—they work together and they’re close-knit.”

So, it was fascinating how NASCAR came up—and Fox—they wrote the protocols to bring us back. Now, with that, I had to be so careful because of what I was doing. I couldn’t miss work. And so, like, literally, it was just batten the hatches, stay in my little box, and I didn’t get out or do anything. So, I miss going downtown.

And then even after that, several people, even the year after, it was still, I had to be careful because then I was back in the booth with the announcers. And so, like, you have to be, you know, you can’t be selfish and you have to be a team player. And it’s just like, so I had to focus on. So, there’s a lot of relationships and a lot of people and friendships and people were out doing things, and I was like, “Oh, can’t wait for concerts to come back and I [unintelligible 00:30:11]. And I can’t wait to get back and see people.”

So, now that everything’s kind of calmed down, that part has been [unintelligible 00:30:18] because I’m just—there—like, I have friends downtown, and I love going downtown, and there’s so many, like, great restaurants and places that you kind of missed out on. And I was tired of takeout and I was tired of my four walls, but traveling during Covid was like the weirdest thing in the world. It was like ghost town in an airport. Now, the travel was a lot easier and better because there was no people [unintelligible 00:30:39] and of all that. But now it’s back to the chaos and craziness. But it’s—

Julia: It definitely is, and I think that people forgot how to travel.

Andy: Oh, completely.

Julia: I think they forgot how to travel. I mean, I felt like we had to travel a lot during Covid, unfortunately, and there was five people on an airplane and us. And I was like, “Well, this is the job. This is the job that we signed up to do, so we’re going.” And then now, it’s 8000 people packed in an airplane, and I’m like, “Y’all forgot how to travel. Put your shoes on.” I guess. [laugh].

Andy: Okay, so shoes, and then the other thing that drives me bonkers is, so there’s a way you fall off an airplane: seat goes, seat goes, let the young lady, let the whoever go, the family, if they got kids, let them go first, right?

Julia: Right.

Andy: And then you file out. When people jump in the back and they don’t have a connection and they come busting through, that drives me bonkers. That just—I’m sitting there, I’m like, “Where you got to be?” Because then they go outside and they wait for their luggage and they’re standing. I’m like, so you literally ran through this poor little old lady and then you wrote to this old guy and then now you’re standing there. I’m like, “What are you doing?” And I just—that and people that don’t wash their hands in public. After all we’ve been through.

Julia: I still stock up on the wipes. So, I wipe the seat in front of me and the seat beside me and my seat and the chair backs and the people next to me and I’m like, “Here’s your seatbelt [rubber 00:32:01].” And then I rub me, and I’m like, “Do you want this?” And they’re like—[laugh].

Andy: No. No, it’s just, it has changed and stuff like that, but the mentality. You know, and that’s the thing because you bring up a good point because you talk about, like, overall, like, mental health and happiness, and where do you find that? Well, home is that. And I think there’s something to be said because, like, you do see the edge and anger in the bigger cities and you do see people who just—the short tempers.

Julia: Yeah.

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: And, you know, when I’m in Knoxville, I’m like, “Eh, okay.” You know, somebody cuts me off, I’m like, “Yeah, they probably got somewhere to be. It’s fine.”

Andy: Yeah.

Julia: You know?

Andy: But not even, like—

Julia: But somewhere else, that could be—

Andy: Yeah. I mean, we still get people who are rude, but overall it’s like, it’s still nice to come and see a place where people hold doors open for people coming in and out, hands full, and stuff—

Julia: And they’re [crosstalk 00:32:53] by it.

Andy: And I—yeah. Oh, and a, “Hello,” or a, “Hey, how are you doing today?” You know? That part has been nice. And so, there is something to be said and I think it’s what’s so special about, you know, our city.

Julia: [crosstalk 00:33:06]—

Andy: So, that’s pretty cool. But thanks for having me.

Julia: Well, of course. And I think that’s very special way to end that is that people like you carry that Knoxville spirit everywhere you go, across the country and that is a—

Andy: All the time.

Julia: —[good 00:33:14] representative of Knoxville, Tennessee. And you have such a major play with major corporations and sponsors across the world who now relate that kindness and that attitude and that competency with Knoxville, Tennessee. So, thank you for bringing that home.

Andy: Oh, good. Well, that’s what’s fun and, you know, I take pride in the area and I take pride in what we have here. So, it’s a special place.

Julia: Well everybody, Andy Jeffers, Entertainment Sports Media.

Andy: Sports. Sports & Entertainment—

Julia: [crosstalk 00:33:41]—

Andy: Sports & Entertainment Media. Trust me everybody gets it—I was like, “I should make this simpler.” But yes. Sports & Entertainment Media.

Julia: [crosstalk 00:33:49] house of sport. I’m like, [crosstalk 00:33:51]—

Andy: Yes.

Julia: —sports go? Is there only the one sport? I’m so confused right now.

Andy: Sport is everything, right? So.

Julia: Sports is encompassing of everything. And you encompass Knoxville and everything that it has to offer so well. Andy, I hope you and your family have a fantastic Christmas. Please hug your mom for me.

Andy: I will.

Julia: I hope you have a wonderful day.

Andy: I will do. You have a Merry Christmas and enjoy everything.

Julia: Thank you for being on here. Thank you sponsors for making this podcast a possibility. Thank you for joining Connect the Knox.

Julia: Thank you for tuning in to the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Bear Stephenson is the owner of Stephenson Realty and Auction in Clinton, Tennessee. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Bear explains how his early career was shaped by some of Knoxville’s most influential business leaders, and what he learned about good growth versus growth that is detrimental to the region. Bear and I also discuss what he’s learned from the ups and downs of real estate, and Bear shares some invaluable advice and insights on our current economic situation. Bear also reveals his wish for the future of East Tennessee, and explains the history behind what made the recent growth in our region possible.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:22 Julia introduces Bear and Bear explains how he started Stephenson Realty & Auction

06:17 Julia and Bear discuss how Bear’s early career was shaped by prominent Knoxville business leaders

09:34 The event that happened in 1989 that Bear will never forget

11:50 How Bear established his brand during his early years of entrepreneurship

14:52 What Bear has learned about surviving the ups and downs of the real estate and business markets

17:43 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

26:34 Bear describes a time in history that closely mirrors the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting economic impact

30:06 The ideal future Bear envisions for the East Tennessee region

34:27 Ad - Just Homes Group

36:24 Julia and Bear discuss the importance of understanding the history of our region and sharing our stories

41:59 Why Bear chose to stay in the Knoxville area after all his travels

43:44 Julia asks Bear her lightning round questions about his favorite Knoxville spots

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • Stephenson Realty & Auction: https://www.tennauctions.com/
  • Just Homes Group: https://www.justhomesgroup.com/
  • Dr. Joe Chiro https://www.goseedrjoe.com

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Transcript

Julia: Welcome back to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m Julia Hurley, your hostess connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s guest is Bear Stephenson. Bear owns one of the most prestigious auction companies in the East Tennessee market. We’re in the same industry and I’m going to tell you right now friends, we’re going to—we are in for a treat on learning all about how East Tennessee real estate came to be and how he has helped that come to be. He’s going to pretend like that’s not who he is, but we’re going to get it out of him today. Bear, thank you for coming on our show today.

Bear: Well, thank you for the invitation. I’ve been looking forward to it.

Julia: We have been trying to schedule this for a month, so we’re super excited that we made it to Clinton, Tennessee, today. Tell us basically how you came to be. How did Stephenson Auction get here and what changes have you seen and contributed to in the time that you’ve been here? And you are one of the top auction companies, pretty much from Nashville to Kingsport. So, tell us how that whole story came about.

Bear: It’s a very interesting story, but if I can go back to an earlier time in my life, I was into service. I went to Tennessee Tech and got a business degree and shortly after I graduated, I got commissioned a second lieutenant in combat engineers and Uncle Sam’s Army and wound up having a tour in Vietnam. I came back from Vietnam in March of 1972. And I’d been back about a month and I met a fella by the name of Jake Butcher who was in the banking business here in East Tennessee. But Jake, a lot of people don’t realize it, but Jake, when he graduated Union County High School, he went into the Marine Corps for four years, and he was partial to veterans.

And by having just come back from Vietnam, exiting out of the army, he hired me to go to work in his banks. And while I was working for him, one of the banks that I worked at was in Campbell County up in LaFollette. This was 1973. I opened a new bank in LaFollette, [CNC 00:02:25] bank of Campbell County. But while I was up there, Hack Ayers, Haskel ‘Hack’ Ayers, who had a real estate and auction company became a customer of the bank.

And he and I got to be real good friends. And one day after I had left the bank, he and I were talking—I left the bank in 1976. My father passed away very suddenly with a massive heart attack in 1976 and I moved back to Clinton from Knoxville and got into the real estate business. But about two, three years or so after I had gotten out of the banking business and in the real estate business here in Clinton, Anderson County, I ran in a Hack one day and he said, “Bear,” he said, “You know, for years, I’ve been wanting to align myself with an Anderson County realtor and develop the auction business in Anderson County, and I just never have done it.” And I said, “Well Hack, if you’ll hold off for a few months,” I said, “I plan on going back and getting my broker’s license and opening my own company.” And I said, “When I do,” I said, “Let’s go in together. You be the auctioneer, I’ll be the broker and we’ll go into business together.”

Which we did. And in 19—I went to auction school six months after I opened Stephenson Realty and Auction Company 40 years ago in 1982, but after having three or four options here in Anderson County, all of which people here in Anderson County called Hack Ayers in Campbell County, the adjacent county to Anderson, called him about doing an estate auction. And I was involved with them. And after a while, I thought, “I think I’m going to go to auction school. I think I can do this myself.” So, I go to Nashville Auction School for two weeks, February of 1983, come back, serve my two-year apprenticeship with Hack, and then I went out on my own.

Julia: It’s required? Is it still required?

Bear: No. The laws have changed since then, but this was 40 years ago, 39 years ago. But at that time, they wanted to make sure that before a new auctioneer went out and started doing auctions on their own, that they knew what they were doing.

Julia: Sure.

Bear: They didn’t want to turn a green auctioneer loose, trying to help liquidate Granddaddy's farm for the—his siblings and not be able to maximize the value and get all that they could for the heirs. They just wanted to know that auctioneers, young auctioneers going out on their own had the experience to do it, and it required a two-year apprenticeship. And then they a number of years ago, they changed it to just a one-year apprenticeship. And that’s what it is now. But the fact that young auctioneers working under a master auctioneer to gain experience and learn what to do and how to serve the public, we as auctioneers, and as real estate agents as well, our job is to help people.

And for that help, we’re paid a fee, so we can stay in business to help somebody else five years from now. But that’s the attitude that I’ve always had about what I do is I’m in business to help people. And every situation is different and every estate needs a different kind of help. But it’s very gratifying being able to help people.

Julia: So, let’s recap that because there’s a lot of that conversation right there. You went to work right out of being drafted. You got back home safely—so thank you for that. Thanks for coming back home. We appreciate that—to go work for the Butcher brothers… ba—

Bear: Yeah, I worked for—I worked for them for three-and-a-half years.

Julia: So, people that don’t really know, so the whole point of the podcast is to understand nationally why Knoxville Tennessee is such an attractive place. Because it has become one of the more attractive places over the years. But in 1982, that’s when the World’s Fair was brought to Knoxville by—

Bear: Jake—

Julia: —reallly and truly, the Butcher brothers.

Bear: Yes.

Julia: They really were. They were the reason that the World’s Fair came to the Knoxville Tennessee market. Shortly thereafter… what happened?

Bear: Shortly thereafter…

Julia: [laugh].

Bear: There were some people that think that—thought that the Butcher brothers had, had—

Julia: They’ve had their share.

Bear: They had engaged in some things they shouldn’t have been engaging in, and as a result, the banks that they had were closed by the FDIC. And they had to serve some time for what they were convicted for.

Julia: Right. But at the time, the Butcher brothers built Knoxville.

Bear: They—yes, they built—

Julia: —they built Knoxville. So, you had the opportunity to be involved with people who understood a very serious business and understood how to grow Alcoa Aluminum, brought the World’s Fair, brought the airport, people who understood. And they were here—from here locally, to have that knowledge and expertise that is rare to find in anybody’s businesses in this day and age. And then to move on to the Ayers family.

Bear: And one of the things that the Butcher brothers were very good at, they were able to surround themselves with people who were very knowledgeable in the world of finance and banking who helped them along the way and gave them good guidance. But when interest rates went to 21%, they were involved with growing the banks that they were acquiring, they were doing it on borrowed money and they were so heavily leveraged that when interest rates went to 21%, they were having to pay interest on loans that they had procured to pledge the stock of the banks that they were buying. And it just got out of hand and they were almost forced to create —

Julia: It was ’08 before ’08.

Bear: Yes.

Julia: But regardless, during a time—and to make it a comparison, during 2005 to 2008, anybody who had just gotten into real estate would learn from developers like you had the opportunity to learn from the Butchers. I mean, it’s one of those very rare opportunities you get a chance to surround yourself with that kind of knowledge at that young of an age. So, that’s unbelievable. And then the Ayers family, you went into business with the—it—was it the Ayers family, correct?

Bear: Yeah, from LaFollette, it was Hack Ayers, Ayers Real Estate Auction Company. But that was in 1982. And then he and I were affiliated for about three years. And then I went out on my own in 1985, started doing auctions of my sales. But in 1989, something happened and I’ll never forget. 1989, I was chairman of the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce here in Clinton and I found out that at the Greater Knoxville Chamber of Commerce annual meeting at the Holiday Inn World’s Fair site, that Walter Cronkite was going to be the speaker.

Julia: At the Knoxville Chamber event?

Bear: Yes.

Julia: Interesting.

Bear: And I thought—I said, “I would love to hear Walter Cronkite speak.” So, rounded up nine other people and we go over there and buy a table of ten, the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce bought a table of ten, and during Cronkite’s presentation, he said, “I have traveled literally all over this world.” I said—he said, “I’ve traveled very extensively within the United States.” And he said, “In my opinion, what you have right here in East Tennessee, you have the last unspoiled region for development in this nation.” And when he started talking about this, I perked up. I remember it if it was from yesterday and it’s been 33 years ago.

But he said, “There’s two things you need to concern yourselves with. Number one is the kind of growth you don’t pollute your environment, and number two is the kind of growth you don’t spoil the quality of life you have here. You got these mountains, you got these lakes, you got these rivers, you’ve got these four seasons.” He said, “You’ve just got something special and unique. And people are moving here from all over the country.”

And this pandemic has caused an additional influx of people moving to East Tennessee because they’re wanting to get out of the big cities and move to less populated parts of the country, and people are moving here literally from California, from Colorado, from Chicago, from New York, all over the country, and moving here from Florida. But we have something special and unique right here in East Tennessee. And also the fact that Tennessee does not have a state income tax that is attractive to a lot of people who are wanting to make their new home here in East Tennessee. And I think it’s going to continue to grow. We just got to make sure that it’s good growth, like Walter Cronkite said, it’s kind of growth we don’t pollute our environment, we don’t swallow quality of life that we have here in East Tennessee.

Julia: I agree with that. So, between 1985, when you went out on your own and 1989 when you really started to see national figures visit Knoxville, and conversations about growing in Knoxville, what did you do in that five years to establish, kind of, your own entity? Because at that time, there weren’t very many other real estate firms, but you’ve a—I mean, your name is synonymous with real estate and auctioning. So, how did you establish that aside from maybe just being involved in the chamber?

Bear: I [laugh] was involved in the chamber, I was involved in the Rotary Club here in Clinton, and when I finished my apprenticeship and went out on my own in 1985, I did five real estate auctions that year. In 1986, I did 9. In 1987, I did 15. In 1988, I did 23. In 18—I mean, in 1989, I did 33.

Julia: Wow.

Bear: And in 1990, I did 39.

Julia: It’s a big jump.

Bear: You could have laid a pencil on a graph, it how my business had grown. But you have to serve your apprenticeship, literally. I had already started my two year apprenticeship with Hack Ayers, but you have to pay your dues because you go out and talk to an executor of their grandfather’s estate and they look at you and they say, “Now sonny, how many auctions have you done?” I said, “Well, I’ve done two.” They say, “I think we need somebody with more experience.”

But when I opened Stephenson Realty and Auction, there had never been a real estate auctioneer company in Anderson County. I just found a niche no one was filling, because auctioneers from Knoxville, Roane County, Campbell County, came into Anderson County, and serviced this market and did the auctions. But I just found something that no one else was doing here in the county. But it took a while for me to get established and to prove myself, but it’s been an interesting journey. And it’s—I was determined to make it work [laugh]. I had no choice. Nobody’d hire me.

Julia: Nope. Nobody else would do it [laugh].

Bear: I’m not going back to work in a bank again. I’m going to do something on my own. But I knew when I—the time I spent in the army and the time that I spent working in banking for the Butchers, which was a very, very good experience, I just am so independent. I just realized I was going to have my own business. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that I was not going to work for somebody else. And that’s what I’ve done for the last 46 years. I’ve worked for myself.

Julia: That’s what it takes, I guess.

Bear: [crosstalk 00:14:41].

Julia: That’s what it takes to get it out there.

Bear: Yeah, nobody would hire me so I had to [laugh] go to work for myself.

Julia: So, you have seen… you saw gas shortages, you saw interest rates increase exponentially, we’re in a high-interest rate market at the moment, but nothing like it was.

Bear: Oh, no nothing—

Julia: Nothing like it was. So, you’ve went through so many business cycles. What has been the ups and downs, what are the best lessons and the hardest lessons, and sometimes those might have been the same, that you’ve experienced throughout your time in real estate?

Bear: The thing that I’ve learned early on, you better have your nest egg saved back because it’s just like life itself. I learned this long time ago, I don’t know how many years ago I first heard this, but the tide goes out, and the tide comes in. It’s the same in our personal lives. Where things are going good, you better enjoy it, you better appreciate it because it ain’t going to last, as we say, here in Clinton. But you just have to salt some money back, have your little nest egg because—to weather the storm and the downturns because lean times are coming.

But I don’t think anybody has repealed the economic cycle. We’re going to continue to have economic cycles, we’re going to have excesses which caused the dotcom bust of the 1999-2000 era, when we went into recession in 2001 2002, came out of that and—

Julia: Went right back into a crash in ’08.

Bear: Went right back. Real estate was booming, it was going great, and then all of a sudden, bottom fell out in spring of ’08. And then, I’ll just give you an example, from 2007 to 2011, over that four-year period, my income declined 74%. That’s how much real estate went down in sales, my revenue for the company. But like I say, I had… just like a little squirrel gathering up nuts in the winter when times get lean, he’s going to be okay.

And it’s the same way in business. You just have to make sure that you don’t spend all your money and then bad times come and you broke. We had to file bankruptcy because there were so many people having to file bankruptcy in ’09, especially in the construction and real estate business because they had houses that they had built and borrowed money on, and they couldn’t sell them because they were such a decline in real estate values, that I didn’t want to ever get myself in a position that I would have to do that. So, I’ve just been very conservative in my real estate ventures.

Julia: It is a trying situation when you’re in development in real estate on a regular basis because when it’s up, it’s really up. And I think that that’s a long lesson in cyclical business that people forget to remember. They forget to remember. And what is it that you carry in your wallet?

Bear: [laugh]. I found it about two months ago. I was going through some things at my house and I found a payment schedule for Y-12 Credit Union in 1987. Now, I’ve got it here in my pocket. But it is a little card that has Y-12 credit union.

Julia: All right. Check that out. From 1987, from the Y-12 Credit Union’s calendar. That’s sweet. When was my birthday that year? It was on a Monday. No one wants to Monday birthday. And this is 15%. 15% annual percentage rate and what your payments would be in 1987. And you survived that—

Bear: Oh yeah.

Julia: —in business.

Bear: I remember [laugh] I remember, friend of mine and I bought a 275-acre farm right outside of Clinton up on the Clinch River in 1987. And then we developed it and was selling lots. But we had large acreage tracts; we had lots. Smallest lot we had was about two-and-a-half acres. But they were like two-and-a-half to five acres each.

And even though interest rates went so high, people still wanted a little farm close to town, out in the country, and we had that product and we were selling our lots even though half-acre lots in Clinton in a subdivision, you couldn’t give them away. But we were selling our lots and things were going well. But we built two houses to kick this subdivision off. We sold one of them and then we had another one that we had a construction loan on at First American Bank here in Clinton. But I told David, my partner, one day, I said, “David, let’s drop the price of this house. Let’s just figure it out about what we’ve got in it and let’s drop the price and let’s sell this house and get rid of it and stop paying the interest on this blame construction loan every month.”

So, we did that and we sold it about two weeks later to a couple from Michigan who had transferred into one of the plants here in the industrial market in Clinton. And I told them at the closing statement—as the closing table, I said, “I’ll be honest with you two.” I said, “We’re not making any money on this house, you’re getting this house just about what we’ve got in.” But I said, “You know when I’m going to make money on his house?” The husband said, “No.” I said, “Next month,” because I’m not going to have a $700 interest payment.

Julia: No doubt.

Bear: That’s what I’m going to make money is next month, on this house [laugh]. But you just have to be willing to cut your losses and going down on the road. That’s what we did.

Julia: That’s one of the biggest things at the end of every year, as a real estate agent—and I’m still—I’m a newbie, eight years in. I mean, I still have—you’ve forgotten more than I have learned so far, honest to goodness. I have so much more to learn. But I will say one of the things that I learned quickly was basically it’s the same as car dealerships in July. Come December first, every builder and developer out there wants their debt off their books and to pay that bank.

And when the interest rates go up, buyers say, “Oh, wait till they go down.” And I say, “Buy now because a builder is going to cut their losses. They don’t want that bank note.” And every year, around about December 1, we sell more homes in December to closing January than we usually do in four or five months combined in the total year before. Every year. It never fails. Cut your losses and go. And a lot of builders will do that if you just have the conversation with them. That fascinates me.

Bear: That is true. You've talked about you having your license se—

Julia: Eight years.

Bear: Eight years. Yeah. I’ve had mine—

Julia: [laugh]

Bear: I’ve had mine—

Julia: I get headaches every day over it [laugh].

Bear: I’ve had mine 46 years. When I got—

Julia: That’s amazing, though.

Bear: About six months before I left the bank in 19, I was with the United American Bank over Knoxville. But about six months before I left the bank, I went over to UT and took a real estate—principles of real estate class at night school over there at UT, and got my real estate license about six months before I left the bank because I had an inkling that I was going to get out of banking anyway. And so, when I made the decision to leave and come back to Clinton and get in the real estate business, I already had my license, so I was a little bit ahead of the game at that time, didn’t have to wait to get my license. But I’ve had my license for 46 years.

And it’s been a heck of a ride. It’s been a heck of a journey. It’s been a very interesting journey being in real estate, just like we talked about a minute ago, the ups and downs and economic cycle. When I was—I went to several banking schools when I was first went to work for the Butchers, and one of the things that I remember that they were talking about, the average life of a builder is about seven years.

Julia: Interesting.

Bear: Because people—I mean that was 45 years ago.

Julia: Because they have to be able to keep and maintain lending as well? Or is that just because they get tired of it?

Bear: No. It’s the economic cycle gets them.

Julia: Interesting.

Bear: Just think about how many people went out of business, went bankrupt, how many builders who were not capitalized well enough to weather the storm that went out of business, took bankruptcy because of the downturn in real estate market that we experienced in—

Julia: So, so far—

Bear: —2008.

Julia: —what I can remember, 2005, and back then I had just started—when I say sic—when I say business cycles, I’m referring to my adult life because I experienced the ’80s with my parents, having 15, 16% interest, but I didn’t have to pay it. I didn’t understand money. So, I’m going to say my business cycles—or my adult life, so I witnessed, 2005, a whole bunch of people getting real rich real quick, and me going, “I’m not so sure that’s going to last. I think this is interesting.” ’08 crash happened, 95% of those people I’ve never seen since.

But I’ve seen their properties just absolutely go for pennies on the dollar. And then in 2011-12 I saw the roofing industry have a peak because we had all the hail damage here. So, we had people overnight millionaires who then packed up and left. So, the builders left us in a way, the roofers left us in 2012, started coming out in 2014, out of the foreclosure system, which is when I got my real estate license, and I was still having to go make 5, 600 phone calls to beg buyers to beg houses because—to buy houses because nobody wanted them because you still couldn’t get decent housing because the builders had let them fall apart. It was very interesting.

And then we had the 2019 pandemic, where you literally sat there and you were just a contract writer. All you had to do was take a phone call, write a contract. You wrote—I wrote 135 contracts in 2020 by myself. And now we’re starting to see interest rates creep back up. Now, we’re starting to see people taking a nosedive a little bit because they overleveraged [either 00:25:25] they bought too many rental properties or they started building back too fast, developing too fast, and in a way was doing the lending, and now I think it’s due more to lack of maybe poor financial planning.

But we’re starting to see a lot of ups and downs come in my adult lifetime, so much shorter than the ten-year cycle. So, what are your predictions for that future coming forth because what I’m experiencing is a lot of ups and downs within four-year spurts instead of ten. Like, it used to be you could almost count on a ten-year cycle.

Julia: We all know that real estate is location, location, location. Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise, pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell a home right here in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area. Call just Homes Group today.

Bear: One of the things that has happened, you mentioned, alluded to the pandemic. When things shut down the second week in March of 2020, almost three years ago, we didn’t know—last time we’d had anything like this that happened was the 1918-1919, what is referred to as the flu pandemic, which was really a virus that first place they had any indication that something was going on was at an army base in Kansas. And GIs were getting sick, some are dying, and then they shipped off and went to World War II, went to Europe, and they spread it worldwide.

Julia: Oh, wow.

Bear: But anyway, we hadn’t had anything like that since… you know, a hundred years ago. But the Fed drove interest rates. The Federal Reserve Board is what controls the economy in this country, and Congress passes a few laws that can affect it in small ways, but the Federal Reserve is what really controls interest rates and the economy in this country. But the Fed drove interest rates down to unprecedented historical lows just to keep our economy from falling off a cliff. And it caused excesses in our economy, and then the supply chains got disrupted, and it couldn’t get parts and it’s just a whole combination of a lot of things, and inflation took off. And then they said, “Oops, we will have to stall the economy to get inflation down.”

And that’s what we’re in the middle of right now. And interest rates are going to probably continue to go higher to get the economy slowed down and so we can get inflation back down to 2% or so, which historically is traditionally the level that they want inflation to be at. But we’re in another cycle, and—but I think that probably by the end of next year, a lot of economists that I listen to on CNBC every morning trying to keep up with it, what’s going on with our economy and interest rates, most of them—the consensus by the end of next year, we should have inflation down to a tolerable level and we’ll continue with the kind of growth that we’ve been experiencing last several years.

Julia: So, buckle in, kids [laugh].

Bear: Buckle in. Things are going—things are going to be a little slow come springtime.

Julia: Some money.

Bear: Save some money for your—

Julia: Save some money.

Bear: You got a closing? Salt some of it back.

Julia: Why do you say ‘salt some of it back?’ What is that?

Bear: Put it in a savings account and forget you got it because you might need it at some point in the future. That’s what I call salting it back. That’s an old—I grew up on a 40-acre farm about five miles from here, and that was an expression out in the country, to salt some back. And I guess it has something to do when you kill a hog, when salt the bacon and the hams down to cure it. I guess that’s what it refers to. I don’t know, but that’s the expression I grew up with.

Julia: Well, I’m going to steal it. I’m going to start using that. Let’s carry that on.

Bear: Just salt some back—

Julia: Just salt is back.

Bear: —for a rainy day. You might need one of these days.

Julia: You might need it to soak up that rain. What is your dream or your outlook for the Knoxville market? And Clinton, Tennessee, for as much as they have tried—God bless y’all, have tried—to keep everything inside of just Anderson County, that pandemic drove people here from all over the country, and now Anderson County for as quiet of a town as it has been is truly on par with the growth rate of one of the highest percentages counties we’ve seen. So, there’s some growth happening here. What is your future projection and wish for that growth over the next decade?

Bear: I think all of East Tennessee is going to continue to grow. I know right now, Loudon County is fastest-growing County in the East Tennessee. Knoxville is growing West, growing North, is growing in all the surrounding counties around Knoxville, and as a result, we’re going to have, I think, continued growth in the real estate market for a long time to come.

Julia: Yeah?

Bear: I don’t see anything that’s going to stop it because we have the amenities that people are looking for here in East Tennessee.

Julia: Okay, what would you want—if you could plan it out—I mean, y’all have good planning commission. Most counties have, you know, good planning commission lately, a lot of different—lot of things have been changing, a lot of rules have been changing. But if you can do it for the next generation, what would it look like?

Bear: The planning commission?

Julia: No, just planning Anderson County in general. What would it look like? If you had a magic wand and said, “I have limitless capability.” What would it look like?

Bear: You would continue the same as we have been doing for the last 45, 50 years or so. A mix of industrial, commercial, and residential properties, but have it growth in such a way that you don’t spoil this—like Walter Cronkite said 33 years ago—you don’t spoil the quality of life you have here, to make it enjoyable living for everybody that lives here and who is going to be moving here. And at Morgan County, they don’t have the kind of growth that we have, but one of the reasons over there, I know they don’t have a… zoning office over in Morgan County.

Julia: Really?

Bear: Yeah. And as a result, there’s a lot of Amish who have moved to Morgan County around the Deer Lodge area, and the reason that they’re moving down here—and they’re coming—a lot of them are coming from Punxsutawney—I think I’m saying that—

Julia: Punxsutawney?

Bear: Punxsutawney Phil, that groundhog, Punxsutawney is a little old town up in Pennsylvania, it’s the population of about 10,000 people and they’re moving up—moving down here because they got tired. When they would go out and build a house, they would have to get a footer inspection, they’d have to wait around until somebody came in and inspected the footer inspection, and they have to—then they could frame it up and ask for somebody come out and inspect the frame.

Julia: So, it’s like Knoxville city? [laugh].

Bear: —and then to have to get somebody to come out and inspect the electrical when they got it roughed in. And they just got tired of it, so they come to Morgan County—somebody found out in Morgan County, you pretty much do what you wanted to. So, over in Morgan County—

Julia: Interesting.

Bear: They just build a house and they’ll have it built in two weeks and they don’t have to worry about any inspections or anything. They just build the house.

Julia: So, they have a bunch of Amish shops up there?

Bear: Yeah. They don’t have many Amish shops; the community’s not at large yet, but they’ve got a lot of fruits that they grow and sell.

Julia: I just learned something new. I had no idea that Morgan County, Tennessee, is the new Amish hotspot because they know how to make things.

Bear: Yeah, just like Muddy Pond down in Cumberland County, if you want some good molasses, go down the Muddy Pond, you can get some.

Julia: Really?

Bear: Oh, yes.

Julia: How do I not know this stuff?

Bear: Well, you’re learning it now [laugh].

Julia: Do you know anybody that makes—what is that? It’s not. It’s not sweetgum? It’s not molasses either. It’s like it’s thicker than molasses. Maybe it is sweetgum. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Bear: I think you’re talking about—

Julia: Sorghum.

Bear: Well, Sorghum and molasses are basically the same thing. It’s just a different form of sugarcane. But it’s sugarcane, molasses is.

Julia: Let me tell ya, we could sit here for days and I would learn more, just sitting here talking to you.

Bear: [laugh].

Julia: Heck, there’s one recipe that I made that requires sorghum over anything else. I’ve never found it.

Bear: People, they substitute sorghum for molasses. It’s—I mean, you can’t hardly tell the difference in between. But the thing about it, Julia, you sit there and talk to me—

Julia: [laugh]. I’m going to sit here until you tell me all the good stuff. That’s what’s going to happen.

Bear: Ninety—I’ve been saying for years that probably 90% of what I know, will never do me a bit good. I just know it. When I—

Julia: Well, I disagree. I think that you know so many amazing things that I think that you should tell the whole world about all the things that you know, and we can make just an entire talk of just, this is the Bear Stephenson show.

Bear: But on the other hand, who cares?

Julia: I care. I think it’s fascinating. I think it’s fascinating. I think that the more people in Knoxville area that move here, that every day goes by that we miss an opportunity to know and talk with the people that watched it grow, help it grow, and know the stories of the people that got it here because nobody talks about it. I have found that to be so unbelievably true that when I talk with young people that move here, I ask them, “Do you know how the World’s Fair got here?” They didn’t even know it was here.

“Do you know who the Butcher Brothers are?” Never heard of them. I mean, they don’t know the history of Knoxville or why that’s important. Because without these people and this situational happenstance of meeting all these family names, that back then, they were probably just starting their business off like everybody else. But in today’s, if you go to the University of Tennessee campus and look at the names on the buildings, those are the people. These are the people that built Knoxville, and you build that with him. And I don’t think enough people talk about it.

And our history one day is just going to be gone. It’s going to be a whole bunch of 30-somethings going, I just think that’s, “We should remodel that entire building. I don’t know why we would preserve that or why does that matter.” Because understanding how it grows is a way to keep it growing properly. And since you had that much real estate experience and knowing how that make those relationships last, how to build those relationships out, how to bring businesses in correlation with residential and manufacturing at the same time. These are all things you’ve done. And I think it’s important that people understand that those things come with years of experience and relationships and how to maintain those and how to build on that.

Bear: That’s true. It takes a lot of people working together. And I know one of the things that I really was impressed with is when a number of people got together and had the slogan, “Nine counties, one vision.”

Julia: Yeah.

Bear: It was Knoxville and the eight surrounding counties that had joined Knox County that have a common border with Knox County. There’s nine counties: Knoxville and eight others. And, “Nine counties one vision,” because a plant that locates in Anderson County, it is good for the surrounding counties because Anderson County’s—the industrial parks here in Clinton, Campbell County’s largest employer is Clinton.

Julia: Really?

Bear: More people in Campbell County drive to Clinton down the interstate to work at these factories, at [Isom 00:38:27], and 3M is located in the old Food Lion, they bought the whole Food Lion distribution center here, and then they just have received a tax abatement for an expansion, it’s gonna employ 500 additional people.

Julia: That’s amazing.

Bear: But as these companies around in these nine counties, as they locate and companies are also coming here because we don’t have a state income tax. And also what a lot of people don’t realize, East Tennessee is within a day’s drive of about 60% of the population of this country. And when we got the interstate system completed, that made East Tennessee accessible to the outside world. Prior to 1970, you could hardly get East Tennessee because we had 25W, north and south, we had highway 70 from Nashville coming through Knoxville, Kingston Pike, little old two-lane crooked road, but the interstate system made East Tennessee accessible to the outside world, and they are coming.

Julia: Yeah.

Bear: There’s an old expression. I’ve heard it all my life but there’s an old expression. The South’s going to rise again.

Julia: [laugh].

Bear: Have you ever heard that expression?

Julia: Where are they rising to? The flower store?

Bear: Have you ever heard that expression?

Julia: I have. Well, they’ve been trying for a long time.

Bear: Okay, well, I guess it came after the Civil War when the Union Army and Sherman marched through the South, just whatever wasn’t already burned or torn down, he marched through from the Mississippi River all the way to Charleston, I think it was, and just—and finally, the southerners were left said, “South’s going to rise again.” Do you know how we’re rising? It’s all of the people moving here from all over the country. People coming from the north, but people come in from Florida, moving—the halfbacks, as we call them.

Julia: If y’all don’t know what a halfback is, let me help you. There’s a hatchback club—just in case you are one and you don’t know where to go, you let one of us know and we’ll connect you to the president of the halfback club. It’s people who are from up North and they get too cold. They move to Florida; they get way too hot. Tennessee’s climate is perfect. It’s right in between. So, it’s halfway back home. So, if you a member of the halfback club and you need connections, we’ll help you.

Bear: Yeah, there’s a—I’ve made a lot of people—I’ve made a lot of money off of people moving from up north and people moving from Florida halfway back to, but—

Julia: You sold two houses [laugh].

Bear: People do different things for different reasons.

Julia: All right. I’m going to ask you some weird questions, so here we go.

Bear: Okay.

Julia: In all the places that you’ve ever been, why did you choose to stay here? You traveled everywhere. You could be anywhere you wanted to be, start a business anywhere, make money doing anything. Why choose to stay here?

Bear: It was because of the familiarity that I had with Anderson County having grown up here and having gotten acquainted with so many of the people here, the good friends and relationships, I decided that Clinton and Anderson County would be where I would call home. But I’ve been fortunate in that I have had an opportunity to do a lot of traveling. And every year—I’ve been in 49 states thus far—

Julia: What are you missing?

Bear: Hawaii. Always said I was going to Hawaii on my honeymoon.

Julia: [laugh]. For anybody that doesn’t know Bear, how old are you?

Bear: I’m too old—I’m old enough to know better and too young to care.

Julia: Never been married. Never getting married. Dying on that hill. So, I guess you’re never going to Hawaii.

Bear: I will go to Hawaii one of these days. Perhaps. I’m going to forget about the vow I made to myself. And I was saving Hawaii for my honeymoon. I’m probably—by the time I I’m 80, I’ll probably just say, “Heck, I want all 50 states under my belt.”

Julia: You’re just going to go?

Bear: I’m just going to go—

Julia: All right.

Bear: —for the heck of it.

Julia: It’s only a six-hour time difference. You can do it.

Bear: Yeah, I know it.

Julia: You can do it.

Bear: I know I could.

Julia: You’re so funny. That’s—okay. All right. Favorite restaurant. In this area. It doesn’t have to be just Anderson County, but favorite restaurant.

Bear: It’s a cross between the Copper Cellar, down on Cumberland, down in the basement, or Litton’s.

Julia: Oh, Litton’s? Strawberry cake.

Bear: Yep. I used to—when I was—when I left banking, I was at Fountain City, the Fountain City branch, about half a mile from Litton’s, and had an apartment over on Cedar Lane. But Litton’s has been near and dear to me for many, many years. Good restaurant.

Julia: Very good restaurant. And for Thanksgiving if you order at least six weeks in advance, they’ll make you an Italian cream cake, like, a whole one, and it’s about this big and this tall. And it’s the best Italian cream cake I’ve ever had. It’s fantastic.

Bear: Oh yeah, they’re—

Julia: That place is ridiculously good.

Bear: They have good chefs—

Julia: They do.

Bear: —in both places.

Julia: They do. I hardly ever make it to Copper Cellar, though.

Bear: And Chesapeake’s. I love seafood—

Julia: Oh, I love it at Chesapeake’s.

Bear: —I love seafood and I love Chesapeake’s. But there was a lot of nice restaurants in Knoxville.

Julia: Yeah, Knoxville is a foodie town.

Bear: Yes, it is.

Julia: For sure. And then of course I came over this way, even though we could have done this podcast on your cell phone in my house and we could have both been in our offices and just done online, but I always want to eat at Hoskins. So, any excuse I have to visit Clanton, Tennessee, so I can eat at Hoskins [laugh].

Bear: Hoskins Drug Store started in 1933 by RC Hoskins, who incidentally, was the fellow who was instrumental in establishing the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce 90 years ago.

Julia: Really?

Bear: He and seven or eight other business people here in town—

Julia: Interesting.

Bear: They started the chamber. But if you want a good restaurant, good lunch, breakfast, come over to Clinton and go to Hoskins drugstore which is right across the street—on Main Street—from the Anderson County Courthouse. Directly across the street.

Julia: You don’t want to go in there. The courthouse.

Bear: No.

Julia: [laugh]. But Hoskins is safe space. Favorite gas station?

Bear: Favorite gas station. I’ve got to say the Git’N Go.

Julia: I was going to say, if you don’t say Git’N Go, Joe Hollingsworth’s going to lose it.

Bear: I was going to say—

Julia: Your building is going to be—

Bear: —if Joe Hollingsworth ever [laugh] sees this and I didn’t say Git’N Go, I wouldn’t have a friend anymore.

Julia: I want to say the Git’N Go does have amazing hamburgers.

Bear: Oh, they do.

Julia: Just a P.S. Anybody driving through Clinton, stop at a Git’N Go and grab a hamburger. Get it and go. It’s good.

Bear: Yeah, there’s—Joe has establish—Joe is a very astute businessman, but he has cornered all four of the main arteries in and out of Clinton. He has four Git’N Gos. He’s got—and I remember when he built the first one. I was building houses over in Lower Mountain Subdivision shortly after I left the bank. But like I say, Joe, because of—but he gives back so much to this community and—

Julia: Yes.

Bear: —all over East Tennessee.

Julia: Can you name and remember all the organizations you’ve been a member of and been on boards of? Because I know you’re on, what, six or seven boards now, but in a time that be—know the time that you’ve been here, what all have you been involved in?

Bear: The thing that I got involved in right after going to auction school, I started—I decided, as an auctioneer if you’re going to become proficient with developing an auction chant, you have got to have practice. So, I started developing charity auctions. And I know when I came back from auction school in 1983, I did one charity auction for the Oak Ridge Christian Women’s Club. It was a luncheon. And from that, it evolved to where I was doing… before the pandemic hit, I was doing between 45 and 55 nonprofit charity auctions every year.

Julia: That’s amazing.

Bear: I have never charged anybody anything. It’s just my way of giving back to this community and all over East Tennessee. But my high watermark, in 1998, I did 76 charity auctions.

Julia: Wow.

Bear: And like I say, I never charged—

Julia: Maybe that’s why the Vols won the national championship, that he just gave so much of yourself, they had to give it back.

Bear: But—I don’t know about that. But I have gone to a lot of nice events. I mean, there’s one that I’ve done for the last 20 years—there’s two that I’ve done for the last 20 years. The Knoxville Museum of Art is a four-course dinner catered by Blackberry Farm. And I mean, they do comp me two tickets to come to the event to do the auction. And I have to work for my food [laugh].

Julia: Well, [laugh]. I could be a spotter. “That guy said he’d donate a million dollars over there.”

Bear: And the other one that I really enjoy doing each year—there’s three my top, top three I guess, if there’s anybody that’s involved with another organization, I like them all, but there’s some that I just have more fun with, I guess, foods a little better—

Julia: [laugh].

Bear: —but the UT Gardens that I’ve been doing that for 11 or 12 years—

Julia: We’re in it for the free meals.

Bear: The free meals. My sign says—

Julia: We’re realtors. We’re broke.

Bear: —and I apologize to all my Baptist friends out there, but my sign says will, “Auction for wine and food.”

Julia: Good wine and food.

Bear: Good wine and food. But the other one is the Evergreen Ball, which is a fundraiser for the—they’ve had it for 20 years—fundraiser for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This year it’s going to be at the Cherokee Country Club. And Gary Wade, Judge Gary Wade up at Sevierville, he was the one that was—he and a few other folks got together and started Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But it is a super organization, does a lot of good things for the Smokies.

But there’s a lot of auctions that I really do enjoy doing, charity auctions. And I met so many neat people doing these charity.

Julia: I’ll bet.

Bear: Plus it gave me an opportunity to develop an auction chant. [auction chant] and I’ve sold them for 35 dollars.

Julia: What are you saying in between all that? What are you saying in there?

Bear: I don’t know.

Julia: [laugh]. How do you develop an auct—? You stand in the mirror and just chant?

Bear: You drive down the highway, after coming back from auction school, for about four years—

Julia: Alright, let’s do it.

Bear: It was almost daily practice. I would sell telephone poles. I’d—

Julia: To yourself? In the car?

Bear: Yeah driving down the highway, selling telephone poles.

Julia: How do you sell a telephone pole? Do it slow.

Bear: Starting ‘um along—start—I can’t do it slow.

Julia: Okay.

Bear: Start ‘um along—

Julia: Start ‘um along—

Bear: —what is my bid now? Would you give me ten?

Julia: What’s a bid down?

Bear: Now. It doesn’t matter what you—

Julia: Start ‘um along, what do—

Bear: What am I bid now?

Julia: What am I bid now?

Bear: Start ‘um along, what am I bid now? [auction chant]

Julia: Oh, see, like asking, but really fast.

Bear: Yeah. It’s just real fa—but the main thing about doing an auction, you’ve got to very distinctly say the numbers. 85 [auction chant] 90 [auction chant] 90 [auction chant] 90 [auction chant] 90 [auction chant] 85 [auction chant] 90, 90 [auction chant] 90 [auction chant] 85 I have, [auction chant] 90—90 now, 95 [auction chant] 95, 95. You do this like—in the auction world knows what I’m saying, “What you give,” “What you bid,” “What you go,” those—

Julia: They’re just fillers?

Bear: They’re what they call filler words.

Julia: Interesting.

Bear: It’s just filler words. You’re just filling up—what you’re doing is just filling up time to give somebody else an opportunity and a chance to beat it.

Julia: Well, let me tell you this one thing down pat.

Bear: What was that?

Julia: [hup noise].

Bear: [laugh]. [whoop noise].

Julia: That’s all I got. [whoop noise]. That’s all I got. Anytime anybody ever— anytime I’ve ever volunteered for an auction, I point at the person that gives the money I go, [whoop noise]. That person just gave money [laugh].

Bear: Yep. Yep.

Julia: That’s my contribution to the auction community. You are welcome.

Bear: I might have to get you to come help me with an auction sometime.

Julia: I’d be happy to. Everybody, this has been one of my best episodes. So much laughter, so much to learn, so much to give. Bear Stephenson, owner and founder of Stephenson Auction and Realty Company in Clinton, Tennessee. One of the best auctioneers that Tennessee has ever had. And if you—

Bear: Oh—

Julia: —that’s true and you know it. And—you know it. Don’t you be humble right now. If you have a charity auction that you need, it’s one of his favorite ways to give back, let us know. Thank you so much for joining us and learning how to Connect the Knox. Have a great day.

Bear: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Tyler Cauble is a commercial real estate broker in Nashville, Tennessee who is helping to improve the city through the use of mixed-use development. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Tyler shares how Nashville has changed over the course of his lifetime and why he feels that mixed-use development is the future. Tyler describes his involvement in the zoning requirements in Nashville, and how that impacts local businesses, real estate, and residents. Tyler also explains his views on Tennessee’s transportation infrastructure, and why he feels people need to stop viewing commercial real estate as separate from residential.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

01:00 Tyler introduces his Nashville roots and describes how he got into commercial real estate

06:02 How Tyler partnered with residential agents to build his brokerage

06:53 Tyler describes his most recent commercial project where he converted an old car wash into multiple profitable businesses

09:17 Tyler and Julia discuss the value and appeal of mixed-use development

10:27 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro https://www.goseedrjoe.com

10:58 How zoning affects real estate development and Tyler’s involvement in the zoning efforts in Nashville

15:17 Tyler gives his predictions for the future of city planning & development

18:40 Ad - Just Homes Group

19:14 Julia asks Tyler what he thinks the future of Tennessee infrastructure looks like and how it impacts the future of all Tennesseeans

27:25 Why Tyler feels that people need to stop viewing commercial real estate as separate from residential

28:56 How Tyler coaches people on how to get into commercial real estate

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • tylercauble.com/course: https://tylercauble.com/course
  • Tyler’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tylercauble
  • Bonus Content Exploring the Intersection of Residential and Commercial Real Estate with Julia Hurley & Tyler Cauble: https://www.youtube.com/live/C4zRxW1zWEc?feature=share

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Transcript:

Julia: Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s guest is Tyler Cauble, huge real estate developer, real estate commercial mogul and personal friend of mine, located currently in Nashville, Tennessee, and taking over Nashville by storm. Tyler, thank you for coming on the show today.

Tyler: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Julia. I don’t know about that intro, but I do appreciate kind words [laugh].

Julia: [laugh]. You know, never a dull moment around Julia Hurley. And I never lie on an intro, so all of those things are true. I’m going to pat you on the back even if you don’t want to.

Tyler: That’s right.

Julia: So listen, Tyler, tell the audience today how you ended up in Nashville, Tennessee.

Tyler: Yeah. I was actually born and raised here, which is pretty great. I mean, you know, Nashville was a very small sleepy town when I was growing up. And it’s night and day compared to what it was back then, which… which is a lot of fun, you know? I like to tell people, I got a different city without having to move away, which is pretty nice.

Julia: [laugh]. That’s funny. That’s actually [laugh] so true.

Tyler: [laugh].

Julia: That’s the best way to describe Nashville right there. I’m going to steal that and use it in the rest of my conversations.

Tyler: Yeah, do it.

Julia: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, tell us a little bit about commercial real estate. I mean, there’s nothing little about commercial real estate. There’s never an easy deal. I do very little commercial real estate, but what I have done, I have had one deal that took a whole year and I thought that was a long time until I started talking to real, real commercial developers like yourself all over the country. They’ve had deals last ten years. Tell us a little bit about what the biggest difference and change you’ve seen in commercial real estate and how you even got into that sector.

Tyler: Oh, yeah. So, I went to college in Knoxville for about a year, dropped out after I completed my freshman semester, or I guess two semesters and moved back here and got into, I was actually working for my grandfather as a project manager for his construction company for a little bit. I grew up doing that every summer and figured that was my path, you know? I’d take over his construction company and grow that. And about four months into it, I got a job offer from a local developer—this was back in 2013—to come work for him as his in-house leasing agent.

And so, they paid for me to get my commercial real estate license, which is the same as residential and gave me a 500,000 square foot shopping center, a 60,000 square foot office building, and a couple 100,000 square feet of industrial to go lease. And I said, “Okay, how do I do this?” And they said, “Go find somebody that wants some space, and we’ll show you.” So, I spent six months knocking on doors, trying to get deals done, before I closed my first deal. And that’s about how long it takes, you know?

I mean, everybody talks about how—like, the biggest differences between commercial and residential, it takes a long time to close a commercial deal. You know, even on the shorter time, if you’re buying a commercial property, it’ll take 45 to 60 days. But that’s quick, you know? We’ve had development deals to go 12 to 18 months before they close. I’ve got one that’s been under contract for about three years now. Just because the buyer is an affordable developer and they’ve got a bunch of boxes that they have to check before that’ll ever close. So yeah, that’s a little overview on commercial real estate.

Julia: It’s more than a little bit. I tell you, my first commercial deal took 30 days. It was a piece of land.

Tyler: That’s not bad.

Julia: Yeah, it was cash, though. It was an all-cash deal. And it was actually my second deal. So, my very first deal was like a $65,000 house. It closed in 30 days. I was like, “Okay, whatever. Residential, this isn’t hard.” And then I got a commercial buyer, one-and-a-half million dollars cash. It was a utility company looking for land.

And apparently, when I first started in real estate eight years ago, I had a less aggressive voice and I was much more mouthy, I guess it’s a good word. And the gentleman on the other line, he was a full-time commercial agent and much more experienced, hung up on me because he thought I was joking. And so, I would call him and he would say, “Listen little kid, little girl, I have no idea what you want from me but I only do real business.” So, I ended up having to go around him and call his broker. And I brokered this deal on my own around this guy.

I found the seller and I actually stalked this guy down at a church and, like, “Hey, listen, you got this lane for sale. Your broker will take me seriously.” [high-pitched voice] I’m sure it sounded like this, “Please help me. I’m so scared.” And, you know, “This only my second contract and it’s a million-and-a-half dollars. I’m freaking out.” In 2014.

And we got there. We got the deal done in 30 days or less. But the company that purchased the land already knew all the information about it ahead of time. Now, fast forward eight years. I’ve got one five-acre piece of land currently, open zoning, so we’ve had to push it through zoning commissions, we had to push it through the city, we had to make a plan, we had to do a site plan, we had to do, you know, all of the core drilling and make sure all of the things that go along with it, making sure that everything got tested properly.

And if you want to do a gas station, good God. So, I understand commercial real estate better than most residential agents. I surround myself with it to understand what’s coming for the residential side of it because rooftops follow retail or retail follows rooftops, and those two things come together as a package. Without one, you don’t have the other. But your specialty is commercial, and you have experience that goes back decades, if not an entire family two or three generations.

But what you’ve accomplished in Nashville just recently, tell us about that project because being able to, one, find affordable real estate in Nashville is mind-blowing, and two, what you were able to do to change not only this one particular project, but the landscape of what surrounds it. Talk about that a little bit.

Tyler: Yeah. I mean, you know, your experience is not unlike a lot of residential agents' experience in commercial real estate, right? I mean, when I first started my brokerage back in 2018, you know, I kind of built my business off of referrals from residential agents because they’re out there, you know, there’s hundreds, there’s thousands—literally, I think there’s over 12,000 residential agents in Nashville—so I figured, hey, you know, that’s 12,000 potential salespeople that can send me leads. Why should I go knock on doors when I could just have them to do that for me? And a lot of commercial brokers just won’t return the phone calls from residential agents and so we built some pretty good business off of that, and it helped us really get off the ground running fast.

But it makes no sense to me as to why people do that. It’s like, look, at the end of the day, we’re all here to get deals done, so let’s find a way to make that happen. Yeah, I mean, when it comes to, you know, changing up properties and building neighborhoods, I mean, retail is a great way to do that. You know, we took an old car wash here in East Nashville—it was a six-bay car wash—and converted it into five micro restaurants and a bar. You know, it used to be this rundown building that nobody would go to, there was kind of nothing on that corner, it was a little empty.

And you know, we’ve got 80 seats outside, the place is regularly packed, and it’s really cool to see these small businesses just thriving there and now everybody that’s in the neighborhood behind it can walk to all these restaurants. And so, not only were the residential rooftops a driver for the restaurants, well, now the restaurants are a driver for higher home sales in that area because you actually have something that you could walk to, spend time at, and enjoy as a resident in the area.

Julia: Yeah, I think that’s something that you know, being in Knoxville—and you experienced Knoxville for a year, you know, any left [laugh]—

Tyler: [laugh].

Julia: Like a lot of people do, like a lot of people do. You left for a bigger city; even though Nashville has changed a lot in the last decade, Nashville is much, much larger and has always been much, much more advanced than Knoxville. We’re starting to meld that a little bit in Knoxville with the new mayor, Glenn Jacobs. In his last four-year term, so he’s turned limited two terms, what he’s done is actually recreate a plan for Knox County to have what we would call micro-subdivisions, like, little micro-pockets. Like North Shore town center that has a Target and a grocery store and a nail salon and four restaurants and a bank and it’s got this condo-slash-apartment complex. Some are residential to purchase, some are lease. And then you’ve got a little, like, an outdoor play section, and all the things that you would need in a community you can walk to. And it’s its own entity.

And I know that there are some places in Nashville that were already pre-built like that, but there are places in East Nashville, like your building out, like your vision that don’t have anything like that. So, being able to bring that absolutely a hundred percent increases the value of the properties around it because if you can save, one, traffic, you don’t have to sit in traffic for 20 minutes to get to a grocery store or get to a restaurant, and you can walk there, you are more likely to purchase that property, even if it’s not in a Class A state, what, Class A commercial or Class A residential, you’re willing to sacrifice convenience, for luxury.

Tyler: Yeah, you see that all over the place, now. You know, back after the—in the post-war boom of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, you saw a lot of people moving out into the suburbs and we became very car-dependent. And the problem with that is you get a lot of these neighborhoods where you have no sidewalks, you can’t walk to anything, you’re relatively isolated, unless you, you know, make a conscientious effort to be around your neighbors. And you know, you kind of lose that sense of community that people need, right? And so, when you’re looking at these urban neighborhoods, you know, it’s pretty nice to be able to just walk to a couple of restaurants or walk to the neighborhood bar or walk to the grocery store.

You know, it really makes a difference on your lifestyle and your health, too. So, there are a lot of you know, major pros that come out of these more urban developments where you have mixed uses. You know, I don’t like looking at projects that have a single use anymore, right? So, like even a subdivision. Why does that need to be all houses? Why can you have a little neighborhood restaurant or bar? Or why can’t you have a neighborhood convenience store? Because it’ll pull traffic from the nearby neighborhoods as well. It’s not just going to come from that neighborhood, but it makes living in that neighborhood so much more convenient and more appealing.

Julia: Right. And the reason that they can’t where I live, and in most of the smaller towns—Knoxville is not necessarily a small town; it’s the second largest town in the state of Tennessee at this time; Knoxville is growing, obviously—but one of the biggest reasons in smaller towns that you can’t do that zoning. I know that you know a lot about zoning, I don’t know how many people actually pay attention especially and unfortunately, real estate agents, even commercial real estate agents who aren’t plugged in or selling a lot, leasing a lot, they are not plugged into zoning. There are reasons that subdivisions are so isolated and people are so isolated is your zoning boards. Are you—and I’m not—I’m going to ask this question like I don’t know it because I know my listeners don’t know it—are you involved in the zoning boards in Nashville? What are all the steps that you take to stay involved to be able to bring these things to your clients?

Tyler: Yeah. I mean, we get involved in more of the design, ideation side of things. So, I’m a member of ULI, the Urban Land Institute, a member of the National Civic Design Center, and these groups are pushing forward new ways of thinking about our zoning and the way that our neighborhoods are developed. And then of course, you know, we’re going through rezonings and things like that on our projects. I mean, we’re taking a one piece right now that’s about two-and-a-half acres that is currently zoned for, like, three houses, but it’s surrounded by commercial and neighborhoods, and we’re showing them hey, we need to rezone this for 34 units. It’s going to be a walkable neighborhood. There’s all these restaurants over here, it’s kind of become this completely new hub of activity that people want within their neighborhoods, right? I mean, you know, you look at 12th Avenue South in Nashville. You know, a lot of people are familiar with that because it’s a big destination. Well, you know, I don’t know—

Julia: I remember when it was nothing except Mafiosos. That was it [laugh].

Tyler: Yeah, Mafiosos. I—that’s a great, great pizza spot.

Julia: That was the only place up there.

Tyler: Go down there for Two for Tuesdays. But you know, back then, I think it was probably ten years ago, they made a decision to take the street from a thoroughfare down to a destination, right? So, instead of expanding the roads to allow more traffic to go through it, they actually condensed the roads. It’s only one lane each way. Now, you’ve got bike paths, larger sidewalks.

And when they made that decision, 12 Avenue South exploded, right, because all these people wanted to live over there and all these restaurants wanted to be there to be in the neighborhood. And now it’s one of the—

Julia: Your farmer’s market. Huge there now.

Tyler: The farmer’s market. Yeah, you’ve got coffee shops, bars, restaurants, shopping. You know, Reese Witherspoon has a retail spot on that strip now. And it’s this amazing destination that’s so un-car-friendly, that for a lot of people, it sounds counterintuitive, right? Like if you make a destination tough to get to, or you know, not very parkable, you know, you would think that people wouldn’t go there, but it’s actually the opposite. People want to go there because they can walk around.

Julia: I don’t know why we haven’t [crosstalk 00:13:14]. The Birkin bag ring a bell? You have $2,000 in the store to get put on a waitlist for a bag that looks just like every other bag.

Tyler: Exactly. It’s crazy.

Julia: And everybody wants the bag.

Tyler: Yeah. Everybody wants the bag. You know, it’s just, it makes the area so much nicer because it’s designed around people and not around cars, you know? Whenever something’s designed around cars, you’re just trying to get from point A to point B, everything in between doesn’t matter to you.

Julia: We all know that real estate is location, location, location. Our team at Just Homes Group Realty Executives have the true expertise, pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell a home right here in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area. Call just Homes Group Realty Executives today.

Julia: I agree with that one hundred percent. I think that Knoxville’s got a lot to go, a lot to grow, and a lot to know. And those are things that we can learn from Nashville, just two-and-a-half hours down the road. But we also see as I was in Nashville, what, two weekends ago, and I was driving to the coffee shop that you recommended, was it, um…

Tyler: Retrograde?

Julia: Retrograde. And it was interesting because it was very good, number one, like, extremely good coffee, and number two, I had mentioned it to the person I was meeting with before I met you and I told him where I was going and he was like, “Oh man, I wish you would have told me that too. I would have met you there, too.” Like, and he lives on the totally other side of Nashville. So, building these spaces and understanding that they offer value for locally owned, locally operated, these hole-in-the-wall that aren’t holes at all, places and these neighborhoods that are dilapidated, I mean, as you’re driving through to get to that place, you can see all of the progress that’s been made, but on the other side of that, you still see all of this potential progress that can be made. What is Nashville doing to move that forward? And how does that play into what you are doing?

Tyler: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think a lot of cities are kind of starting to rethink their zoning and urban design. And I think it’s good that we’re finally starting to see that. You know, there’s been a lot of groups, like Strong Towns, that have been out there really advocating for this for years about, you know, what actually makes a strong town, you know? You look at these towns that are designed around cars and people don’t want to live in them, you know? They live out in the suburbs because it’s not pleasant, you can’t walk around.

And you know, it’s kind of a chicken or the egg. A lot of people think that people—that, you know, residents don’t want to be in the urban core, and so they don’t deliver anything that would make living in the urban core desirable, which means people will never move there. You know, but Nashville about 20 years ago, redid its zoning so that you could start building residential properties downtown, and now it’s just booming. You know, you’ve got thousands and thousands of apartments down there, condos, people do want to be there. And I think that, you know, as, especially in the southeast, as our cities continue to grow, as they have the past few years, you know, we’re going to see more and more of that. And I think that we’ll start to see these little hubs develop within the city.

Look at Atlanta, right? You’ve got all these little neighborhoods that people like to live, work, and play within that neighborhood. And because traffic is so bad in the city, they try not to go to other parts of the city. And so, you almost get these little mini-cities, right, with their own downtowns where, you know, people can live, work, play in those areas, walked all the restaurants, bars, activities, you know, work that they want to do, without actually having to commute. And so, I think that that’s a huge trend that we’ll see continued to evolve over the next few decades.

Julia: So, devil’s advocate on that. I spent a lot of time in the larger cities like LA, New York, Tampa, Miami, Atlanta, a lot of time in Atlanta because it’s closer. A lot of problems with that is that you get to the point where you are so micro, you’re so micro that you literally meet no one else. So, it’s almost as damaging as the suburbs. So, where’s that limit?

Tyler: Yeah, I mean, you could definitely argue that, but if you look at the density, you still have more people living within a several-block radius than you do out in the suburbs, right? And so, just in your day-to-day activities, you’re going to encounter more people, which most people want that, right? I mean, they do want to be around friends and family and community. And the suburbs just isolate you, right? So—and that density allows for the design and development of all of these amenities that make it even more pleasant to live there, right?

I mean, there’s a reason that people love moving to New York City, right? I mean, I think it’s crazy. I love to visit New York, I could never live there, but the fact that you’ve got so many different modes of transportation, you can get anywhere in the city relatively easily. You can walk just about everywhere you want. And there’s restaurants, bars, unique things to do in all areas of town, that’s what makes it so desirable, right?

There’s just there’s so many people there, which means there’s so much to do. And so, when you move that residential into these commercial districts and you stop, you know, separating and isolating commercial from residential, you create a much more beneficial, mutually beneficial relationship between the two.

Julia: What do you think’s going to be the transportation outlook on all of this? Tennessee does not have easy, usable roadways. We never have. I don’t think we ever will. I’m not exactly sure that we are genuinely invested as a state yet, in transportation… options, I guess there’s a good word for that.

I think that we talk about it a lot and we’re still not quite there. I mean, we still don’t have a zoning requirement for sidewalks in subdivisions. I mean, we’re still at the baby steps at the bottom down here. And even though Nashville setting that standard, they’re still kind of getting off their feet with this new outlook on the way to live. Everybody says, “Don’t come here, don’t come here. We’ll just end up like Atlanta.” It took Atlanta 75 years to get where they’re at today. This didn’t happen overnight and we have a lot of opportunity to do the right things as they come along. What do you envision for transportation?

Tyler: Yeah, I mean, Nashville did actually implement a sidewalk mandate a few years back. It was somewhat controversial, but, you know, I think everybody agrees that sidewalks do make your project look better, they make it you know, more accessible, and so you know, we don’t actually even—you used to be able to pay in lieu of fees and avoid building sidewalks; we actually have just always built them because to us, it makes a project so much more appealing and more accessible, which is exactly what we want, right? You know, in terms of transportation, it’s come up multiple times in Nashville, but it keeps getting voted down. The problem that we have here in Nashville is that, you know, back 40, 50 years ago, Metro Nashville actually incorporated the entire county, right? And so, now you’ve got residents that do drive to every corner.

Nashville is one of the most spread out cities in the country, it’s actually really, really big in terms of landmass. And you know, those people get to have a vote on whether the downtown urban areas get transit. And the problem with that is they look at it and go, “I’m never going to use that. I’m going to vote no.” But that means that in ten years from now, when that would have been completed—because we all know that government does not move fast—it’s going to be so much worse and people are going to keep blaming, you know, people moving here.

Well, you know, we had a referendum back in 2017, 2016, or—you know, where we could have voted to have transit, at least some form of it, in Nashville and we said no. So, you know, it’s going to continue to be a problem. I think we’re going to have some sort of light rail system, at some point. You just look at cities that have that and it makes living there so much more pleasant. I mean, I went with my girlfriend about a month ago to Boston, and to just be able to jump on the train whenever we wanted to get anywhere we wanted in the city, it was unbelievable.

And there’s a lot of people that live in this, you know, high, dense urban area and there was almost no traffic, right, because a lot of people don’t take cars. They either walk or they get on the train, they take the bus. And when you have enough people doing that, it just makes your commutes and your lifestyle so much more pleasant, I think.

Julia: I agree. And that was the experience that we had, on the several occasions that I’ve visited Australia. And I’ve visited the entire continent, all over the continent, not just one or two cities. Every city. It’s nearly as big as the United States, 1/52 of the population, and barely enough space to live in it. So, you can get there, though, all by rail.

And I think that that’s something that a lot of people go, “Well, we’re not Australia, why are you referencing something that completely across the other side of the world?” Because the population is the same, their largest city, Sydney, is three times, four times bigger the population as Nashville and they have an entire roadless system, if that’s what you choose. And those systems will actually go the four or five hours to as small of a town as Knoxville and it connects and you could just go near little hometown train station, pop on and go work in the city for the week and come back home for the weekend. Never get in a car. I find that that is one of the biggest solutions that we could possibly have, considering the fact that we have one of the largest rail systems ever built in America, right here in the [South 00:22:39].

Tyler: Yeah, the problem is it’s privately owned, right? You know, I mean, you can argue all day about what government should and shouldn’t be involved in, but I think that transit is one of those things. I mean, you know, that, same with, you know, taking airplanes, right, like? It’s a necessity now. It’s not a luxury, right? A lot of businesses work across—

Julia: And shouldn’t charge luxury prices.

Tyler: The country. And so people—yeah, yeah. And, you know, I was talking to somebody when I was up in Boston and, you know, they said that, you know, every so often they’ll take a train down to Pittsburgh or down in DC because there are rail lines that connect almost the whole northeast. I was just thinking to myself, like, man, how amazing would it be if you could just take a train to Atlanta for the weekend? You know, we have the infrastructure there. The problem is, the lines are just privately owned.

And you know, that’s something that we’ve got to figure out because, you know, it’s very cost-prohibitive to go back and build new rail lines, right? You think about all the property that you would have to condemn to make that happen because you can’t take up the interstates, right? You could run lines down the interstates, but now we’re talking about spending billions of dollars when the infrastructure is already there. How do we work with private rail lines to also get passenger rail? You know, Nashville recently did that, a line running from downtown all the way out east to I think past Lebanon, just about 45-minute drive outside of town, and it’s called the Nashville Star, I think. And it’s packed.

I mean, I used to live down on Second Avenue. I would walk my dog super early in the morning and watch the train come in, and people just unloading off of that. They live 45 minutes outside of town. And that’s great, you know? We just need to figure out more of that.

Julia: I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think that transportation is going to be the biggest challenge that we have, in the larger cities. In cities like Knoxville, just getting a plan on paper is our biggest challenge, and getting elected officials to agree to it. I mean, this has been 20 years in the making and it’s, you know, now we’ve had a governor that came out of Knoxville that had that same process over 20 years ago when he was mayor and still couldn’t get it done then. So, you know, it’s just changing the mindset of comfort isn’t just being out in the suburbs and being left alone. Comfort can include commercial real estate—

Tyler: Right.

Julia: —which we need.

Tyler: Yeah. You need tons of it. You need tons of it. And you need mixed-use, you know? You need high density, which a lot of people are against higher density, which is crazy to me because their arguments actually make no sense.

I mean, you look at, like Green Hills, right? There’s this project in Green Hills called Vertis, which is a 16-story tower. Well, nothing else over there is taller than four stories, so when they came out, it was incredibly controversial. And one of the biggest issues that the neighborhood was fighting about was traffic. Well, Green Hills already didn’t have good traffic, right? It was already kind of packed because there’s only one street that runs through it.

But one thing that you see there more today—and I had a friend comment on this not too long ago, they’re like, “I never saw people walking around Green Hills. You would drive your car right up to the store you’re going to.” Now, since Vertis is open, people walk everywhere. And you think about how many car trips that actually takes off the road, right? If I can live in Vertis and I can walk across the street to Trader Joe’s, then I don’t have to worry about getting in my car—taking, you know, sitting in traffic, all that kind of stuff. It just makes the process so much more pleasant.

Julia: Is that where Char is?

Tyler: Uh, yeah, yeah. It is.

Julia: So, we actually stayed down there for Joe’s 40—39th birthday, and our daughter’s name is Charlotte and we took her to Char for her birthday—for his birthday to eat. And we were just down there having a meeting at Green Hills Grill the [laugh] last weekend.

Tyler: Yeah.

Julia: I was like—I said—we were driving through the interstate pass, you know, where you can go—the too many people go too many different ways, and I used to stay [in this little 00:26:27] apartment complex on the left when I used to work for Ed Bryant. And so, I was like, “This looks so familiar, but it doesn’t at the same time.” It still feels like Green Hills, but it looks… it was so much easier to get in and out of. And I think that—

Tyler: Oh yeah.

Julia: —what you just said helped. Yeah. A thousand percent.

Tyler: Night and day. Night and day. It makes a big difference, I think. You know, it’s time that we stop looking at commercial as this totally separate entity from residential; they need to be combined. It makes—I mean, one, it makes it a more desirable area to live in, but two, it also promotes affordability, right?

I mean, you cannot have affordable housing without higher density, right? I mean, if I’ve got to pay market rate for land, market rate for construction, and I can only build ten units on it. Well, I’ve got to sell it at the highest price I possibly can because I can’t—I have to make money, right? You’re taking a lot of risks as a developer.

Julia: Oh, yeah. Argument of a lifetime for me. Politically, I’m going argue for a decade. Oh, yeah.

Tyler: Exactly. But if I can go and get that site rezoned for 60 units then I’m buying the land for the price of ten units, then I can actually afford to build some affordable housing on that and make it so that a bunch of different income levels can [play there 00:27:41], you know, which makes a big difference. I mean, Nashville is having a lot of issues with that right now because it’s gotten so expensive to live here and there’s just nowhere for the people that help make the city run every day to live.

Julia: Yeah. That’s unfortunate and that happens. And agreeable, like, if you don’t offer different kinds of housing in the same complex, nobody can—nobody including this level, gets to stay for very long. It all falls apart. It takes all kinds.

Tyler: That’s exactly it.

Julia: [crosstalk 00:28:10] our work together. Commercial and residential. Everybody has to work together [laugh].

Tyler: Yeah.

Julia: Well, I have almost zero time left and we’ve talked about absolutely nothing and everything at the same time, which is exactly what [crosstalk 00:28:23] is, it’s nothing and everything to everybody. And I really appreciate all that you do for Nashville. I know that I wanted to touch a little bit—and I don’t have time, so we’ll have to come back another time—but to let everybody know that Tyler is a BiggerPockets speaker. He does training courses on how to invest in commercial real estate. He has an open book of information. He is not gatekeeping information on how to get money and how to be part of this and how to do things.

So, if you want to learn how to invest in commercial real estate, learn how to become a commercial real estate broker, Tyler is the person that I send all of my referrals to in the entire West—or I’m sorry, Middle Tennessee area. There’s nobody else to send your business to other than Tyler Cauble. I don’t even know what else to tell you guys. If you’re a residential real estate agent and you have somebody in Nashville, please let me know. I will make sure you get in touch with Tyler.

Hey, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the sponsors of this podcast. We appreciate you. If you would like to be a sponsor, let me know. Tyler, any last words for us in Knox Vegas, Tennessee?

Tyler: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know what, Knoxville has got a long way to go, but it’s doing a lot of the right things, right, and it’s exciting to see how far that city has come since I was there ten years ago. It’s exciting to see the neighborhoods develop. I’m excited to see what you’re doing. I mean, you’re making a huge impact on the neighborhoods out there, so kudos to you for doing that.

And yeah, thanks for the shout-out. You know, if y’all want to learn more about commercial real estate, the best way is on my YouTube channel @TylerCauble. And if you want to learn more on the course, just—

Julia: Oh, by the way, it’s not C-O-B-B-L-E. Spell it for them so they [crosstalk 00:29:55].

Tyler: That’s right. Yeah, it’s C-A-U-B-L-E. It’s a very funny spelling. And then, also if you want more on the course, tylercauble.com/course. And if you want to connect with me, @commercial_in_nashville on Instagram. But Julia, thank you so much for having me.

Julia: I have all of this. I’ll make sure to also add it to our interview as well. Thank you so much for being on the show, Tyler. Have an awesome day.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Mark Nagi, a long-time Knoxville resident, is both a TDOT employee and former sportscaster who recently wrote a new book on UT sports called Decade of Dysfunction. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Mark shares what brought him to Knoxville from upstate New York and why he decided to transition from his dream career of sportscasting to becoming the Community Relations Officer at TDOT. Mark and Julia explore some of the innovations TDOT is implementing on our roads, as well as their focus on safety for motorists and TDOT employees. Mark also gives a fantastic overview of the history of UT sports and what led him to write his new book.

Highlights:

00:20 Julia introduces Mark, a long-time Knoxville resident and newly published author

01:01 How Mark wound up in Knoxville after growing up in Albany, New York

03:06 Mark describes what it was like being a sports announcer and fulfilling that childhood dream

04:30 What Mark currently does for TDOT and why he enjoys it even more than being a sportscaster

06:30 Julia and Mark discuss the impact of neighboring states and new Tennessee residents on our roads

10:12 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro www.goseedoctorjoe.com

12:57 Some of the innovations that TDOT is implementing to improve our roads

14:42 Mark emphasizes the importance of safety on the roads for motorists and TDOT employees

16:00 Mark explains how TDOT help trucks work and how they’re helping people who break down or crash on the highway

18:41 Ad - Just Homes Group

19:15 Mark talks about his new book on UT sports, Decade of Dysfunction

28:20 Where you can find Marks’ book, Decade of Dysfunction, and how you can contact Mark

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • TDOT SmartWay cameras: https://smartway.tn.gov
  • Decade of Dysfunction: https://www.amazon.com/Decade-Dysfunction-Updated-2019-version/dp/1075446031
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/marknagi

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Transcript:

Julia: Welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox, connecting Knoxville to the nation. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, and today’s guest is a special treat. We have a Knoxville author here on our hands. We have Mark Nagi, who I’ve had to ask four times how to pronounce his name correctly. So, I’m very excited today to bring you Mark Nagi. And a little history on Mark: He was a sports announcer here in Knoxville for a decade. That is huge news for us. But we’re really here to get to know you and a little bit about what Knoxville has done for you and what you have done for Knoxville. And that’s what this whole podcast is about. Mark, thank you for joining us today.

Mark: Absolutely, Julia. It’s great to be with you.

Julia: Absolutely. Well, thank you very much again for taking time for us and our listeners. Let’s start out with obvio—the very first question we ask everybody: how did you end up in Knoxville, Tennessee?

Mark: Well, I’m originally from Albany, New York, and I grew up hearing about Tennessee from my father who got one of his master’s degrees at UT Oakridge. He only lived in East Tennessee for a little bit over a year, but I would always grew up hearing about it. So, when I applied for colleges I applied to UT for undergrad. Got in, but I was 17 years old, scared to death, never would have moved 800 miles away. When it came time for grad school though, it was either to go work at the local fish fry or go to grad school, so I decided to go to grad school.

Ended up getting into Tennessee and got my Master’s in broadcasting at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Had two terrific years at UT, both professionally and personally, and ended up loving East Tennessee. So, I worked in Watertown, New York, for three years, then I worked in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for a year. Always wanted to get back to East Tennessee. And I was hired at Channel Six in 2001. I spent ten years there. In the past 11 years, I’ve been working here at the Tennessee Department of Transportation and really just fallen in love with East Tennessee, and Knoxville especially.

Julia: That is—okay, so that story is the almost identical to every person that we speak with that ends up moving here. They’re either here for Oak Ridge, okay, or they’re here for education and they end up wanting to always return. So, what is it that’s so special about Knoxville?

Mark: You know, it’s the obvious things of, you know, no state income tax, it’s a good place to raise kids, the climate, you don’t have to have the, you know, negative temperatures for so long like you may have in upstate New York. And that’s why a lot of folks have moved to this area, especially from the northeast or maybe from out west. It’s just a terrific place. I’m really happy that I ended up here and I expect to be here for many more years.

Julia: Tell us about your time as a sports announcer. That’s got to be—I—you know, it’s very interesting. I don’t meet very many sports announcers in all of my years in sports. So, tell us about how that works out and how that was for you.

Mark: Sure. Well, I grew up wanting to be a sportscaster. I knew what I wanted to do since I was seven years old. I think I realized pretty early on that I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete. There’s very, very small percentage of people that can make a living that way.

I thought that very—the next best thing would be to be able to go to the games, be able to talk about sports. I couldn’t believe that there were people that were getting paid to go to all these great sporting events. I think that’s why so many people become sportscasters in—to begin with is because you want to go to the games. I ended up working, like I said, three years in Watertown, a year in Myrtle Beach, ten years here.

For the most part, I just loved that job. It was terrific. By the end of the career, it just—it got to be just a little bit too much. The pay isn’t as good. The hours are really, really difficult. You know, I was working 46 weekends a year and hundreds of nights a year. And especially when you have kids, it’s just not a good job for that. It’s a great job if you’re young and single. It’s a difficult job then, when you become an adult and have more responsibility. So, I loved my time as a sportscaster, but I can be honest and say that I’ve loved my time here at the Tennessee Department of Transportation even more.

Julia: That is awesome. So, what do you do for TDOT? And this is not Texas Department of Transportation. We’re Tennessee people. It’s TDOT. We’re the only T [laugh].

Mark: That’s right. Yeah, they have to be the TXDOT. Yes, I’m the Community Relations Officer, so folks have any questions about things that are going on with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, they can email me, they can call me, you know, hit me up on Twitter. I tried to get as much information out there to folks about what’s going on our Tennessee interstates and state routes. In East Tennessee alone, which is what I’m responsible for, we’ve got 24 counties over 9000 lane miles. It can get very busy. Love interacting with the public. There are a million questions that folks have. I get those questions every day and I try to get them the information as quickly as possible. So, it’s a job I never really expected to have, but it’s one that I feel blessed that I have.

Julia: I love TDOT, I think that, honestly, if you look at the la—every state that I’ve been to—not very many—like, 36 out of 50, so not every state, but many states across the country, we have decent roads. I don’t think that people understand how lucky we really [laugh] are to have decent roads.

Mark: Well, I think that, you know, it’s a major responsibility. You know, we are the one state agency that people really—that affects people’s daily lives. Even if you’re not driving on the roads, if you’re trying to get goods to your house, they’re using the roads to get there. It’s a—we take a lot of responsibility to try to keep people safe on our roadways, trying to make sure that our roadways are in as good working condition as they can be. One thing that we always like to stress too, is we’re one of only six states in the nation that operates with no transportation debt. And what that means is that the projects that we’re working on, you know, your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids aren’t going to be paying those roads off. So, you know, we do the best with the finances that we can. And, you know, we’re proud to serve the public.

Julia: So, are there any—because I mean, I should know the answer to this question, but I’m going to ask you because I know you would definitely know it—I think Tennessee is the only state in the nation that has seven other states that touch it. So, seven other states have people using our interstate system, correct?

Mark: I think that’s right. I would have to go back and look at that again. But that’s one of the interesting things about Tennessee and especially about East Tennessee alone because, you know, you have I-81 you have I-75, for upper east you have I-26. You have all these interstates that are, you know, converging in this one specific area, and that’s where things can get very busy. You know, also you take a look at that interchange, it’s the busiest interchange in the state, up in Sevierville: exit 407.

Julia: Really?

Mark: Yes.

Julia: Well, I would say the exit, definitely. I would have thought that would have been [White Road 00:07:12] because I live in Lenoir City, so for me, that’s like, oh my gosh.

Mark: [laugh] Yes. I live out west, too. And that’s something you’re going to see—you just see a lot of traffic here in East Tennessee. It’s built up a lot. You know, kind of like we talked about before, a lot of people decided that this was where they’ve wanted to live. I can say that just in the 20-plus years that I’ve lived here consecutively, you know, Knoxville has grown so much, you know, West Knoxville, the Hardin Valley area, and it just goes on and on. So, I think that that’s actually one of the bad things is our a secret has kind of gotten out and more and more people are moving not only to Nashville—everybody kind of talks about Nashville, and rightfully so it’s growing by leaps and bounds—but also East Tennessee as well.

Julia: Yeah. So, Knoxville just got ranked 10th most underrated cities, by the National Association of REALTORS for 2023. We’re number ten. Last year we were number 25.

Mark: Yeah, that’s not surprising. It is not surprising. This is a—it was a hidden gem. I think that more and more people have figured it out. And that’s great, obviously. I was one of the transplants. I was one of the people that were like that. It was only 20-some years ago, you know? It’s just sometimes it gets a little bit busier than maybe that you would have liked. But I guess that’s the cost of doing business.

Julia: Well, at the end of the day, you know, where I live in Lenoir City is super close to the interstate exit. So, I can just jump on the interstate, and I used to be able to jump on the interstate and get to Farragut in five minutes. And now it takes me 20 minutes to get to Farragut.

Mark: Yeah.

Julia: Still, 20 minutes to get somewhere to a larger area to do major shopping and do major events, anywhere else in the country, they beg for 20 minutes. So, I know to us locals that 20 minutes seems like a long time, but I know for a fact 20 minutes is nothing if you’ve ever traveled outside of the state of Tennessee [laugh].

Mark: No, I was just in New York City a couple weeks ago with my oldest daughter and, you know, to go a mile it’s going to take you 30, 35 minutes, sometimes, even more. You know, drove down to Atlanta a couple of months ago and you just see how busy it is there. So, I guess you put it into perspective that way. There are levels of traffic. Believe me, it can get busy here in East Tennessee, especially rush hour in the West Knoxville area for morning rush and for afternoon rush, but by no means are we Los Angeles at five o’clock.

Julia: Lord no. And we’re so blessed not to have that problem. Any—and you don’t have to share this information if you don’t have it—any ideas if we’ll get a Knoxville bypass in the next 20 years? I know it will take that long to build it.

Mark: I don’t h—[laugh] I don’t have that information, but you know, we’re always looking, you know, 10, 15, 20 years in the future when we’re talking about what to do with our roadways, you know, because you have to be proactive that way because again, so many people are moving into the area. And I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon.

Julia: I don’t either. We were actually—I had a lady contact me from Oak Ridge. I send out mailers every month, like, “Hey, this is what your home value could possibly be. Let’s talk.” So, she calls me and she says, “Hey, I’ve got your mailer.” And I put the population at the bottom of the card, just so people kind of know what’s going on, and sometimes people just don’t pay attention to the census or the news.

So, she was like, “There’s no way there’s only 31,000 People in Oak Ridge.” I said, “I would honestly agree with that, and here’s why. The census was done before Covid.”

Mark: Right.

Julia: We have absolutely no idea that in two years, I’ve personally relocated hundreds, not a hundred—hundreds of people, and I’m only one of 6000 real estate agents in the Knoxville market. So, we really don’t know the number anymore.

Mark: No. It’ll be interesting, honestly, I’m very curious to see what the census will be like in 2030 because I think that you’re going to see that growth from 2010 to 2030, and it’s going to be pretty [laugh], pretty large. And I think—

Julia: It’s going to be [crosstalk 00:11:03].

Mark: —going to probably still shock some people. It will.

Julia: I think so as well, and I think the first thing I said was, hey, you know, just make sure that when you pay your taxes, you thank your roads commissioners because they—[laugh] they’re going to be the brunt force of that maintenance of effort. It may not even be the school systems. People aren’t really coming here and bringing droves of children; they are bringing cars, and it’ll be our transportation that suffers if we don’t, to make sure that that’s taken care of. So, as I’ve always said about TDOT, one of the most forward-thinking and affordable roads we drive on because I know as soon as I—no offense to North Carolina, but the minute I cross that border, it’s like, [bumpy noises]. And I’m like, “I’m so glad.”

Mark: Well, you know, it’s tough. And every DOT does the best that they can to serve their areas. But it’s, you know—I go drive north to go home, probably four or five times a year now up into New York and you can see those roadways when you start, especially get into the more northern climates that are really weather-beaten. You go into Pennsylvania and parts of New York especially and they’ve got a really difficult job because not only do you have the rough weather, but you also have so much truck traffic, and that can take its toll on the roadways.

Julia: You know, the trucking system absolutely beats us to all heck and that’s in all fifty states and that’s all over the world, actually, trucking. Getting goods and services to people has always been a challenge. Have you all done—and I know you have, but I mean, it’s years and years and years away; we’re always well behind some of the—not Tennessee, just the nation in general, well behind—China has come up with basically rubber roadways.

Mark: Okay.

Julia: Have you seen those?

Mark: I have not seen those.

Julia: Where they recycles old tires and rubber and just put rubber on the road. There’s just a hundred percent rubber roads.

Mark: Hmmm well, I haven’t seen that. I know that, like, on I-640, we were actually doi—which is an important, very important project—we’re working on something, it’s called rubblization. And what that’s doing is basically, you know, getting the current roadway that is—and they’re knocking it into tiny little pieces and then that’s going to be used as the base for the next resurfacing that goes along. And we’re hopeful that is going to make that roadway, you know, even smoother for folks for decades to come. So, you know, we’re always trying to be as innovative as we can. You know, we’re trying to, you know, be, you know, forward-thinking instead of looking to only what has taken place in the past and I think that the Department of Transportation does a good job with that.

Julia: I do too. And I thought when I saw that, you know, obviously China is—their population is, you know, six times our population, so they have a ton of people on their roads as well, and I had seen some mixture of that the last commission event that I had gone to where you could feel it and how the road felt different with the rubber mixed in there. It was so quiet. And I thought, I don’t know, sometimes that kind of actually want to hear if somebody’s on the other side of me or something along those lines. But I understand the concept [laugh]—

Mark: Yeah, sure.

Julia: —there—and then I was like we can’t put Matlock Tire out of business yet, you know? [laugh].

Mark: [laugh].

Julia: Just kidding. I love them. But yeah. So transitioning, thank you for all of your service to TDOT. I really don’t think that people understand the effort that it takes, again with a no-income-tax state, and no-debt state to maintain roads.

Mark: Mm-hm. Well, I’ll say this. My job at TDOT is extremely easy. It’s the folks that are on the roadways every day that are working that close to oncoming traffic. Every time I talk to folks, I try to stress the importance that when you’re driving and you see any orange cones and barrels or you see any crews in the area, slow down because you don’t realize how fast you’re going.

You may think, “Okay, I’m slowing down to 55,” you’re still going 55 miles an hour in a very heavy vehicle. And we have seen TDOT workers over the years that have lost their lives in the line of duty. And it’s an awful, awful thing, and we want our folks to get home safely just like we want motorists to get home safely. So, stressing the importance the that job that our folks are doing on the roadways, it is extremely important work, it is extremely dangerous work. So please, when you’re behind the wheel, make sure you’re concentrating one hundred percent on the task at hand, and that is driving your vehicle. That way, it’s the best way for you to get home safely and for our folks to get home safely.

Julia: We all know that real estate is location, location, location. Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise, pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell a home right here in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area. Call Just Homes Group today.

Julia: So, question—because I see these very often, which is really great, the helper—I don’t, I don’t know what they’re actually called—the helper trucks—

Mark: Yeah they Help Trucks.

Julia: —they are very helpful, actually extremely helpful. They’re faster response time than AAA—no offense to AAA—TDOT is a faster response time, and I’m starting to see people calling TDOT, over maybe the police chief or whatever it is that they need help with on the side of the road. So, their car breaks down or they need help getting off of—something’s happened. TDOT is super responsive. Tell us about how to get in touch with that situation, maybe if somebody’s stuck on the interstate?

Mark: Well, we have what’s called our Transportation Management Centers, and those are the areas in our—at TDOT that we’re able to monitor our TDOT SmartWay cameras, which we have placed on interstates throughout the state. Here in East Tennessee specifically, our Help Truck units, they are circling on the Interstate in the Knoxville area 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just for that to happen. Because if there is a crash, we’re trying to get those crash vehicles off the roadway. You see so many secondary crashes with people rubbernecking, with cars that have backed up, and our Help Trucks do a terrific job of clearing the roadway to make sure that traffic can continue flowing because you see more and more crashes when cars are brought to a stop. Because all it’s going to take is one person not paying attention, they rear-end one car which rear ends another, and then you have a lot of bad things happen.

Our Help Truck units do a terrific job. They are available to help change a flat tire, push a car off the roadway, somebody has run out of gas, they can assist that way. You know, they’re not specifically there for, like, what AAA would do, but the main thing, their main goal is to try to clear that roadway and get traffic going again.

Julia: How do people get in touch with them, or they just—

Mark: Again, it’s not—I mean, they’re welcome to call us but they would be better served calling AAA, calling local law enforcement. Our Help Trucks in the Knoxville area, they’re circling 24 hours a day. The TDOT SmartWay system, I mentioned those cameras, that’s a terrific resource for folks to use—you know, kind of getting on a tangent here—that’s a great resource for folks to use to see what’s going on in the interstates. Are there backups? Are there crashes? Should I take a different route? It’s great for folks to kind of look at that the old know before you go. And that’s accessible at smartway.tn.gov. But obviously, we tell folks, do not use that resource when you yourself are behind the wheel.

Julia: Oh yeah, for sure. Please stop texting and driving. It wears me out [laugh].

Mark: It does.

Julia: I see it all day. I’m like, “Come on, [Betty 00:18:37]. Come on.” Anyway. Alright, I’m going to shift because I’ve only got ten minutes of your time left and I really want to talk about this book.

Mark: Sure.

Julia: Because that’s how—that’s—I was like, “Okay, I had no idea.” I saw you tweet it. I’m a huge fan of Twitter. I don’t [unintelligible 00:18:50] I love Twitter. I get all my news from Twitter. It’s real quick. I’m like, “Who’s local? What do I need to know?”

And I saw this book that you had posted and I thought, “You did what now?” I had no idea that you wrote a book. So, cool when somebody local there’s something I don’t know about. It is called a Decade of Dysfunction.

Mark: Yeah.

Julia: Tell us about this book.

Mark: Okay, well, Decade of Dysfunction—I always like to show folks the cover; get a good look at Neyland Stadium—decade basically when Tennessee had the crazy coaching search of 2017 when Butch Jones had gotten fired and they tried to hire Greg Schiano and the fans had this uprising. And there was a national narrative that it was just a bunch of hillbillies that got mad because they didn’t get Jon Gruden, who was [unintelligible 00:19:38] at the time. And I felt that like that was very short-sighted because this wasn’t something that just happened on November 26th, 2017. This had been building up for a period of at least ten years. And it was all that fan frustration that finally got to the breaking point.

So, in the book, I tried to basically look at it as a historical document. I tried to go through all the things that had happened to Tennessee athletics—and the university itself—in that ten-year period, which led to the fan uprising. And that she—was now known as Schiano Sunday, when Tennessee fans revolted, it was a battle on multiple fronts. It was boots on the ground with fans that protested in front of the Tennessee football complex. It was, especially on social media, if anybody remembers that day, it was an absolute dumpster fire. Nobody wanted that hire to take place.

It took place with state politicians. They were the ones who ended up getting involved as well, making their voices heard. It got Tennessee’s big-money boosters also ended up having a say in this, and it turned into kind of this booster-on-booster crime with some guys wanted one coach, some wanted another coach. I mean, it was a complete mess of that day. But again, it’s because there had been ten years of, you know, just awful coaching hires, a terrible decision to get rid of the Lady Vols name change, which—

Julia: Yeah, that was rough. That was a rough week. I was, like, “You are kidding me with this.”

Mark: Yeah. I mean, oh, so many of those things built up. And I felt like there was a place for a book like that. And I had a lot of fun writing the book. It was a really tough experience. I mean, I do a lot of sports writing, but that was the first time I’d ever written a book itself. And I’m really happy that I did it.

Julia: Tell us about, kind of the—so the conversations that started this ten years ago, what was the culmination of the result of it? I mean, we call it—if you—if anybody knows anything about the University of Tennessee Knoxville, we call it Vol Twitter; you can—it’s got its own hashtag—there are hundreds of thousands of people a day that Tweet about University of Tennessee Knoxville sports, all day long. University of Tennessee Knoxville has the second largest fan base in the whole world, right behind Florida Gators. And I think that’s just Gatorade, you know? Just, people know Gatorade. They’re lucky; they got Gatorade. That’s the only reason they’re number one, I guarantee it.

But we’re the second-largest fan base in the entire world. So, it’s not as if people aren’t constantly looking at what we’re doing. Not to mention that we’re the second-largest football stadium in the country, period. So, I mean, we have a lot of people that want to know what’s going on all the time. They’re investing their money, they’re investing their time, they’re putting their effort, their children. We have a very large following. How did we go from one era of success—the ’98 win—to this decade of what the heck? How did that happen?

Mark: Well, I mean, it isn’t like you can just find one reason why it happened. You know, there are some that feel that the firing of Phillip Fulmer is what started off this in 2008. I don’t maintain it was necessarily the firing of Phillip Fulmer. Whether that was the right decision at the time or not, that can be debated. But the problem was the hires that they’ve made afterward.

I mean, when Georgia, you know, pushed Mark Richt out the door, they hired Kirby Smart, and that’s worked out great for Georgia. When Alabama fired Mike Shula, they moved heaven and earth to get Nick Saban; that’s worked out great for Alabama. Tennessee fired Phillip Fulmer—a Hall of Fame coach just, like, you know, Mark Richt was as well—they fired Fulmer and they hired Lane Kiffin. And Lane Kiffin was never ready for this job, Used—Tennessee went the opposite. They went from, like, the beloved grandpa type to the young trash talker and it did not work out.

And some people like to wax poetic and say, “Well, if he hadn’t left, Tennessee would have won so many games.” I don’t think that’s true at all.

Julia: He was always going to leave.

Mark: Yes. He would—no. And that was the differen—there’s an interesting point. Johnny Majors was Tennessee’s coach for 15, 16 years. Tennessee was the place that he wanted to be over any place in the world. Phil Fulmer was the Tennessee coach for 15, 16 years and Tennessee was the place he wanted to be more than anyplace else in the world.

Tennessee had three straight decades of having two coaches in charge of the football program that Knoxville was their dream City; Tennessee football was their dream job. Lane Kiffin never looked at it that way. So, when Lane Kiffin left, Tennessee all of a sudden had an inferiority complex that they’ve never had before. Because it was somebody telling them, “It’s not you. It’s me.” You know, is basically being dumped. And then—

Julia: [crosstalk 00:24:41] [laugh].

Mark: Yes. And then Tennessee goes and hires Derek Dooley. Absolutely awful choi—it was a panic hire.

Julia: He was terrible, but I loved those orange pants.

Mark: Everybody loved the orange pants. He was quirky, he was fun, he just could not coach to save his life. So—and then they hired Butch Jones, and he could recruit, but he came across as, kind of like, a snake oil salesman and when they underachieved, then that was another disaster. And then you can go back, you know, after all the mess of Schiano Sunday, they hired Jeremy Pruitt. That has not worked out.

What Tennessee fans need to know now—and I think they obviously do—is that at least now you’re back in the conversation with Josh Heupel as your head coach. You have Danny White as your athletic director, you have Josh Heupel as your head coach. Men’s basketball is in great shape. Women’s Basketball is a little bit down this year, but let’s see what happens the rest of the way, and baseball has been an absolute juggernaut.

So, the athletic department as a whole is on as steady a foundation as maybe since those late-90s glory years. And I think that that’s what Tennessee fans need to think about. And enjoy it. It’s the old line from Andy in The Office. It’s like, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve left them.” This is it. This is the good old days. You’re not going to win a national championship everywhere, but at least you want to be relevant, and that’s what Tennessee athletics is right now.

Julia: I 1000% agree. I can’t wait to get my hands on your book. I’m very excited to read it. I think that anything that anybody takes the time to actually delve into the history and the conversation of what has happened—because it reminds me the book Tipping Point. Have you read the book Tipping Point?

Mark: I have not.

Julia: I would highly suggest that read. And it just talks about all the things that happen throughout different moments in history, what it really was that made it just tip. But it wasn’t one thing; it was all the things that got to the top, and then some one small thing went boop and everybody lost it. And it’s like, that was one of those moments. And we’re always looking at, in the University of Tennessee, the athletic section of it and the fans are always looking for the next big thing, the next whatever it is. We’re in it, just like you said. We’re in it.

Mark: Yeah.

Julia: Enjoy it while you’ve got it.

Mark: That’s what the Schiano Sunday thing was, though. It wasn’t even—it really didn’t even have anything to do with Greg Schiano. It was a final spark that got Tennessee fans to say, “Okay, enough.” It’d been ten straight years of basically, you know, being beaten down, and it took that one moment for the spark to hit. And Tennessee’s fan base did something that had never happened before and really has never happened since is that they were the ones that were able to squash a hire before it had ever happened. Back in the day, you could have a coach come in, have his press conference, that’s it. This is the first time you had a fan base basically unite and stop a hire even if they didn’t realize that’s what they were doing at the time.

Julia: Yeah, and even [unintelligible 00:27:29] politicians. I mean, it’s like come on, seriously. This has gotten bad [laugh].

Mark: [laugh].

Julia: That did make me laugh. Inside. I was like, “Oh, they finally do get along.” And UT sports brought everybody together, per the usual. So, [laugh]. Mark, thank you so much. Tell people where they can get your book.

Mark: Sure. Decade of Dysfunction, it’s available on Amazon. That’s the easiest way to get it. They can also find me on Twitter at @marknagi, M-A-R-K-N-A-G-I. They can send me a direct message, I can find a way to get them to book that way. But again, the easiest way is on Amazon. Everything’s easier on Amazon.

Julia: Everything is easier on Amazon. Send us that link—we’ll find it if you don’t—and we’ll make sure to [post it on this podcast 00:28:08]. And we appreciate you taking our time today. Everybody, again, Decade of Dysfunction with Mark Nagi. And he is one of our local favorites.

Works currently for TDOT, but still took time to make sure that we understand what happens at the University of Tennessee, which as you know if you move to Knoxville, is your next full lifetime of experiences. So, we want you to be here, we want you to experience everything Knoxville has to offer. I’m Julia Hurley, your podcast host for Connect the Knox, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Mark, thank you so much for attending today, and thank you to our sponsor.

Mark: Thank you, Julia.

Julia: Bye.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

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Josh Mancuso is a TikTok creator based out of East Tennessee who has started his own production company called Switchmen Studios. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we discuss Josh’s East Tennessee roots and how he came to become a full-time content creator. Josh walks through his creative process, and why he feels consistency is what changed the game for him. Josh also talks about his future goals for Switchmen Studios, including movies he’s working on, how he’s built a large following by knowing his audience, and so much more.

Highlights

01:07 Josh introduces himself and explains how he has turned his love for video content into a career

02:17 How Josh comes up with his ideas and why he values sticking to his strengths

03:48 Julia and Josh discuss his East Tennessee roots and what he loves about living in the East Tennessee area

08:22 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

09:00 The audience and habits that have led to Josh’s success and where he hopes to take Switchmen Studios in the future

17:06 The genre that Josh wants to pursue as he expands into making movies

18:45 Ad - Just Homes Group Realty Executives

19:20 How Josh balances his career in media production and his family

21:24 Where the name Switchmen Studios came from

25:20 The three people who Josh would love to be connected with to further his career

28:19 Where you can find Josh and how to reach out to him

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thejoshmancuso
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejoshmancuso
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshmancuso/
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshmancuso/
  • Email: switchmenstudios@gmail.com
  • Website: https://switchmenstudios.com
  • Cameo: https://cameo.com/joshmancuso

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Transcript

Julia: Hey everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Connect the Knox with me, your hostess with the mostest, Julia Hurley. And today’s guest is one of the most creative people I’ve come across in the two years I’ve been on TikTok, Josh Mancuso—and I said it wrong earlier—he owns Switchmen Studios, and if you have not had the pleasure, we’re going to talk about his TikTok channel, we’re going to talk about his creativity and some of what he does. One of my favorite things, however, is when he creates TikTok videos about SEC college football—or any college football teams—and how they’ve named their mascots. I found this creator on my ‘For You’ page. I have followed him and shared him, and I think at this point, he has over, like, 50 million views. Extremely creative, and friends? From Tennessee. I know it’s shocking. We got talent here. So Josh, tell us about you and how you ended up where you are today, and kind of where we’re going.

Josh: Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you for having me. It’s so, so good to be with you. So, I’m—originally I was born in LA, so I’ve got a family in California, but I lived in Tennessee since I was five years old. So, I grew up in Northeast Tennessee. I live in Johnson City, Tennessee, now.

And I have always been into creating things. Man, I’ll tell you what, even when I was a kid and I had projects in school and th—you know, you had a choice. You could do, like, one of those boards, like, the three… thing board that you could, like, make a what do you call that?

Julia: Oh, like the science experiment thing?

Josh: Yeah, you can do a board like that, or you could do, like, if you write a paper or you could do, like, different things. And one of the choices was, make a video. and I always made a video for every single project. So, I’ve been making videos since I was a kid, and… have been fortunate enough to turn it into a career. So yeah, just been having fun making some videos here with college football season in full scale right now. So, it’s been, yeah it’s been a lot of fun.

Julia: I wish I could figure out—I’m sure—[laugh] I’m sure you could do this—figure out how to insert one of your videos here because I think just, like, a quick play of that. But I really encourage people do. And I’ll put all your links in the podcast as well.

Josh: Yeah, thank you.

Julia: How do you come up with this stuff? I mean, the Tennessee Georgia video is actually oddly what came up on my ‘For You’ page the week of that game, and I was like, how did it know? [laugh]. How do you come up with stuff?

Josh: It’s too smart. It’s scary, smart. Well, you know, I fancy myself a good writer. There’s certain things that I’m really good at. Some things I’m not that good at. So, the technical side, like, I couldn’t tell you how to put one of my videos into this stream right now. No idea. But I’m a good writer and hopefully a decent actor.

So, you know, some of these skits almost write themselves, you know, especially the mascot videos. There’s so much content because it’s great to kind of look at how schools came up with their mascot. But don’t look at the real story; you look at, like, an outsider’s perspective, like, why is Virginia Tech Hokie? What’s a Hokie? What is that?

And so, you just kind of go down a rabbit trail [laugh] and next thing you know, yeah, I’ve written the script. And it’s, you know, I’m lucky I guess, because I love college football and so that world is familiar to me. If I were writing comedy skits about brain surgery it wouldn’t be funny, so—because I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. So, at least it’s an area that I’m familiar with.

Julia: I do love the Hokie. I just watched the Hokie one this morning, actually, and you’re like—and you ended it with, “And lots of national championships.” And you cut over and you’re like… “No.” [laugh].

Josh: It’s so sad, bless their hearts. They have not won a national championship in football, or maybe any other sport that I can—that I’m familiar with. So.

Julia: No. If that’s not the most southern thing somebody has said on this podcast yet: bless their heart. I really do appreciate that. Tell us about how you ended up in the Tri-Cities.

Josh: Oh, yes. Well… gosh, my mother was from the Tri-Cities. My dad was from California, and his family’s also out there. But yeah, I ended up moving out here when I was five years old and never left. I spent about—well, I spent about a year in Atlanta, but yeah, pretty much East Tennessee bred.

And my wife and my three daughters, we all—we still live here and we’re rooted here, I think. I don’t anticipate leaving anytime soon. So, we love it. I mean, you couldn’t ask for—you get all four seasons, you get beautiful scenery, you get great people. East Tennessee is a great place to live. Yeah.

Julia: So, downtown Johnson City—pre-Covid; I haven’t been since—downtown Johnson City had a restaurant in the—oh my gosh, I can’t—it was like a Cuban restaurant. Is that still there?

Josh: Umm… Sabores. No, it’s not there any longer. Yeah.

Julia: Oh, man. That place was fantastic.

Josh: Yeah. There’s a lot of good restaurants in Johnson City, like in Knoxville. I mean, I think Knoxville’s got a ton of good places to eat. And Johnson City, for being such a small town, has incredible dining. Yeah, they’ve got some great places to go. There’s no shortage of good restaurants and breweries too if you’re into… into the beer.

Julia: I am. We go to Asheville at least twice a year and celebrate [laugh]. Just for—just to go.

Josh: To celebrate what?

Julia: To celebrate [crosstalk 00:05:07] [laugh].

Josh: Just to celebrate?

Julia: Just ‘cause. Just to go [laugh].

Josh: It’s a Thursday. Let’s go celebrate somewhere and have a beer. Yeah.

Julia: Whoo. [unintelligible 00:05:14]. Thank you. So.

Josh: Yes.

Julia: True, though. True. Anyway, all right. So, California to Johnson City. Your family’s from here anyway. Did you go to college here? Did you go to college in the South? What made you fall in love with the idea of this?

Josh: Well, I went to college at Emory & Henry College. It’s a small school in Southwest Virginia. Yeah, small private school.

Julia: We crushed you every year in tennis. I went to Maryville College.

Josh: Oh, did you really?

Julia: That was the only thing that we had against you [laugh]. The only thing we could win.

Josh: That’s great. Yes. I remember playing against Maryville College. So, I went to play football. So, I was—listen, I was nearly enrolled at University of Tennessee, [unintelligible 00:05:59] my roommate from high school, we were going out together, we were going to—I mean, we’re ready to rock.

And then, sort of last minute, I decided I wanted to—I played football in high school; I want to try to play football in college. And there were some small schools that were giving me some chances and so I was like, all right, I can’t let go of this. I probably should have let go of it, but I couldn’t. So, I went there to play football. Unfortunately, I hurt my back my sophomore year and I could not play anymore after that. But I stayed there for all four years. And it’s a beautiful campus, let me tell you what. It is so nice up there. But, so you play—did you play tennis?

Julia: I did. I did. Emory & Henry was one of our favorite places to visit because we would just absolutely—it was always a [6-0 6-0 6-6 00:06:42] [laugh]. So, I was like [unintelligible 00:06:45].

Josh: That’s awesome. Yeah, I don’t remember us having a very strong tennis team when I was there. It was all football and a little bit of basketball. So yeah, that’s exciting. Well, you need to come back up and visit. I’ve not been in a while. It’s been… I’m not a very good alum, but I need to get up there.

Julia: [crosstalk 00:07:06] Maryville College just 20 minutes down the road. I went for—they did an interview with me, they interviewed me. I was a state legislator and I’ve been ten years elected, so they did an interview with me about, where is she now? And I come 20 minutes down the road and you never see me [laugh].

Josh: I’m still here. Yeah.

Julia: I’m still here.

Josh: That’s good.

Julia: That’s hilarious. All right. So, you went to Emory & Henry. Did you go to grad school after that?

Josh: I went later to grad school. I ended up going to a school called Luther Rice University. It’s like a… it’s like part, part Bible college seminary, and part graduate school. So, I got a degree there in leadership. Yes, you can get a degree in leadership, believe it or not, which obviously makes me the most qualified leader in the world because I have a master’s degree in leadership. So, if you need somebody to lead something, I’m your guy. Here I come. So, that was [laugh] that was great.

Julia: You’re going to have to compete against the Haslam Business Leadership College now in Knoxville because they’re just pumping them out.

Josh: They are pumping them out. Well, I should probably be invited as a guest speaker, a guest lecturer, probably.

Julia: I recommend that.

Josh: Yeah. I think—I mean if they’re looking for some quality entertainment and not so much learning experience, I probably am a good choice. Yeah, so I did get a degree there. What else did I do? What else, what else are you asking me?

Julia: Oh, my God, everything.

Josh: Everything. Okay.

Julia: Basically, what I’m looking for is how did you end up with Switchmen Studios and doing what you’re doing now? I mean, this is… there are very few, I’ll say—I’ll be honest, very few in my generation comedians that are well-written, well-spoken, well-presented, and relatable, and you have all of those qualities. And it’s almost as if you’ve used the same thing we all use in sports as a conversation, to get to know your audience and then your audience automatically feels a connection to you. And it’s like they are now solidified to you. So basically, if you wanted to branch out and do anything else, you could take that there.

And I feel like watching you and watching your channel grow and watching your following grow and your comments in your comment section are hilarious. I mean, people are involved with you. They’re invested in you. And that is leadership. Whether you think that or not, it is definitely leadership, being able to do that.

And I’m really interested to see what your future plans are. Not only other skits because we’re definitely going to get into some Ohio-Michigan, but—

Josh: Oh yeah.

Julia: —what are your future skits for the next year? And where are you planning on going with this and where do you want this to grow?

Josh: Oh, my gosh. First of all, that was all so well said thank you for saying such kind words and for being—will come manage my career? Will you be my PR person? Will do all my marketing appear—because that sounded great. I should have, I should have written that down. So yeah.

Julia: You’ll be able to plus press record. It’s [laugh] totally fine.

Josh: That’s true. Okay. Yea. Thank you so much. So yeah, we’re—uh… wow. You know, I was a little hesitant to start putting out comedy videos because there’s something about putting yourself out there on social media. One, my goal is not really to be a quote, “TikTok star.” Nothing wrong with that; it’s just not one of my goals. And I feel older, too old to say I’m going to be a TikTok star, right? It seems like something a young person would say. But so, but eventually, I kind of get over, I guess, impostor syndrome, like, hey, okay, you are funny, people do think you’re funny, all right, but I’m living room funny. But am I funny enough to put out content every week that people are going to look forward to seeing and do I want to invest enough of my time to actually be doing that?

And eventually, probably two years ago, I started making a couple of videos here and there, but I wasn’t consistent. They were funny, but I just didn’t have the time, didn’t take the time to put, you know, production quality into them. And so finally, I decided earlier this year, all right, if I’m going to do this, I want to do it well and go all in. So, I started making the videos and just had a tremendous response right off the bat. And it was so great to get that.

And I think tapping into certain audiences has been huge for me. I think every time I do a new school, that’s a brand new audience that I’m pulling in because I, you know, I been mainly SEC audiences and now I got TCU, I got their fans, you know, coming in. So, that’s been really cool. And with Tennessee-Georgia, I kind of hit two fan bases at once. So, I’ll probably be doing more videos where I hit multiple fan bases at one time so I can bring in new viewers and followers.

But so I was in—I’ve been doing video production for ten-plus years, I worked in marketing for a little while and then was doing video production on the side. I started a company, it was just called Mancuso Entertainment. And that was a long time ago and I was intending really to simply get to a place where I can make movies, I want to make films. And I started making videos for other people. I did wedding videos, I did, like, business videos, marketing videos.

It just, it built up and I had a couple of employees. It was great and I loved it, but I could never branch off and, like, do, like, original content. And so, actually, Covid kind of changed some of that for me. Covid was—I know it was a really bad thing for all of us, but some, certainly some good things were born out of that for me. I was able to kind of reset and kind of start fresh and I started on this journey, this direction towards really being a creator and an entertainer and less of… a less of a—I’m a business owner, obviously, but less of a client-based business owner. Now, making content that I want to make that other people hopefully enjoy.

And so, I started Switchmen Studios earlier this year and it has been great. Our mission is really to make movies, to make full-length feature films, some short films, TV series, and online, you know, social media content. And so, that’s where I’ve started is with that because I think that’s the greatest first step forward in gaining an audience, in bringing people in and letting them kind of join in with what I’m doing and see what we’re trying to do, and then we can start into some bigger things. And so, I’ve already done some short films, some dramas, some comedies that have been in film festivals, things like that and it’s been great. I’ve loved it.

Won a few awards, I’m thankful for that. And so, we’re working our way towards making bigger productions. I’m actually making movies, but right now, certainly very focused on making comedy videos and just making people laugh—my favorite thing to do is just make people laugh—and see where that takes us.

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Julia: Have you thought about—just throwing this out there—what popped into my head when you said that is, somebody who’s obviously well on their way to getting what they want and not to undercut the amount of work that that’s going to take, for sure—

Josh: Sure.

Julia: I mean, nothing comes easy. Learning how to even cut videos is extremely difficult. And so, I think the younger generation has a leg up on all of us that they wake up with a phone in their hands at the age of, you know, six months and figure out YouTube a day later. And they’re very intelligent when it comes to videos, but it takes work, it takes dedication, and it takes garnishing the attention of the right people. What would it take for you to make a video, like… I don’t know, like, oh gosh, what did that Farrell, the guy—whatever his name is the comedian, the tall, red-haired comedian.

Josh: Will Ferrell?

Julia: Will Ferrell versus uh… oh, I hate to say, like, this short, chunky, dark-headed guy that was in Moneyball?

Josh: [laugh] Jonah Hill.

Julia: I think if you did a video impersonating each of them and garnishing some of the attention of comedians like that, they would appreciate that banter. I think that they are kind of the people that play off themselves more than anybody else. And that’s kind of what you do. You play off of your own strengths while creating content for other people to love, which is really hard to do. That’s really hard to do.

Josh: Sure, yeah. It is. It is. I think it works because I’m able to be myself. Even though I’m playing different characters in there, it’s still me, you know what I mean? It’s still me within that. If you look at big actors like, like Will Ferrell, like, you know, Chris Pratt or somebody like that, yes, they become their characters, but it’s really, like, Chris Pratt is still Chris Pratt in every movie that he’s in. Will Ferrell is still Will Ferrell. Like, yeah, they’re a character, but—and I think that’s great. You can do that in comedy, especially, because, you know, I have a certain type of comedic delivery and I stick to that, and I know not to really get out of that lane too much, or I [laugh] could, you know, it won’t be near as funny. So, I’ve tried a couple times. You should see some of the outtakes because I’m like, go okay, no, don’t do that again, Josh. Don’t ever do it again. Like, let’s go back to what you’re good at. Let’s do the, you know, the facial expressions and the way I say things. And yeah, so being able to be yourself and make that is, I’m just so grateful that, honestly, that people think I’m funny because sometimes I’m like, “People think I’m f—” like—

Julia: You are hilarious.

Josh: I don’t think I’m that funny, but people are cracking up.

Julia: You are [hilarious 00:16:36]. It is—you are insanely funny. It’s like what—it’s just… you remind me of, like… what is that—the female comedian [Leanne 00:16:43] from Knoxville?

Josh: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Julia: Okay. She’s herself and ridiculously hilarious. And it doesn’t matter what she says, you can relate to it. You—get that same vibe. It’s like, it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s relatable—

Josh: Yeah.

Julia: —and funny.

Josh: Yeah. Well, thanks.

Julia: So, I found that interesting. Okay. Is comedy, though, the genre that you want to go with all of your movies? Like, what’s your passion there?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, I think like so many comedic actors, you’ll find them saying, “Oh, I love doing comedy; I love being a comedian, but I want to be a real actor,” right? Which means you want to do drama and thrillers and things like that. So, it’s a balance for me. It’s like I know what is my bread and butter, I know what’s going to pay the bills, I know what’s going to get me where I want to go, and it is comedy. So, I would be an idiot if I was like, I’m going to go do drama now.

Like no, it is a comedy, and I—yeah, a lot of the films that we have lined up and that we’re looking at are comedies. But there are some dramas as well because I think that, you know, I’m a creative; I don’t want to get stuck doing only comedy, only one thing, so there is some dramatic roles. I was just in a movie in Birmingham, Alabama. I shot a movie down there and I played, it’s a dramatic character. And he has a little bit of comedic edge to him; it’s very subtle. But it’s—it takes place in 1970s.

And so, you know, we had the bell bottoms and the, I had a mustache that, you know, like, Fu Manchu that came down here—

Julia: the Manchu? [laugh].

Josh: Yeah, ’70s, smoking cigarettes and just doing the whole deal. So, that was fun. And that was a stretch for me, so I like being able to ease into it a little bit. Am I going to get cast in the next big drama with, you know, Kate Winslet playing opposite me? Absolutely no.

Julia: You never know.

Josh: What?

Julia: You never know.

Josh: You never know. But am I more likely to be cast in a comedy tomorrow? Absolutely. So, we want to do both, but comedy is certainly our… that’s our strong suit, right?

Julia: Yeah. Where does the family fit into all this? Do they travel with you? Are they homeschooled? Tell us a little bit about your family if you want.

Josh: Good question. No, they go to school here locally. And they’re great kids. I’m fortunate. My wife works as a nurse, so she has interesting hours, right? A lot of long hours back and forth. So, it’s a lot of, like, working, like, crazy, and then family time for a couple days, and then working like crazy. And so, it goes back and forth.

They don’t travel with me for anything long. Sometimes if it’s like a weekend, you know, we’ll go together and that’s a lot of fun. But I was gone for about nine days recently and they didn’t go there. I went to Nashville; I was in a commercial there and then drove down to Birmingham for the movie, and then came back. So, that was the longest time I’ve ever had to be away from them. But my girls are 13, 12, and 6. So—

Julia: Wow.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Julia: That’s a spread that’s a spread.

Josh: That’s a spread, yeah. The six-year-old comes by surprise. She was a bit of—she was like, “Oh, oh, we’re going to have a third one. Okay, good. No, that’s good. We’re excited. It’s great.”

Julia: I’m sure the middle child loves that [laugh].

Josh: Yeah. Oh, man. Bless—yeah, bless her heart—

Julia: Bless her heart.

Josh: Because now she’s the middle kid. Yeah, they’re great. And you know that they don’t… you would think maybe they think that I’m cool. I had this conversation with somebody, actually this morning. Like, “Your kids must think you’re so cool.” And I’m like, “They don’t think I’m cool at all. They’re like, ‘he’s just dumb old dad.’” You know, they’re like—like, my oldest is, like, “Dad, my friends watch all your videos. It’s so embarrassing.” [laugh].

Julia: It’s like the bad [unintelligible 00:20:17] guys. My kids hate me.

Josh: I know. I’m like, “Sorry, honey, but it’s only going to get worse from here.” So.

Julia: You’ll love it one day. It’ll be hilarious. It’s fine.

Josh: That’s right. Yes.

Julia: Yeah. [back to cough 00:20:30], everything is fine. Everything is fine.

Josh: [laugh]. Everything’s fine. Yeah.

Julia: [laugh]. Everything is great. Okay, so I’m very excited about, kind of like, what creativity you’re growing into, and I feel like the shift is going to happen for you where you want it to. Do you still—like, tell me about Switchmen Studios. Because I did a little research. Switchmen—did you come up with a name because you switch characters? That’s what I was thinking originally, but then I actually did some research on that and it’s a rail line position. Where did this name come from?

Josh: Well, good. You do your research, man. I love it. Thank you. Yes, so the name Switchmen. It’s such a random name for a studio, so my grandfather, [A.J. Castillo 00:21:12], he was a railroad worker years ago. He’s passed a long time ago. But he worked on the railroad most of his life. And he was in a… I guess a quintet. Is that five? Quintet? He was in a basically—it’s like, gospel group band with four other men, and they all worked for the railroad.

And they traveled around Northeast Tennessee, Southeast Virginia, playing at churches, things like that. And I used to travel with them when I was a little boy. And I thought I was so cool. I thought it was so cool. And so, a switch—and their band name was the Switchmen. That was their name.

Julia: Oh, that’s so awesome. Yeah.

Josh: So, a switchman in a railroad is the one who switches the track from one track to the other so the train can go a different track, then they—you know, it’s kind of a dangerous job, actually. And my grandfather wasn’t necessarily a switchman most of his life; he did other things, primarily, but it was a great name. And for me, I just thought, man, I’d love to just kind of give a little tribute to him. He had a big impact on my life, and so I thought I’d like to—what can I do? And I thought about his gospel band and then I thought, well, you got to connect it somehow to filmmaking. You don’t have to, but, I mean, it’d be nice if I could.

So, I thought, you know, the Switchmen changes the train from one track to another, and I really feel like as creators, as storytellers, as filmmakers, we have the ability to take an audience down a certain path and then all of a sudden, yank that line and pull that and take them on a different path. That could be a plot twist, could be a new character you didn’t see coming, it could be a joke, even. And so, I like that ability to kind of take an audience this way and then take them this way and that way, and it makes the journey for them that much more exciting when they are viewing and watching your content. So, that’s how I came up with it. Yeah.

Julia: Hmm. If that’s not a title for a future movie on day, I’m not sure what is.

Josh: Amen, sister. Tell me about it. Yep.

Julia: That’s pretty good.

Josh: Yeah.

Julia: That’s [unintelligible 00:23:05]. That would be a, actually, really fantastic movie. Not necessarily about the training switcher people, but the movie with the thought process behind it itself. That’s very—that would be a very good—that’s exi—you have so much creativity in that brain of yours.

Josh: You’re so sweet. Thank you. Well, I mean, I swear, naming a company is, like, the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s like—because I’ve had other smaller companies in the past and it’s like, the name didn’t mean anything and it was just sort of like… I wanted it to mean something and still be creative and something that I wouldn’t mind putting up and saying, “This is my company,” like, “Here it is.” And it’s great because people ask me what it means, so I can tell them.

Julia: So, one of the things that I do on this podcast, the whole reason I’ve named it Connect the Knox—kind of like connect the dots but through Knoxville—is that I’ve been here my entire life. I’m a First Families of Tennessee, Daughters of the American Revolution, we’ve been here forever. I mean, forever.

Josh: Love it.

Julia: And it’s a very interesting thing [that 00:24:04] to think of people calling me all the time and asking me, “Do you know somebody that does this? Do you know somebody that can do this? Who do you know that does this?” And I connect people—and I’ve been connecting people—20 years of business and have never connected the actual dots between who I knew and where they go. And so, that’s the purpose of the podcast.

So, I’m going to ask you, if you [needed connected 00:24:24] with five or less people, who would you want to be connected with? Put it out there into the world because this podcast, what we have a hu—I mean about 175,000 followers, so not massive, but nothing to shake a stick at—

Josh: That’s huge. That’s awesome.

Julia: [crosstalk 00:24:38] probably get out there. Who are your five that you feel like you need to be connected with?

Josh: Five in Knoxville or five anywhere?

Julia: Anywhere.

Josh: Anywhere. You know, my biggest connections, the five I need to be connected with would be… [sigh] you know, I think you mentioned earlier getting into some schools, right, some colleges. It would be great to get in, whether it’s athletic director or marketing and PR people where I could actually come and visit some schools and be able to, whether it’s talk to the team or do some shows there, do some stand-up comedy, like, whatever I could do to get in with some of those folks would be tremendous. That would be a huge help for me. So, that’s one.

And second would be you know, obviously producers, people that are involved in the entertainment industry. And then just to be fully honest, third is money. It takes money to do what I do. And it’s tough because people want to make money doing their art and it is tough to make money doing art. And while making funny videos is just funny videos, it’s still art, and so you know, sponsorships, it’s investors.

And I have currently one investor in my—in Switchmen Studios, and that is how I’m able to spend all my time doing what I’m doing. And I’m looking for other investors who would be able to come alongside and say, “We believe in you. We think you’re awesome, think you’re funny, think you’re talented, think that—we look at what you’ve done so far and think wow, what if this guy really had the resources he needs to go big, could he do it?” And absolutely I believe I could and will. So, looking for those types of people. I don’t know if you’re asking for specific names of people but—

Julia: Well I—

Josh: Types of people, that’s what I’m looking for.

Julia: No and I think that just putting that out there is fantastic. I think that you have more connections than you probably think about. Quentin Tarantino is from Knoxville.

Josh: [laugh]. Yes. True.

Julia: Never hurts to reach out. And people have and they’re like, “he’s unreachable.” He’s not. David Keith still lives in Knoxville.

Josh: See, I didn’t know that.

Julia: Coaches in Knoxville. Trains kids in Knoxville, acting classes in Knoxville. Um, just so—you know, a couple examples, up in Bristol Johnson City Tri-Cities area, the guy that does the editing for the playbacks and what we, like, to call the chicken salad of the mess that we make on the football field, he’s from Johnson City.

Josh: [laugh]. Really?

Julia: Right here in Knoxville. So, there’s a lot of things that you can connect to right here in Knoxville. And this is what I love about it is whenever I find somebody that I want to interview and I want to bring them on the show, and I’m like, listen, what can we do for you? This is exactly what this is about, finding talented people who are connected to Knoxville and they don’t even know it. And these are opportunities right down the road.

But obviously, Nashville will be, Nashville will be probably the biggest one for you to go to, but you have that capability right here in the Knoxville Tri-Cities market. So, I’m excited to have shared that and your opportunities to grow. Because I feel like we’re going to see a lot more of you and I’m really excited to have had you when you had open time—

Josh: Yes. Thank you.

Julia: —on this podcast because I feel like that is such a huge opportunity for the world to see you and get to know you a little bit. So, we’ve got about three minutes. Break down for us how people can find you.

Josh: Yep.

Julia: Spell it out so we don’t get confused. How they can contribute. Do you have, like, a donations page? Do you have a GoFundMe page? Do you have a requests page for videos? I would love to see, like, realtor versus [fisbo 00:27:56] because that would be hilarious—

Josh: [laugh].

Julia: —[crosstalk 00:27:58] little things like that. And then if they can buy a video from you, like, say, hey, this is something that’s in my industry. I would love a comedic gesture on… let’s find a way to help you grow—

Josh: Yes.

Julia: —get to be known at the same time. So, fill us in. Where can people find you and help you?

Josh: That’s awesome, Julie. You’re so great. Thanks for doing this, for having me on. Yes, obviously the best ways to start follow me is on social media. Most of my handles are just @joshmancuso. And that’s Josh, J-O-S-H, Mancuso, M-A-N-C-U-S-O. TikTok’s a little different. It’s at @thejoshmancuso. And Facebook is also at @thejoshmancuso because somebody took my handle before I had a chance to get there. But Instagram, Twitter is @joshmancuso. So yeah, follow me there.

Obviously, I welcome people, you know, to DM me. I read most of my DMs, not all. I get to—okay, I pretty much read them all. I get to them eventually. It takes me a little bit of time. But I will get to it, so feel free to DM me if you have suggestions or anything. And then email me at switchmenstudios@gmail.com. So, it’s switchmen—plural: M-E-N—switchmenstudios@gmail.com. The website is switchmenstudios.com you can go there as well.

And just drop me a line and connect with me. I’d love to hear from folks and whatever I can do for them as well. You know if someone wants to partner with me in some way financially, there’s plenty of ways that way or if you just want to request something. I’m also on Cameo just recently, so you can book me; 29 bucks. You can book a personalized message from me if someone is interested in that. You have a—

Julia: [laugh]. Oh, God. I’ve already paid for it. Take my money.

Josh: Take [laugh]—

Julia: Take my money. I’m serious. That’s so great. I didn’t even know that. That’s so awesome.

Josh: Yes, so just cameo.com/joshmanuso, and I can send a private message to you or somebody’s birthday or somebody that loves a certain team or something. Yeah, so that’s a lot of fun, too.

Julia: Oh, my God. I’ve got somebody on my football players that have birthdays coming out, so that is, like, take my money.

Josh: Please.

Julia: All right. Please. Everybody, thank you so much. This has been one of my favorite podcasts to record so far. I’m very excited about it. I’ll let you know when it drops. We drop about every two weeks, so we’re starting to film as many as—we’ve got 15 in the pipeline so far. I’ve been very lucky that people have sent me the right people.

I am lucky to have found you and that you responded. I cannot wait to see what happens in your future. Everybody, please follow @thejoshmancuso or @joshmancuso, and whoever bought his stuff, give it to this man. Please give him his name. Thank you for Connecting the Knox. I’m Julia Hurley. Thanks for visiting.

Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

View Details

Stacey Campfield is a Tennessee politician, TV personality, and real estate mogul and on this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we explore how Stacey was able to build such a dynamic career right here in Knoxville. Stacey explains why he moved to Knoxville for the business climate, and how his political career led him to a career in television. Julia and Stacey also discuss Stacey’s real estate portfolio, the opportunity he still sees for investors in Knoxville, and the importance of having realistic expectations when embarking on a career in real estate. Stacey also shares his learnings from becoming a property owner and especially why he feels it’s important to always do right by people and pay it forward by mentoring those looking to build their own real estate careers.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:33 Stacey introduces himself and describes how he chose to move to Knoxville from New York for a better business climate

03:31 How Stacey landed his own TV show right here in Knoxville through his political career

09:06 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro www.goseedoctorjoe.com

09:37 Stacey talks about his real estate portfolio and his business perspective on how he built it and his approach to managing a large portfolio

14:30 The advice Stacey would give to people who want to make money in real estate and how it differs from the success stories you see on TV

20:52 Ad - Just Homes Group Realty Executives

21:27 Stacey shares how he’s mentored other people on building a real estate portfolio

22:39 The opportunity Stacey still sees for growth in Knoxville and where he sees the city being in 5 years

24:56 Julia and Stacey discuss the importance of doing the right thing as a landlord and how that builds loyalty and referrals for your business

27:15 Stacey answers Julia’s lightning round of questions about his favorite local Knoxville spots

29:34 How people can find Stacey’s show and connect with him

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • brighteon.com: https://www.brighteon.com/
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php
  • therealitycamp.com: https://therealitycamp.com

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Transcript

Julia: Hey everybody and welcome to Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, and today’s guest is one of my favorite all-time former politicians, Stacey Campfield. Stacey, thank you so much for being on our show.

Stacey: Hurricane, great to see you. Thanks for having me on.

Julia: [laugh]. The Hurricane was my nickname and it still kind of stuck [laugh].

Stacey: I’m not letting go. I’m going to keep you to it.

Julia: That’s okay. I love it. I love it. Listen, Stacey, let’s start this whole thing off with where you’re originally from and how you ended up in Knoxville.

Stacey: Sure. Well, my family goes back to first families in Tennessee. So, my grandparents, aunts and uncles were here. My mom was born and raised here, but she wanted to learn to snow ski, so she went up north, ended up getting a job for, she thought was going to be a short-term thing. Ended up getting a good job in New York because the schools were very good at the time there and not as good here.

And ended up getting married, had us. We’d spend our summers in Tennessee and I finally just said, you know, I love Tennessee much more than New York. I realized I mean, I was getting—I really from a very young age, I could see differences between Tennessee and New York. Not that New York’s a terrible place and the people in New York are terrible people. It has some very positive things, too, but I got to a point and I said, well, the business climate in New York was terrible.

And I don’t think it’s much better now because I know a lot of people there. It was just, it was a dying community and a dying state. I said, the bus—and I wanted to be in business. I was in business for myself up in New York. I was working myself pretty much to death and not getting anywhere.

And I said, I’m working all the time just to pay all the taxes for New York City, which is what happens in upstate New York. And I was working nonstop. And I said, I can go to Tennessee, the business climate is good, the weather’s world’s better, and the girls are pretty. You know, what other choices do you need? I mean, that’s—you know, you’re a young man or whatever you say, those are the three things in life. What am I waiting for? Why am I here? Is it just because I love filling my shoes with sludge every winter and freezing myself to death and working a lot for the government? No, no. And the girls weren’t very nice? [laugh].

So, I said, I’m going to Tennessee where everybody’s nice, friendly, everybody says hello, everybody talks to you. And I’m going to come down there. And I did. I really just came down with me in a pickup truck. I had a business, I sold it up in New York.

I had a couple of dollars, but really virtually nothing… more or less, just enough to get my foot down and a place to stay for a little while I got myself started. [I’m like 00:02:47] a lot of people, you know, when I was young, I started with those crap jobs that everybody has, you know, I was a lifeguard for a while and did some other things just working for other people, pool boy, whatever it took to survive at the time. It was sort of interesting because, you know, that time in my life, you know, I made a lot of new friends, which was great, met a lot of really nice people, but I really never looked back and said, boy, I still wish I was in New York. I never had that problem. I never was like, boy, I wish—what I gave up. Oh, my gosh, I have a great thriving little business, you know, and it was going great. I never looked back and said no. I just, I always look back and say moving to Knoxville or Tennessee in general, was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Julia: I love to hear that. So, many people that are here from out of state say the exact same thing. It’s like, once they’re here, they never leave. But we still hear from people all the time, why Tennessee? And it’s almost as if people cannot connect what is so special about Knoxville versus everywhere else. So, I appreciate that story. It’s a fantastic story.

Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing now, though because I love that you have your own TV show. So, talk to us about how kind of you got into that situation at this moment.

Stacey: Sure. I mean, really—and in your case, you’re wondering brighteon.com, that’s where I’m at. That’s the channel that I’m on. The show is called The Reality Camp. I didn’t come up with a name but it’s a good name, I guess. It’s just fun. We just have fun with it. Really a lot of is sprung from politics. I was in politics for a decade in Knoxville. And that was another nice thing about Knoxville. They were very welcoming to someone who literally probably was not—I wasn’t born there. I moved down when I was about 25 and said, you know, hey, this is where I want to live.

And people were very welcoming. And they were very open to having someone like me just—you know, you can call me carpetbagger; I’ve been called worse, you know, but they didn’t really care. They were like, hey, if you’re willing to work and you’re willing to do the stuff, you know, God bless you, we’ll take you. And I got into politics and made a couple of friends through that. And the guy who ran the TV station, I literally ran into him, I’m not sure if people know what fanboy is, but it’s, like, a show of old movie stars and stuff like that, you can meet all these people and stuff like that.

I just happened to be walking through one day and this guy had a booth to set up and he’s like, “Hey, you’re Stacey Campfield.” Was like, “Yep.” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m a big fan, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And he—I said, “Well, what do you do?” And he’s like, “Well, do TV shows and stuff like that and I do films for, like, movies and stuff like that,” he did all this production work stuff. And I said, “Oh, that’s really cool.”

And he said, “Well, you want to come up and be on our show one time? And we’d love to have you.” Because we had a lot of pretty big name, pretty decent-sized name people coming up there and talking politics. I said, “Well, sure. I’ll come up, check out your show. Sure. I’d love to see your station, see what you have.”

And Alan Keyes was there. I’m not sure if you remember Dr. Alan Keyes. He was a presidential candidate back in the Bush era. I’ll just talk about him and being vice president for Bush, the first Bush, but you know, things like that. Sometimes they work out sometimes they don’t. Very sharp mind. He was an ambassador for Ronald Reagan in two different countries. And he said, “Hey, why don’t you come up and we’ll [unintelligible 00:06:12] on the show.” And I was like, “Oh, okay, sure.” [unintelligible 00:06:14] that’s a great honor, you know, get this major player like that.

And I said, “Okay, sure. I’ll sit in on the show.” So… the—it was almost sort of funny because the host of the show is this just a good guy. But it was three people: it was me, Alan Keyes and the host of the show. Well, the host this show comes in here and says, “Well, this is Stacey Campfield, local politician, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Did this—their thing, “And Dr. Alan Keyes. Guys, how you doing?” I said, “Good.”

And he’s like, “What do you think about Donald Trump?” And I just started talking. And I promise you, he gets up and just walks off the stage. So, it’s just me and Alan Keyes. And I’m just [unintelligible 00:06:54]. And I’m like, “Uh, aren’t you supposed—the host supposed to be here for this?” And I’m literally talking to him for, like… I mean, literally like an hour.

And I’m like, “Okay.” I was thinking it was going to be, like, a two-minute little chit-chat thing. And it’s an hour and I was like, “Well, you know, I got to get going, guys. Uh, I guess we’re closing out the show.” Literally, they like, threw me to the wolves. And we closed out the show talking with Alan.

And I got off, I was like, “What the heck was that?” And they’re like, “We wanted to see how you handled pressure, if you could just talk spontaneously on the spot.” I said, “Well, I guess I had to. I had no other choice besides sit there looking dumb.” And he said, “Well, you did good. You passed the test, so how’d you like to have your own show?”

And I was like, “Really?” And they’re like, “Yeah,” well, you know, we did my own show a little bit, and I’d co-host with Alan Keyes a lot. For years, we did that back and forth. We had a good debate going on where we’d debate different issues. And they said, you know, I’m not saying—I’m not, like I say, I’m super funny guy, but they’re like, “You’re very spontaneous and comedy relief, where Alan is very strict and standard and solid.” He said, “How’d you like to do a show with something lighter?”

And I said, “You know, that’s pretty much what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to show because I always believe the lighter, softer, fun side of politics is still out there.” So, many people say, “Oh, you can’t talk about politics.” Oh, yes, you can. It’s a fun—I love the topic. It can be fun. It can be funny. And it—mean, shoot, just look at the stuff that’s going on now. It’s sometimes you want to cry, but you know, there’s a lot of funny stuff in there, too.

So, we started with The Reality Camp and it’s just been fun. We’re literally bringing up, talking about news stories, more or less making fun of some of the politicians of the day, whatever the story is going on right now. Right now with Paul Pelosi, we did a whole thing on Hammer time and we had MC Hammer out there busting a move and we just talked about fun stuff. That was—it really just, one thing sort of bled over into the other. So, I’m lucky with my job and my profession. I have plenty of free time I can do stuff like this and have fun. And Knoxville is really been a blessing to me.

Julia: Well, some better I know many people don’t know about you that I know because I’m your real estate agent is that you are a, what I would personally consider a real estate mogul. And people use that word for only people who have high rises. You have hundreds of properties. How did you accumulate and how do you manage that in such a small town like Knoxville without a con—like, you just have such a good base and an eye for growing businesses. Can you give some people some advice on that and kind of how you do that?

Stacey: Yeah. I mean it really [laugh]—the best advice I ever got was from my cousin who said, “Stacey, if you want to make it in real estate, all you need is a strong back and a weak mind.” Well, I qualified. So, I guess you here I am. And you know, and the more I look back and I said you know he’s probably pretty right because you have to be able—when you’re young, you have to be able to work a little bit and get your hands dirty a little bit and do the things needed to learn how to do this trade.

And then you have to have a weak mind in that when something doesn’t go right, when something’s going wrong, when you’re completely burned out, you have to be able to just say, “Psht, okay, I’m not going to think about that anymore. Forget it, I don’t need that anymore. I can… delete that, from my memory banks and just move forward, keep moving forward.” It was really sort of funny, I came down, I bought a ten-plex, with my cousin and that didn’t work out [laugh] at all. So, I was literally flat broke after that deal happened.

And I bought my first house, I promise you, it was $700. I bought my first house for $700. It was condemned, it was in terrible shape. It lived right across the street from my cousin who gave me that advice. And I just literally had to track the person down who owned it, which took time. I mean, it literally took me months and months of I mean, sometimes you can go to the courthouse to get the records and find the person and then call them up say, “Hey, do you want to sell this house?”

And there’s a million people doing it right now. I pretty much did that process, but literally, I had to talk to a cousin who talked to, you know, the uncle talked to the brother-in-law who finally said, “Hey, I own it. I’ve been wanting to sell it, but my uncle…” whatever, the one guy who didn’t want anybody else to get it except his buddy, so he kept stringing me along for months and months and months. And then he finally just gave up on his buddy and I finally got through. I literally bought the house for 700 bucks because it was in rough shape.

First house, like, into—like, anybody, when you’re starting a new trade, you really don’t know very much. I knew a very little bit. I had been an electrician’s helper for a couple of months, which more or less taught me enough how to wire a house roughly. It’s not rocket science. I always tell people everything you see done in—so many people are so intimidated; is not as hard as you think.

I mean, obviously, electrical, you don’t want to stick screwdrivers and outlets and stuff like that, but I imagine if you took somebody who has a little bit of training, within a day or two, you can know the fundamentals of how to do just about everything on a house. I did my first house, I got it done. I said, “That was terrible. I hated it. I’m never going to do it again. Never, never, never, never, never.”

And then I moved into it. And I was poor at the time. And I said, well, wait a second. I had—it was a three-bedroom house. I was renting out the other two bedrooms. And I said, you know, wait a second. These other two guys are paying what it cost me to fix up this house and I’m living for free. So, this is awesome.

So, about six months later, somebody came to me said, “Hey, I got another house for sale if you want one.” I said, “Sure. Why not? I guess. Maybe… yeah, maybe. Okay, I’ll take it.” Because it was such a good deal. I bought it, fixed it up. I rented it out. And I said well, wait a second. This is paying all my living expenses from—I pay off the mortgage and I have enough left over to more or less put money in my pocket, and it pays for my electrical, it was paying for my food, my housing, everything, was now at this point, I’m living pretty much free. So, I said, “Huh.”

So, I got a third house, the third house came to me and I got the third house. And I started doing it. I said, okay, this is a system. It’s not just me working, I got more people working and one guy helping me, and we finished it a little quicker. Got the third house done. I said, now I’m just making pure profit.

And I started thinking myself, well, how many of these do you want? Because at this point on, you realize it’s a system. You put a little bit of money in. Once you get that first one done, it pays for itself. And you get 10, 20, 30, 40, however many you like. And that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing is just growing one after the other.

Now, if people will get into real estate, there’s a couple of things, and I guess this is part of your show, we can talk about some of the problems with being in real estate, versus watching real estate on TV. And I’m sure you’ve seen this a million times. Some people will say, “Oh, I want to be in real estate,” or, “I want to be a salesman,” or, “I want to sell real estate,” or, “I want to do rental properties,” or whatever. It’s all well—you know, it looks great on a TV show—or, “I want to flip houses.” That was the hot one a couple of years ago, “I want to just flip houses and make hundreds of thousands of dollars every house I flip. I watch these guys on TV and they’re done in 30 minutes. You know the house is done and maybe it takes them a week or two, but it’s finished and they made a hundred thou—200,000, $300,000.”

It’s not like that. It’s not like that. I always tell people, everything you think is going to happen is going to cost you twice as much and take you twice as long, if you’re lucky. If not longer than that. Especially on your first one or two. I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve realized, it’s not… it’s not always smooth, you’re always going to hit bumps in the road, there’s always going to be something you have to take care of you didn’t think of.

Which they show those in those shows, but what you don’t see in those TV shows is when the husband and wife are done breaking the little hole on the wall that they finally, you know, their first little effort on the house. After that, you know, after their ten-minute cameo TV time, they have a crew of 50 guys that come in and really just slam out the house and get it done. But I tell people, anybody can do it. You just got to be patient with yourself. My first house took me a year to do it because it was pretty much just me doing it.

But that was so key because I learned how to do every trade, a little bit at least enough to realize, okay, I can do electrical; this is what needs to get done to get this up and running. This is what I need for plumbing. This is how you do sheetrock. This is how you hang sheetrock. This is what you need to do for framing. You learn all those things in your first house, or maybe two houses, maybe three houses.

You learn all those things and then it’s so key because when you go to contractors and a contractor comes in, says oh, I want to do the electrical or I want to do the plumbing or I want to do this, and they say hey, your bid is $8000, $10,000, you can say, “Well, wait a second. I could do that work with me and another guy and have it done in three days and it’s, you know, maybe 500 or 1000 bucks.” So, you can start making value judgments based on how you want to do these things and how you want to make money. And that’s pretty much what you learn your first couple houses. So, keep that in mind.

Now, I’m getting to a stage in my career. It’s very interesting what I’ve been able to do. Before I was always doing one to the other to the other, just buying one house, fixing it up, renting it out, and as more money came in, I’d buy another house, fix it up, rent it out. A lot of people have done things where they flip the first couple houses. I have a buddy of mine, who I got—I’m not going to say I got him started. He says I got him started but he had the motivation to do it… [unintelligible 00:17:09] huh? Yeah, I should. Yes, I made him everything he is. He’s a multimillionaire now and has hundreds of houses and it’s all because I helped him with his first house a little bit.

I’d like to take the credit, but I really can’t. But he sold his first couple of houses where I just hung on to mine. He’s up in Middle Tennessee area. He flipped a few which made him very liquid, which made it easy for him to get past the onesie-twosies, one at a time stage. What I’m finding now, and it’s really turned into the hot ticket for, really, everybody, I’m seeing people are now doing seminars on it, it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for about 15 or 20 years, it’s really now just coming into vogue.

After the crash, 2008 real estate crash, so many people, so many big banks took a beating, they would not lend on investment property. And I had all these houses I said, you know, I own all these houses, they’re all free and clear. They’re all bringing in positive income. My credit score is good. Let’s move forward.

What I want to do is start borrowing and buying multiple, multiple, multiple houses. All the big banks were so gun-shy after the crash, none of the big banks would do it. I finally went to a small bank and had a lot of success. Small bank said, “We’re here for you. What do you want to do?” And I said—and it’s become incredibly popular. I mean literally people are—what you’re going to hear on this show right now is what people are charging thousands of dollars to get private seminars for are charging hundreds of dollars just to do a mass seminar.

What people are doing now is they’re buying a property, let’s just say… let’s just say you can buy a house—I’m just going to throw some ballpark numbers—80,000 dollars you can buy a beat up house, okay? And then maybe it’s going to cost you another $20,000 to fix it up. These are just ballpark numbers. This is not anything. But okay, you have $100,000 invested in a property.

What you do is you go to the bank and say hey, “I need the $100,000. I’ve got this house; I fixed it up”—usually your first one’s hardest you get it done—you borrow the money. There’s a lot of deals for first-time homebuyers. You get the loan for that house.

Now, you have $100,000 invested in it but what you have now is not a $100,000 house. You have a $150,000 house because you have—your initial investment was 80, you put in 20. That’s not the value of your house any longer. The value of your house now has gone from $100,000 or $80,000, it’s almost doubled in value, say maybe $150,000. You have $50,000 of pure profit. $50,000 of equity in that house. You go back to the bank. The bank will say, “Hey, if you’d like another 100 grand, you have to put $20,000 down.” You’ve got $50,000. So, how many houses at 20,000 apiece can you get with 50,000? You can get at least one, maybe two—that’s a little Spock thing going on there—and have ten grand left over.

Julia: We all know that real estate is location, location, location. Our team at Just Homes Group Realty Executives have the true expertise, pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell a home right here in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area. Call just Homes Group Realty Executives today.

Julia: Right. Makes total sense. Is this kind of how you’ve done this process the whole time?

Stacey: It’s really—well, like I said, when I first got started, I was onesie twosie-ing, just one after the other after the other. Now, it’s growing very quickly. I mean, I’ve got, like, six houses I’m working on right now. I’ve got other properties, I’ve got two or three other [bear 00:21:14] properties just waiting to go. So, it’s going very quickly right now and growing very quickly right now.

But literally, I mean, you can do this. It’s not rocket science. You just have to be patient. And I tell people all the time, I have friends who live in other states, I have people who live in Knoxville. And I say hey, if you want to come and sit down and do lunch sometime, you buy me a hamburger or take me out to eat somewhere, I’ll sit down and we’ll just do the whole plan for you.

And I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had some people who’ve taken me up on it and some have become very successful. Some people just like to hear it and maybe they’ll get four or five, six rental properties and they’re making good money. They’re happy. God bless you, you know? I’m happy to add some stability to somebody’s life. But the return on investment on real estate and property is so astronomical, at least in Knoxville. And every market is different. I make no guarantees.

Julia: That’s a good point. Do you feel like Knoxville is still an opportunity zone, like, for investors? Has it reached his peak? Are we still growing? Do we still have opportunity?

Stacey: Well, Knoxville is still growing and it has been a very hot town. I mean, we’re not like Nashville, which is ridiculous. I mean, the numbers there are just jumping by huge leaps and bounds. I mean, the numbers are doubling every couple of months. It seems like here, it’s still somewhat reasonable.

You can still buy inexpensive houses and fix them up. I’m not really big on the big expensive places. I don’t think there’s as—you can make margins on that for rental and stuff like that. I think smaller two-bedroom, three-bedroom houses, more family-style houses, you can make good money on. There’s plenty of room sti—there’s always room to make money. Listen… [sigh] I still, I look at all these other places and they’re all trying to catch up to what Tennessee is doing.

Julia: I agree with that one hundred percent. One hundred percent. So, goal for the next five years. We know Knoxville is going to continue to grow, we know that there’s opportunity here, we know that more people are coming here for opportunity. Where do you see Knoxville in five years?

Stacey: Growing really quickly. Right now, our downtown has already exploded. It became a hippie, tren—hipster trendy area, which I—you used to be able to shoot a gun down the main street of downtown at eight o’clock at night and you wouldn’t hit anybody. You could stand on one end and shoot a shotgun and not hit a thing. You used to be able to buy a whole floors of major buildings for $10,000.

Obviously, those days are gone. I mean, now it’s you know, $200 a square foot type thing for the downtown trendy spaces, but you can still get many, many houses on the outskirts of town. I think a lot of that smaller two-bedroom, three-bedroom houses are still growing, people are still coming into Tennessee, which is great for people in rental. There’s not enough houses. If you have one, your rentals are going—I mean mine, I hate to say it, almost, some of them have probably doubled in the last three, four years.

I don’t up them on people when they’re in there, but if they move out, I go up to whatever the current value is. Some of them have doubled in value in the last four or five years, I’d say. That market is still available. There’s always still [ability there 00:24:19].

Julia: I want to say something right there because I think that this is something that people don’t know about you that I’m going to share. And I hope you don’t mind me sharing this because I find it really important. I don’t raise my rents on my people vary—like, maybe $50 a year until they move out and then I also go to market, right? And that creates loyalty and they bring the other renters and it creates a situation where people know that you are a trustworthy person. And I bring renters to you all the time and you’ve gone above and beyond for some student athletes that no one else would help.

You don’t ask for accolades. You don’t ask for pats on the back. You always do the right thing. And I think that is an attractive thing for Knoxvillians to know that when you connect with the right people in this town—that’s the name of this podcast: Connect the Knox—that you’re going to get taken care of and you can do a handshake deal and there are people here that will still honor that system. So, I want to just point that out and say thank you because I’ve always appreciated that about you, and I think that’s really great thing.

Stacey: Well, you’re very kind. And I’ve been very blessed, so I do not mind sharing that blessings to others. You know, I don’t have to do another house for the rest of my life. I’m very well taken care of. I could take care of myself for the rest of my life with no problems doing anything. I do this to help people because I enjoy it.

I, literally the first time ever, all the taxes went up in the city of Knoxville about 50% or 100%, and for the first time ever, I had to tell people hey, guys, I hate doing this. Some of you have been with me for five years, saying, “I hate to do this, but my rents are going to have to go up.” And I didn’t go very much. I went up maybe 100 bucks a month at most. And literally I thought, “Man, everybody’s going to be mad, everybody’s going to leave, everybody’s just going to hate me because I’m upping rents at the end of their lease.”

And every single person to a one, said, “We understand. That’s very kind of you to only up it that much. So, many other people are jumping at a whole bunch more. We appreciate you.” And it was just, made me feel good that people could see hey, the other side of it is I’m not doing this—you know, I could have really jacked it on them, you know and said, “Hey, you know the markets gone up 25%, so you know, your rents going up 25%.” And to me, it was like a 5% raise or increase in rents. And everybody was really good about that. I was really pleased at how everybody took it and—

Julia: Well, you have the southern mentality, and when you treat people right, people treat you right, and I think that that’s something that is very… it’s such a good thing. So, we only have three minutes left.

Stacey: Three. Go.

Julia: So, here’s what we’re going to do. Three.

Stacey: Three [crosstalk 00:26:43].

Julia: So, we got favorite restaurant in Knoxville?

Stacey: Favorite restaurant is probably—well what kind of food?

Julia: Any food. What’s your favorite thing?

Stacey: You know what Knoxville needs? What—Knoxville needs a good Italian restaurant? We don’t have a good—we got great barbecue. Awesome barbecue. We got okay pizza.

Julia: I didn’t ask you what Knoxville needed. I said what is your favorite restaurant?

Stacey: I’m telling you, if there’s anybody out there from an Italian restaurant family, you need to come to Knoxville. You will be rich. You will make an everloving fortune if you make good Italian food. There’s [unintelligible 00:27:18] that’s what we need. All right.

Best—there’s a couple pizza places I like a lot. You know I have a garbage gut stomach, so I’ll eat just about anywhere and anytime… gosh, favorite restaurant. Umm… I’m trying to think the last place I went. There’s so many good places in Knoxville. There really are.

There’s a lot of trendy new restaurants and you can go on and on and on about them. Oh, there’s a pizza place off of Broadway and I cannot remember the name of it right now. It’s escaping my mind, but I really liked their veggie supreme pizza. There’s a place called La Herradura which is Mexican food. I love them. They literally grew from a taco truck to two taco trucks to five taco trucks.

Now, they have, like, two different restaurants and five taco trucks. And they’re just doing—

Julia: Where is this?

Stacey: There’s one—the one—there’s one near my house, which is great for them because I hit that place up probably three times a week. La Herradura is a yellow taco truck on Broadway. There’s one there. There’s—or on Merchants. There’s a store, or one of their hard locations is on Broadway. There’s one on Kingston Pike, one of their taco trucks. There’s one in South Knoxville. They’re all over the place. But they’re really good. They took over an old Chick-fil-A up near West Town Mall. They’re really good Mexican food. Awesome Mexican food.

Julia: Okay, I’m going to check out the La Herradura near West Town Mall. That’s the one closest to me, so I’ve never been. And you’re the first person I’ve interviewed that has a restaurant I’ve never been to. So, now I’m excited to try it out. One minute or less. How can people find your website, find you, and be able to connect with you outside of this space?

Stacey: Sure. brighteon.com. It’s spelled like brighteon dot com. You go there. And you go to Stacey Campfield, I’m on Facebook. One of mine just got shut down; a curse on you Mark Zuckerberg. But I’m on Facebook if you want to contact me. If you want to set up a lunch we can set up lunch and I’ll try and show you whatever I can, help you out any way I can. Let’s see, therealitycamp.com. Therealitycamp.com that’s my TV show. And thank you so much for having me on, Julia.

Julia: I love you, Stacey. I think you’re one of my favorite people in Knoxville. If anybody needs to connect with Stacey Campfield, he’s one of my best friends. I’ve got it. If you need some rental information, you need a house, I’ve got a connection for you.

Make sure that you visit Connect the Knox. Thanks for visiting, everybody. Bye.

Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

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Melissa Blettner is the Chief Executive Officer for Ancient Lore Village, a one-of-a-kind fantasy resort right in the heart of Knoxville. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Melissa shares her philosophy of hospitality with purpose and how her role with Ancient Lore Village brought her from Wisconsin to Knoxville. Melissa describes some of the similarities between her hometown and Knoxville, as well as what she feels are the biggest opportunities for Knoxville to attract new businesses and residents. Melissa also reveals the plans to expand Ancient Lore Village into new locations, and some upcoming attractions and events you can expect to see at their Knoxville location.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

00:44 Melissa describes how the Ancient Lore Village project brought her to Knoxville

03:21 Julia and Melissa discuss the magic of Ancient Lore Village, and Melissa explains how they developed such an immersive experience and her plans for the future of the resort

08:31 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

09:01 The long-term vision for additional developments in Ancient Lore Village

11:09 Melissa describes the similarities between her hometown and Knoxville

12:39 The ways Ancient Lore Village is working with the University of Tennessee

14:11 Melissa talks about the unique location of Ancient Lore Village and how it’s deceptively close to downtown Knoxville

17:47 Melissa explains what amenities and activities are handicap-friendly at Ancient Lore Village

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19:27 Melissa outlines the timeline of finishing the development at Ancient Lore Village and the plans to expand into additional locations

21:03 Julia and Melissa explore what Knoxville can do to continue attracting new businesses and new residents

23:14 How you can stay updated on all the events happening at Ancient Lore Village

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncientLoreVillage/
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ancientlorevillage/
  • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ancientlorevillageknox
  • Ancient Lore Village: https://www.ancientlorevillage.com/
  • Dr. Joe Chiro: https://goseedrjoe.com/

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View Details

Glenn Jacobs is the Mayor of Knox County, but many people first knew him from his professional wrestling career. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we discuss why Glenn chose to settle in Knoxville over all the other cities he’s traveled to and how he decided to get involved in politics. Glenn discusses his collaborative approach to solving the challenges of the recent population boom, as well as his initiatives to make Knox County a better place to live. Tune in to find out what’s driving our local economy, Glenn’s plans for future development in Knoxville, and how Glenn intends to ensure younger residents stay in the area for their career.

Highlights 00:00 Intro

00:54 How Glenn ended up in Knoxville

04:00 Glenn’s plans for Knoxville’s unprecedented growth

10:04 Glenn explains what a county mayor is and how his role works with other local leaders

12:06 The demand for mixed-use development and why Glenn feels it’s important for attracting young residents and the future economy of Knoxville

15:47 The hidden gems and amenities that Glenn feels most people don’t know about in Knox County and some up-and-coming local developments

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18:43 Why Glenn feels the innovation economy is going to position Knoxville for economic growth

22:22 Glenn explains why he settled in Knoxville over all the other cities he’s traveled to

24:54 Why East Tennessee has always been a popular spot for wrestling and how our local media & entertainment industry contributes to that

27:18 How listeners can get in contact with Glenn’s office

27:56 Julia takes Glenn through her lightning round of questions about his favorite Knoxville spots

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

  • Knox County website: https://knoxcounty.org
  • County Mayor email: county.mayor@knoxcounty.org

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  • Just Homes Realty Group: www.justhomesgroup.com

  • Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

View Details

In this episode of ConnectTheKnox I’m joined by Dave Hooker, owner of Off The Hook Sports. Dave is a Knoxville native who has made a name for himself breaking stories in sports and eventually creating his own sports media empire. In this episode, we discuss how the world of sports journalism has changed in the face of social media and a 24/7 news cycle, and why it’s so important for up-and-coming athletes to learn how to market themselves and communicate online about their achievements. Dave gives us his predictions for the upcoming baseball season, as well as his insights on the long-term effects of growing up in the participation trophy generation.

Highlights 00:00 Intro

00:39 Dave introduces himself and explains how his Knoxville roots led him to sports broadcasting

01:46 How Off The Hook Sports got started

03:34 Dave explains what he feels are the downsides and upsides of news being reported on social media

05:26 The impact of athletes posting their own news on sports journalism

08:01 Dave and Julia discuss the importance of up-and-coming athletes knowing how to communicate and market themselves

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10:43 Julia and Dave chat about helping kids understand managing their NIL

13:40 The importance of teaching young athletes financial literacy

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19:27 Dave’s predictions for the upcoming baseball season

24:44 Julia and Dave discuss why today’s generation of young athletes is so talented but lacking a competitive edge

Connect with ConnectTheKnox

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  • Or wherever you listen to Podcasts

  • Podcast Created With Riverside.fm

  • Connect with Julia -

  • Follow me on TikTok

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  • Find me on Twitter

  • Follow me on Facebook

  • Buy or Sell a home in Knoxville -

  • Just Homes Realty Group: www.justhomesgroup.com

  • Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

Transcript

Julia: Welcome, everybody to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s guest is Dave Hooker, one of my all-time favorite sports people to follow, with Off The Hook Sports. Let me tell you if you’re not following Dave on Off The Hook Sports on Twitter, you’re missing out on so many sports updates. I mean, it’s consistent, we know exactly what’s going on. Going into baseball season, Dave’s the man. Dave, let’s start out a little bit. Tell us about yourself and how you’re connected to Knoxville.

Dave: Well, I was born and raised in Powell, so I got my PHD, my Powell High Diploma, there at Powell High School. So, that’s where I’m from. I started being around Tennessee Sports when I was 12 years old. Back then my mom would drop me off the stadium and I’d sell programs and I made 20 cents a program—and I don’t know that it was best parenting by her—and then ended up going to Tennessee. Thought that you couldn’t make a good dollar in the broadcasting business so I took two years of business school and they put me—as they politely asked me to leave for a little bit.

And so, then I said, you know, I’d rather do what I want to do. You only have one life. And when I went back, the grades were much better and fortunately, the reception to what I’ve been doing professionally since 1998, which was a good year to get started has been pretty good. So, I enjoy covering Tennessee football, I enjoy learning more about people, and I also enjoy the SEC. So, connected to Knoxville, I’m pretty connected.

Julia: I love that. I love that. Tell us about kind of your story, and how we ended up with Off The Hook Sports.

Dave: Well, a couple of different things went into that. I think that’s where the business is trending to. I think you’re seeing a lot more digital and you’re going to be seeing more and more of that in the future. You know, I have kids that are 20 and 18 and they don’t know what a radio station is. They listen to podcasts all day. And then I started talking to more people and then it was up in the mid-30s.

So, you know those are people that are going to be listeners and potential business owners for years, and I just saw that trend happening. And then really what was the final straw is when I saw a group out of Birmingham, and they did the morning show in Birmingham at WJOX, one of the biggest stations in the nation, and they decided to leave what I would argue is the best slot in college football—because Atlanta has a bigger market, but it’s not all college, it’s more pro—and they left and started their own thing called The Next Round. And when they did that, I said, “I’m going to do the same thing for Tennessee and not have to cover Nick Saban.”

Julia: Oh, [laugh] well, the tan. The tan is just… the tan is too much, man. The [tan 00:03:07] is too much.

Dave: [laugh].

Julia: So, [laugh]. That just needs to be its own hashtag: #thetanistoomuch. So, the digital presence in sports in America today, I literally get a lot of information, 90% of my information on what’s going on with sports comes out or Twitter, comes out of accounts like yours. Like, “Hey, this high school wide receiver is getting picked up by so and so,” or, “This is the conversation that’s been had.” That news comes faster through avenues like yours than it does any other possible place when it’s a slotted time or required time on radio or TV. So, you have to wait for the information. I mean, we don’t have to wait for information anymore. How’s that a positive impact, and in your opinion, how’s it also negative?

Dave: Let me start with, let me start with the—well I guess they’re both kind of negative and positive. So, when I worked for the Knoxville News Sentinel and I would break a big story, you kind of felt good and stuck your chest out for the remainder of the day. And you had a 24-hour news cycle that you’re like, “I’m the man,” you know? “I broke that and nobody else had it. How about that? Yeah, you can go on your website if you want, but everybody saw the paper this morning.”

And so, that was kind of cool. And it was that competitive type of environment that was a whole lot of fun. Nowadays, I don’t know who breaks anything and you probably don’t either. I mean because what we do at—we credit whoever breaks it, but at Off The Hook Sports we provide kind of our take on it and what it means for Tennessee. So, I guess from a negative perspective, I do miss the fact that you break something and it’s kind of like you hit the winning shot at the buzzer.

But on the flip side, you get to take more time when news breaks and you get to provide a little bit more insight, which you couldn’t do if you’re trying to get something together on people’s doorsteps the next morning. So, I guess it’s a little bit of both. Now, I will say this, just in the business in general, I think people take that a little bit too far and have these outrageous takes. We don’t go that far. But other than that, I mean, like, where the industry is going, just as long as people realize that there is sports news and there’s sports fake news, to use a political term.

Julia: [laugh]. Fake news. It’s everywhere and we really never know. And what I have started to see as a trend growing, where athletes themselves have started taking over their own news and then releasing their own news. So like, “Listen, I’m going to control my own narrative now, so I’ll let you all know when I’m ready.” How’s that impacting sports news as a whole?

Dave: A lot. A lot. So, you bring up even a better example. And really, these happen all the time. So, let’s say Tennessee had 25 commitments, which is about the number you can have in a particular football cycle. And, by golly, I wanted to break 25 of them. And I didn’t; there are a lot of good reporters that were on the beat, but you know, 12 to 15 in a lot of years, which was pretty competitive.

And ESPN would pay me—when I worked for ESPN for two years—to go to Washington, DC, and make sure I had the breaking story ready so as soon as the young man said, “Florida State,” that story was up and we already had it written because he gave me quotes beforehand. And so, you know, I think that the kids want to break their own news and I’m fine with that. You know, I think that there is an insulation between the athletes in a lot of perspective, and a lot of times that actually is a little bit harmful. I think that they need to learn to deal with media—and people—just like we all do in those ages. But if they want to throw it out there on Twitter, that’s fine. Hopefully, we’ll have a good reaction and a breakdown of what they actually mean to their chosen program. But you’re right. I mean, the days of breaking a commitment, they’re pretty much over.

Julia: Yeah, it’s been an interesting—this past whole year, so let’s get into [NIL 00:07:16], get it in there because one of the situations that I’m seeing with my kids that I sponsor at NIL and some of the people that they work around and work with, is that we’re so far behind on communication, regulation, education, I think is the biggest one we’re so far behind on is understanding how to incorporate just—because these kids need to understand how to market themselves doesn’t mean they know how; it doesn’t mean their parents know how. And nobody’s actually taking that on. So, you can be an NFL agent, you can be an MLB agent, you’ve made NBA agent, but as far as NIL goes, basically it’s a permit number just so the state of Tennessee knows who you are. And if you’re making some money on these kids’ contracts, and that’s just like, here you go. Free game.

So, these kids have no idea where they’re getting their information a lot of the time or who to go to trust and sometimes they fall back on the collectives we—we, Knoxville, Tennessee, having the largest collective, thank goodness, you know, we get to protect our kids—but where does that fall in the grand scheme of a, say, a kid out of Timbuktu, North Dakota, who wants to announce his stuff and he has absolutely no idea how to manage any of this and there’s not an agent or any NIL person out that way. How does this impact the future of communication for kids?

Dave: Well, that’s a good question. And [clear throat] I’ll tell you, first and foremost, that I am a part of NIL. I pay two players, Jacob Warren and Cooper Mays, to do regular podcast with me and I love it. And the relationships have been fantastic. We’re getting ready to re-up their contracts for another year. And for the record, I’m glad to Jacob stayed for another year.

So, as far as Tennessee, I think they’re in good shape. I think if [clear throat]—excuse me—if you’re a left guard or a backup left guard, you’re going to have some sort of opportunity and probably a little bit more money than a lot of people would think. And that’s because of the collective. Whereas there are other schools that have not gotten that in line and you had the Jaden Rashada incident where he showed up on Florida’s campus and he thought he was going to get $13 million and nothing had been worked out, so he’s like, “Peace. I’m out.”

So, I think that Tennessee is handling it the right way. Now, are some players going to get way more money than, like you say, the guy from Timbuktu who’s a three-star offensive lineman? Yeah, they are. But the thing that I’ve found through players, that Jacob and Cooper, is I asked them about that—because the first person I reached out to because of my last name is standing, was Hendon Hooker. I quickly realized I could not afford Hendon Hooker.

So, [laugh] I went and I asked UT, I said, “I want three things. I want a guy who’s a good talker, a guy that starts, and he’s not going to get arrested.” And so, they helped me with that and that’s worked out with Cooper and Jacob. So, they’re all getting a piece of the pie. But those players I talked to specifically about that early on in our NIL agreement, I said, “How does this all work out? When you’ve got Hendon Hooker—or whoever the quarterback might be—making more money?” And says, “Well, that’s the quarterback.” Says, “It’s the same thing in high school. He’s the guy that everybody loves, he’s the guy that probably has more dates, and just across the board, he’s the quarterback. That’s life.”

And I haven’t spoken to one player who thought that was an issue. And again, if you come to Tennessee—I’m not promoting Tennessee, there are other schools that have this as well, but if you come to Tennessee, you’re going to get some piece of the pie. If you go to if you go to other schools, there’s the chance you could be left out of the loop and that’s no fun. I think that’s when the resentment starts.

Julia: Yeah, I think Tennessee has got a good handle on it and I think the kids themselves being able to have non-compete NIL contracts, I mean, even our largest collective here is like, “Hey, if you find a great deal for yourself, we don’t want to ever tell you you can’t make money.” And I have found that very rare collectives across the country have that ability to say we don’t do non-competes, they all want exclusivity with their students. And it’s like, you’re limiting their potential. I mean, they may not be able to do what you want them to do. So, I think that instills the loyalty.

But catching those kids in high schools is where it is. Catching the kids when they need to communicate they are announcement. Because that can affect their NIL money. I mean, you can be a third-star—or three-star whatever, or four-star whatever and still have the correct digital marketing footprint to make yourself popular and wanted at signing events or, you know, whatever it is for businesses. So, as long as you’re marketable.

So, where do we catch these kids and have these conversations that early? Is it just relationships with recruiters? Relationships with collectives ahead of time that have recruiters? Is it per campus? I mean, how do you catch these kids early enough to say, “I can help you digitally market yourself so you’re worth more to the collective and to yourself later on in business?”

Dave: I think the media has naturally done that for a lot of years, especially with Twitter more so than Facebook. So, I think, you know, oftentimes, when we write about a young man, we include him, so he’s going to get naturally more followers, just in droves, especially if he’s a four or five-star guy. So, I think the media has promoted these guys and will continue to do so and that’s to their benefit, which I think is good financially. Now, as far as recruiters being involved, technically, you’re kind of living in what you can do with that, but let’s be honest, if you’re at a Power Five school, are you telling me that the head coach doesn’t have the number of the local collective and say, “Hey, this guy is pretty good. Maybe we should look into him.” I mean, come on. I mean, that’s got to happen.

And I think it probably is warranted and apt and that it does happen. But yeah, I mean, I think that we’re just in a brave new world, and the NCAA they have to blame themselves, you know? They got sued by—they got sued by Ed O’Bannon because of using likenesses in video games 20 years ago, and they didn’t do anything about it to give players a piece of the pie. So, the NCAA is not happy about it. I’ve talked to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey; he’s not happy about that it’s being used in recruiting, but the bottom line is, that’s the law. That’s not a SEC rule. That’s the law. They’re 18-year-old men. They can make money on their own—or women as particularly the case with the LSU gymnasts—but yeah, I mean, that’s just kind of where they are and the NCAA has nobody to blame but themselves.

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Julia: I think one of the conversations that I have a lot with my kids is on the back end of that. So, what I do when I work with kids, and I’ve probably got, God, [unintelligible 00:14:30] 15 now, 15 kids that I work with at this point, and what I do on the back end of that is let’s review your contract, let’s talk about how much money you’re making, let’s do something with that. Like let’s start you at S corp or an LLC. We don’t need to buy a new truck for $45,000 or have off-campus housing in the most expensive apartment complex in downtown Knoxville. What are we going to do with this money?

And teaching them how to use that properly has been one of my biggest give in that whole scenario. It’s, I get the phone calls of, “Hey, well, so-and-so got a Mercedes. I want a bigger car.” “Awesome sauce. Do you also want to house one day?” Like, what are we talking about as far as long-term goals?

And kind of setting those conversations ahead of time has is really not been a focus yet because I don’t feel like the NCAA has got a grasp on even what’s going on as a whole. And you’re right, they’ve had 20 years to catch up and still can’t do it. So, you’ve got past players trying to step in and help, the collectives are competing for attention with each other for the students, and the students are kind of out here and we use the word segregated because they are; they’re in a bubble. You got to check in three days—three times a day, seven days a week, and requirements on two days after spring. Where are you going to get that knowledge base and that protection level, outside of just being on your football field, going back to your campus dorm, studying for your classes, you have no way whatsoever to be socialized in the business world. This is your first piece of true business is marketing yourself and no one’s really teaching you anything about it after the fact. Where do we see that maybe, somebody stepping in on behalf of the kids at some point?

Dave: Well, I think you and I would agree that you can depend on the NCAA to do that, right?

Julia: [laugh]. That’s the truth.

Dave: So, I mean, that’s not going to happen. It’s interesting you bring up that topic. So, I was made aware of a team meeting yesterday at Tennessee’s football team, so I just was curious what it’s about if it’s a hastily called meeting, you know, maybe it’s something. And somebody sent me a picture, and it was of a big screen, a presentation screen in front of the whole team. And it was, “NIO and taxes.”

So, that’s something that I bet a lot of the kids haven’t thought about and that’s something that maybe people at Tennessee hadn’t thought about, but they’re starting to get their 1099s and they’re going to have to file their taxes. And, you know, we sent out our tax paperwork to our guys, Jacob and Cooper, and all that we employ at Off The Hook Sports. But if you’re in a smaller school, you know—and say—I’m just picking Bowling Green out of nowhere, but say at Bowling Green, and you pick up an NIL deal and you make grand a month. Do you know to claim your taxes? Is that guy just giving it to you in cash? Is there any record of that?

So, much like a lot of professional players get to the pros and they don’t spend their money wisely, you’re going to see that at the younger level. And I think that’s why you’re going to continue to have the haves and the have-nots. And that disparity is going to grow even bigger because big schools like Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, they’re going to make sure their players are educated in that, but I wonder about other schools that are just borderline Power Five schools. Those guys could be in a pickle when the taxman comes calling.

Julia: Well, I think the long-term ramification of it is athletic directors, while their main job, obviously, is to just do what they need to do for their university position, right, they don’t necessarily get involved in this section of it, but if we don’t come to some kind of an agreement with making that part of it, that what’s going to happen is that these kids—on any sport—their focus is going to be on worrying about paying the taxes, like an actual adult would have to every single day, except their job is to actually go and play their sport. That’s their actual job. They get a scholarship, they get NIL money, but the reason they are there is to play that sport, play it well, and win because the universities make money on those winning teams. And if they’re too stressed out about having to pay their taxes or manage their finances, they may not be able to play as well as they think they need to play. And that is a trickle-down issue that if we don’t start worrying about today and offering opportunities for better education on that today, that can actually affect our sports teams later on. Stress is real and it impacts people in different ways.

Dave: No, I completely agree. And one of the players I covered incredibly close and got to know his family was Jonathan Crompton, who I’m sure you remember. And Jonathan, through coaching changes, his career wasn’t what he had hoped it would be, but ended up salvaging it at the last half of his senior year and now is beloved by Tennessee fans. But that wasn’t the case for a long time because of outside circumstances. So, what happens, he was highly rated as a recruit is the reason people got so upset when he didn’t play well early in his career.

But what happens if he’s also getting $8 million, like a certain guy named Nico? I mean at what point does that pressure begin to intensify, does the corporate pressure say, “Hey, we’re paying this guy $8 million; he needs to be the starter.” So, there are all kinds of weird things that could go on with it. And I think it’s going to evolve and I don’t think we know what it’s going to be in three to five years.

Julia: So, let’s switch topics. Baseball season is coming up, actually, like, in a week. I’m super excited about it. What are the predictions?

Dave: Well, Tony Vitello is going to keep being better-looking than me.

Julia: [laugh].

Dave: I will g—that is a bonafide, going-to-happen prediction.

Julia: I think every man in Knoxville when Tony Vitello—because Tony has been here five years, right? Five or s—

Dave: Yeah.

Julia: So, I think when Tony V started becoming, like, this icon of male superiority, of good looks, every man in Knoxville started wearing a baseball cap, growing their hair out a little longer, had the beard going. It was like, okay, okay. This is a lot [laugh].

Dave: I actually, I just shaved the beard three days ago. I tried that. It didn’t work. It was white unlike his. So yes, he is kind of like Magnum PI with an athletic side. So, I think that as far as Tennessee’s baseball team, I think the pitching is going to be really good to keep them one of the elite programs in the nation. Is the hitting going to be as good? Probably not. But I also think this team might benefit from flying under the radar a little bit.

I mean, let’s face it, last year, there was all kinds of things going on with the, you know, the celebrations, the one-finger salute run around second base. And I think that they might want to come into the season just fly a little bit more under the radar. But man, last year was such a cool year, if you were to, you know, pick a year to write a book about, that would certainly be one. But it just didn’t in the right way. So, I think you’d probably learned from that. But I think their pitching is going to be really good and they’ll be one of the better teams in the nation, for sure.

Julia: What’s going on with Rick Barnes? Twitter—Vols Twitter, boy, they’re on the attack. So, I’ll tell you, I have told people, I will tell people this every time I relocate a business—which, you know, in the last few years have been a ton of people relocating to Knoxville—if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. And they go. “Isn’t that New York?” And say, “No, honey. No.” New York is a place where people go and expect the competition. They expect that kind of pushback, so they’re armored and ready to go. It’s all kinds of different people in this melting pot of competitiveness.

You come to Knoxville, and it’s like, “Hey darlin’, how are you? Hope you’re having a great day.” Pitchforks out two days later because you didn’t do something. And it catches people off guard. They’re not ready for Vol Twitter. And I warn them, when you come here, be ready. Be ready to win. Because if you can’t win consistently, Vols Twitter’s coming for you. And they’re coming for Rick Barnes. What’s going on?

Dave: Yeah, and Kelly Harper, as well. So, I—um… yeah, I think Greg Barnes… I want to say this with all due respect to his career because it’s been fantastic, but just one final four of parents and, you know, didn’t—[sigh] I look at—wasn’t willing to ever adjust in his career. So, it’s a really defensive style of basketball. And it’s not up and down, right, that’s been successful. And I think that’s always going to hurt you in the tournament because if you hit a hot shooting team, it’s one and you’re done. It’s not like a seven-game series in the NBA.

So, I think that always hurts him. Still a Hall of Fame career, so I don’t want to sound like I’m knocking him in any shape, form, or fashion. But with this particular basketball team this year, I mean, they’re not even hitting the outside shots when they get them. So, they run an inside-outside game with no outside. Because right now, I don’t think there’s any fear that they can convert consistently from the post, so what happens is those defenders that might crash down on the inside, man, they’re staying outside on the perimeter and Tennessee hasn’t been able to hit shots.

Can they overcome that? You know, if I was a betting man, I’d say that it’s Sweet 16 at best. But if they’re able to overcome that, I think they have the talent at the guard position. They just haven’t played like it to this point. But you know, it’s not the style that wins nowadays in college basketball and that pains me to see because I would love to see Rick Barnes win a championship after the career he’s had, but I just don’t know that it’s going to happen.

Julia: So, we hardly ever go to the games ourselves. Like I said, we give our stuff to the kids. So, other than football, we give our tickets to the kids as much as possible—so obviously, they’re the football kids, so we can’t give them tickets to their own game—but [laugh] we hardly go. But we did go a couple of weekends ago and we left at halftime and I was like, “This is ano—this is the least aggressive basketball game I’ve ever seen UT play.”

Dave: Which game was that? Which game did you go to?

Julia: God, what was that? Missouri.

Dave: Missouri. Yeah. And then, you know, the Auburn game was a win over a ranked team and Bruce Pearl and all that, but that was ugly, too. And, yeah, I just… they’ve had injuries along the way, which maybe makes it hard to find chemistry. I just don’t see a lot of the fire in this group and it reminds me a little bit of some of Jerry Green’s group, not to date myself.

But if you go back to Jerry [laugh] Green’s group, I mean, they had a ton of talent. A ton of talent. And I remember the ongoing joke was, we’re going to have this come to Jesus or players-only meeting. And they had, like, eight in a season. So, nothing changed after those meetings.

So, I feel like they’ve got a little bit of that going on that maybe they think they’re better than they are and they don’t have to be at their best every night. But the simple fact is, they do. And yeah, that can change. You know, we’re having this conversation in mid-March. We could be having a different conversation where they’re elite eight in final four. But right now, um, I’m not so sure.

Julia: I agree. And kind of some of the situation that we’re also seeing with the Lady Vols. Same conversation. And this is something I equated it to which I find very interesting, I had this conversation with a couple of other people, this is the generation that we see the result of participation trophies. So, we’re seeing the most talented generation sports-wise I’ve ever seen—talent, abundant amount of talent—every kid that’s coming out of high school, going into college, maybe junior, senior year in college, all of them are so unbelievably talented. It’s almost like NFL quality.

At what—what is it? A point one-tenth of a run difference between you and the guy next to you? Talent. Real talent at such a young age, but you didn’t have that competitive aggression to go with it. This is the result of that raising of kids without that competitive, you have to be a—somebody has to win. Somebody’s got to have the attitude to want to win. That aggression has got to be there. Just don’t feel like very many teams, even UT, are aggressive right now. It’s gone.

Dave: I think that’s a societal issue as well. I mean, I was watching, I think it was a sociology professor talking about how, you know, if you are aggressive and if you work hard and you do things like follow-ups and stuff like that that we were talking about before the podcast, just simple little stuff that was just, you know, when I was younger, man, that was common knowledge, if you didn’t do that, you weren’t going to have the respect of your peers. If you do that, nowadays, just the basics, you’re probably going to slay in whatever field you go after because a lot of people aren’t. So, I think there’s some of that in sports, too. And I think that the Lady Vols have a little bit of that going on with their group.

But you know, that if you flip it to football, it’s the exact opposite. I mean, that team believeD from last January, that they were going to be special. And I got little hints from Cooper and Jacob and other players at press conferences that they were going to be better than expected. And I said, “Eh, yeah, whatever.” You know? There a seven-, eight-win team. And they turned out and they win eleven and beat Alabama.

So, those were guys that went out there and just absolutely slayed with their mindset, starting in January. Not in August in pre-season camp, but in last January. And if they’re doing the same this year, then the talent level should be better and we’ll see what will happen. But yeah, I mean, to the young kids out there watching or middle-aged people, whoever may be, if you just go out there and work hard and do what you’re supposed to do, you’re going to do well.

Julia: I agree. And we’re going to end it right there because that’s the perfect ending. Go do what you’re supposed to do, but do it with aggression and do it well. So, tell us and all of our fans here at Connect the Knox, how we can find you, how we can follow you, and all of your links.

Dave: Just go to offthehooksports.com is probably the easiest way, and all of our links are there. So, our niche is, we don’t charge any subscription fee, but we’re free. We’re advertising-based and I think that’s the way things are going in this market.

And I also would encourage people to check out the YouTube channel. You can subscribe there just so that you get notice of our latest videos. But that’s free as well. So yeah, and you can go to Twitter at @TheDaveHooker, or you can go to Twitter at OTH—which is Off The Hook—Sports Media @OTHSportsMedia. So, that’s where we are.

Julia: Awesome. Thank you so much for connecting the Knox with us today. Everybody, this was David Hooker, owner of Off The Hook Sports and he’s [moving back to Knoxville soon 00:29:01]. [unintelligible 00:29:03] lookout for him at your press conferences. Thank you so very much for visiting Connect the Knox.

Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice. And if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.

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Moshe the Chief Geek is my secret weapon when it comes to all things cybersecurity, and on this special episode of ConnectTheKnox, we’re covering all the best practices when it comes to protecting yourself online. Moshe explains how common phishing scams are, and why it’s important that real estate agents know exactly how to protect themselves and their clients. Moshe also gives invaluable best practices for individuals, so that you don’t fall victim to online scams yourself. Tune in to learn more about how simple cybersecurity can be if you have the right tools in place.

Highlights: 00:00 Intro

00:44 Moshe describes his background and the importance of cybersecurity

07:36 Julia and Moshe discuss an email phishing scam incident

11:26 Moshe gives his best advice to real estate agents on how to protect yourself and your clients from phishing scams

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16:06 Best options for individuals who want to protect themselves from phishing scams

22:03 Moshe shares tips on the best authenticator solutions to avoid common frustrations and pitfalls

26:53 Moshe recaps the best practices covered in this episode for businesses & individuals

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Marissa Kalsey is a pole vaulter and Olympic hopeful who moved to Knoxville to train with world-class coaches. In this episode of ConnectTheKnox, we explore how living in a central southern location like Knoxville affects training for track and field athletes. Marissa also describes the risk involved in pole vaulting, and the intense qualifying process athletes like her go through to compete at the Olympics. Tune in to learn more about the track and field community in Knoxville, as well as Marissa’s favorite local hangouts.

00:00 Intro

00:36 Marissa explains how she moved to Knoxville for Olympic pole vault training

02:04 Marissa describes what the Olympic training process looks like here in Knoxville for the pole vaulting program

05:30 How Knoxville differs from where Marissa grew up in Pennsylvania, and why our central location makes travel for fun and pole vault meets convenient

08:26 Julia asks the question on everyone’s mind: How heavy are pole vaulting poles?

10:24 The equipment used in pole vaulting and the potential for injury in the sport

14:55 Marissa explains the process of qualifying for the Olympics

17:31 Ad - Just Homes Group Realty Executives

18:14 How the pole vaulting and pro athlete community is growing in Knoxville

24:38 Marissa’s favorite spots around Knoxville, including Three Rivers Market, downtown restaurants, and more

26:06 How the ConnectTheKnox audience can support Marissa’s Olympic dreams

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Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

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Zane Chavez is a former pro baseball player who has traveled all over the U.S. and to 5 different countries in his career. So what made him decide to settle in Knoxville and open up a training facility for aspiring young athletes? Zane answers these questions and more in this episode of ConnectTheKnox. Tune in to learn the role No Chance HQ has had in multiple marriage proposals, why Zane feels the networking opportunities in Knoxville are an untapped resource, and the future plans for No Chance HQ’s baseball training facility.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

00:35 Zane describes how he came to Knoxville by way of his lifelong baseball career

05:10 What about Knoxville stood out to Zane amidst all his travels, and why he decided to settle here

07:35 Zane tells the story of how the No Chance baseball cap has played a role in multiple proposals

08:46 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

09:36 What Zane thinks of the biggest misconception he hears about Knoxville

12:18 Zane’s thoughts on the value Knoxville’s networking opportunity presents to the younger generations

16:23 The types of training that Zane offers at his facility in Knoxville

20:33 Ad - Just Homes Group

21:08 Zane fields Julia’s lightning round of questions about his favorite Knoxville spots

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  • Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

Transcript:

Julia: Hey everybody, welcome to Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley. Today’s guest is one of my all-time favorite baseball players, Zane Chavez. Zane, thank you so much for being with us today.

Zane: You got it. Anytime.

Julia: Absolutely. Well, I am super excited that you’re taking time out of your day for us here in the Knoxville Tennessee market. I’ll see you got your Tennessee flag back there. Thank you so much for repping the UT Vols. Hey, Zane, let’s start this whole thing off with, tell us, you’re—basically, just tell us your whole life story. Where’d you come from? Where did you grow up? How did you end up in Knoxville, Tennessee?

Zane: So, I’m originally from San Diego, California. Played baseball my whole entire life. I was drafted out of high school. I did not sign out of high school. I went on to play junior college, Division One Baseball, and then NAIA Baseball.

And then I started my professional career in independent baseball. So, I did that for four years. It’s gonna be a lot of baseball stuff. I went down to Nicaragua for a winter to play winter ball. And then I came back to the states and then that’s when I signed with the Baltimore Orioles at 26 years old.

Made the high all-star team that year. Got hurt with an oblique injury. That kind of set me back that year. Came back the next year in Double-A with the Orioles. So, I played two years with the Orioles, in the Orioles organization.

They released me. I went back to independent baseball for two years, actually got released in independent baseball, and then started doing, like, Uber Eats in Dallas, Texas, where I was living at the time. The manager of that, of who I got released actually called me back and wanted me back that year, so we negotiated me going back down there. So, I went back down there to Laredo, Texas, actually, and then actually made the all-star team there for that year. And that was my eighth year of pro ball.

I decided that was—I played eight years I got to play in affiliated baseball with the Orioles, so I was going to hang them up. And then that winter, the Pittsburgh Pirates ended up calling me and purchased my contract. I was 30 years old. Didn’t think I had shot at going back to play affiliated baseball, so I said heck yeah, let’s go. Went up to Double-A that year. We won a championship that year.

And then they released me, the Pirates released me after that year. So, I finished in independent baseball. And at that time, that’s when I was like, okay. I had always wanted to open a baseball facility or be around kids, train kids, and do that whole aspect. I had started the brand No Chance in 2011 And it was a term that we used in the clubhouse, like, “You can’t beat me kid. No chance.”

And we ended up getting the championship series that year. It was the best of five. We went up to St. Paul, Minnesota, for two games and we lost two games, so we were down 0-2 going back to Grand Prairie, Texas—which is basically, like, Arlington and Dallas-Fort Worth area—and we won three games in a row to win that championship series that year. So, it was a great, great year. Awesome group of guys.

And then after that season, I love graphic design. That term had stuck with me so I just started throwing it on t-shirts and hats and stuff and carried the brand kind of as a hobby throughout the minor leagues in a, “You can’t beat me. No Chance,” mindset as we’re all chasing the major leagues. So, I did that and then I trademarked ‘No Chance’ and I trademarked ‘Let’s Chase it’ because I believe that we’re all chasing something in life, greatness, happiness, success, all that stuff. So, ended up playing nine years and that’s when I moved out here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Best decision of my life.

Was out here training kids and then after about four years of bouncing around and training kids here and there in facilities and stuff like that, we wound up finally opening our own facility. So, we have an 8000-square-foot facility here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We now have six travel ball teams, and we do camps, clinics, and everything like that, and in the middle. Last thing, and I’ll let you out ask the next question. So, after about three years of retirement, when I was out here, I got an opportunity to play baseball overseas in Europe, and that was awesome.

It was a two-week tournament. It was a little vacation, brought the family, got to play baseball again. And then I came back here to the States and kind of still had my itch to play. So, I hit it up an Australian guy on the team that I played with and all my buddies that have played ball always said, Australia, if you get a chance to go down there go, it’s the best. So, hit him up, like, “Hey, mate, you got a need for a catcher, first baseman down there?”

And he said, “Yeah.” We worked something out. And I went, I got the opportunity to go down to play in Australia for four months. So, that was something I always wanted to do was say that I played ten years. I had nine years and I had retired for a couple. So, now I can say I played ten years of pro ball, traveled to over five countries, five, six countries, and played ball. So yeah, now I’m here doing what I love. And now we have facilities.

Julia: I love that story. I think that is one of the better stories that we’ve heard. And we interview so many people who’ve ended up in Knoxville, Tennessee, as their living place, like, the end result of all of the culmination of everything. And one of the questions I always ask is, how is Knoxville different? Like what makes Knoxville the place that you want to come and raise your family? Like why is Knoxville or what about Knoxville so special?

Zane: So immediately, I had lived in Dallas for probably six years, the most time away from—moving away from San Diego. So, I got to travel the entire United States, from Texas to Florida to the East Coast, Midwest, and everything like that and Knoxville gave me the home vibe that I grew up with in San Diego, California. We ca—it was a small town on the very tip of North County of San Diego. It was in the hills, we had lots of curvy roads, about 25 minutes from the beach. So, this kind of gave me everything that I grew up with and that home vibe.

You got the river that runs through here, so I get the water feel that I had growing up. Like, you can feel how there’s the water that’s close, so you always have that kind of escape to be on water. And then the mountains are just amazing out here. And that’s how I grew up. California, you can go surfing in the morning and you can go snowboarding at night, or you can go surf in the morning or you can go out to the desert at night.

There’s no desert out here, but it gave me the vibe of where you’d want to raise a family and really the home vibe. And it’s a big little city and it feels safe here. And honestly, I’m very, very thankful that I found this place and it’s home now. I had opportunities to leave, but after training kids, I’ve had so many kids I train, I couldn’t leave them, and I mean, I’ve built so many great relationships here in the community. It’s just been one of the best—or the best decision I made in my life to end up somewhere.

Julia: That is so awesome to hear. So, many pro athletes are here. And I think one of the biggest things about Knoxville is that nobody has a clue how accessible training from an actual athlete is. And they’re all over Knoxville. I mean you are one of the better facilities that we’ve seen.

Our baseball tickets are literally right in the middle of thirteen of the kids and their families that you train. So, as we’re watching the baseball games, all the parents are talking about you and talking about No Chance baseball, and every single family member that’s around there is like, “Who are you getting with?” So, the entire baseball stadium by the end of the season last season was like No Chance baseball, No Chance baseball. So, word does get around this big, small town because it is still so intimate. I’ve heard a rumor that several people have gotten engaged wearing the No Chance baseball cap. Tells me this story.

Zane: Well, the first one was a guy that I met in independent baseball in Arlington, Grand Prairie DFW area. And he just posted a picture of him on his knee, and I was like no way. He’s rockin’ one of my very first No Chance hats. And what was funny is, I hit him up. Number one, I was like, “Dude, nice, and no chance she’s going to say no, right, because she’s staring at it right in her face.”

And the second one is Joe, your husband. So, I was like well okay. This is a—

Julia: [laugh].

Zane: —he has one of my favorite ones with the camo with the orange. And we did that logo because there’s—everyone loves to hunt out here. So, what’s funny is, I tried to bring the Cali vibe, San Diego vibe, beach five into, like, flat bill snapbacks, and then I kind of made an adjustment to how I designed out hats a little bit and said, “All right. These guys like camo out here and they like their orange and obviously the Vols.” So, it was pretty cool. And I’m very—it’s exciting, it’s cool to see that, dang, they actually rock that hat. And I know some of them are getting old, so—the hats—but they still rock them, so it’s cool.

Julia: I think you should put an engagement section on your No Chance website of just engagement announcements, and just make sure that everybody gets to post it on the No Chance website. I think that’s hilarious. When you had sent us a message, like, “You’re wearing my hat.” I was like, “We are. That’s amazing.”

Zane: Yeah. That was great. That was awesome.

Julia: It was pretty great. It was pretty great. All right, next question. What do you think is the biggest misconception that other people outside of this area have about Knoxville?

Zane: I think it’s, some people don’t—some people like big city life, maybe. I don’t. And I’m just going to—I kind of relate kind of cities now to LA and San Diego, like, where San Diego is more of a chill vibe more, and LA is really uppity and fast-paced. And don’t get me wrong, San Diego is a big city, but it’s just a beach vibe there, and it’s—and then I moved to Texas, and then I kind of related Dallas more to LA and then Fort Worth, kind of, to San Diego at the time. They’re both big cities, but you kind of feel a vibe.

And then for here I felt like Nashville to Knoxville was that same: Nashville to LA, tons of everything. And then Knoxville is a smaller, big city. You know, I prefer a Knoxville area. I mean, it’s a great col—I mean, people say it’s a college town, but it really is. But there’s so much other stuff outside in the community that makes it, you get everything.

I mean, it’s not like you just go and it’s just college, you know? I’m saying there’s tons of other things to do here that makes it actually a very great city that has everything. And it’s not just labeled as a college town because there’s so much other things to do like camping and hiking and boating and fishing. Really, I don’t think there’s any, for me—I mean, no misconception if you’re asking me. Like, it’s a no-brainer if you want to move here. So, that’d be my answer.

Julia: Yeah. We have a lot of people that are just like, oh, “It’s super hick-y,” or, “That’s in the south, and they’re in the middle of nowhere.” And they think that Dolly Parton is serious when she tells jokes. And they think that that we’re all kind of like that. And I think it’s really funny, the drawl of our accent, they’re like, “Eh, they’re kind of stupid.” And I’m like, “You know, I really wish you would visit.” And I’d encourage people to visit because every person that I’ve ever had visit wants to stay.

Zane: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And it’s not like we’re out in the middle of nowhere. We’re actually not. I mean, everything’s pretty close. So, if you relating everything else to other cities, you can get places in 30 minutes here, which is phenomenal.

And the traffic is super low. Which I had a cousin that just came out here a couple of weeks ago, and they’re thinking about moving from New Mexico. And she asked me the same questions. Like, “Why here?” And I was like, “I just flew back to some other bigger cities and there’s traffic everywhere.”

So, I spent—I mean, you could be—anytime, at least in San Diego or even Dallas now, it’s going to take you 45 minutes to an hour to get to one place. Here it’s not that way, I mean. And, like, you say, hicks and stuff like that, but it’s really not. It’s… this a small city. It’s a beautiful city. It’s growing. I mean, you have the Vols here, which is amazing. You have the Double-A Cubs organization with the Smokies out here. So, it’s not. It’s not anywhere near that. There’s a lot of things happening here that are really neat. And it’s… I mean, it’s great. I would—I love it here. I mean.

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Julia: One of the biggest things that we’ve had in the Knoxville market just as a whole—and of course that surrounds all of Knoxville—is that Knoxville, Tennessee, Maryville, Tennessee, Loudoun County, Tennessee, are all retirement communities. A lot of lakefront land, a lot of lakefront property, and we’ve attracted over the course of I don’t know, since 2003, really, being ranked as, like, number one or number two in the country with which to retire. Basically, outside of Ocala, Florida, this is it. And we’re starting to see younger people flocking to the Knoxville, Tennessee, market because now you can work from home, we’ve got great internet, we’re affordable, we have things to do, but we’re not retaining the talent and the young people here that are from here. They are all leaving. What would you do or what do you think that people could do to attract a younger generation of people to stay and raise their families?

Zane: Well, I think it’s—the younger generation is, I wouldn’t say, moving towards more minimalistic things, but I mean, you see all the small houses and things like that. I mean, if there’s that group of people that likes small things and stuff like that, I mean, I’ve seen plenty of people, building tiny homes and creating little communities themselves, or making those glamping places like that, I think for the younger—and they might not just be educated enough. I mean, they might not be educated enough on what opportunities they can actually do here when they come here. And I don’t think that’s not a good enough reason to leave because there’s—if you know one person or you’re trying to meet one person, well guess what? You talk to your friend, and they probably know that person.

And if you want to get an opportunity to do what, actually, you love, you’re one person away. So, just like in baseball. Like, I may not know everyone in baseball, but I’m one person away from them knowing. It’s like, “Oh, hey, do you know him?” He’s like, “Yeah, dude. I played with him.” So like, the networking opportunities here, I feel like, are great.

And I mean, just knowing, like, someone like yourself, if I wanted to do something, if I wanted to be a woodworker or anything like that, or if I wanted to go into IT or whatever, I mean, I would just hit up Julia. That way, she knew where to point me in the right direction. Like, what do you want to do with your life? Like, you know, okay, then I’ll put you in contact with someone that can build a career for you here. And I think that’s something.

And I think, like, younger people, and maybe their communication skills aren’t that great and maybe they’re timid to go out and ask or network or anything like that. I think that there’s way more networking opportunities that, if people just search them out, and found that it’s more of a, this is actually where you want to be, you know? People are great here, they’ll give you the shirt off their back to help you. And that’s one of the main reasons why I stayed here, too, is like, no one’s just going to say, hey, and then just leave you. You know what I’m saying?

I have plenty people’s—if I need to borrow a trailer, like, “Hey, man, can I borrow your trailer?” “Yeah, dude. Like, go ahead, borrow my trailer.” It’s just a great community and there’s not a lot of that out there. You know, everyone’s kind of to themselves in other places, I feel like. And I know that if I hit up someone here, if I hit up one of my parents from a kid that I trained, they’re like, “Yeah, let me help you. Let me help you. Let me help you. Let me help you.”

And honestly, with the culture that we’re building here in No Chance, I mean, a lot of parents come up afterwards and they’re just so thankful that the way we train their kids, how we’re building them into young men, they’re like, “What can we do? How can I help you? What do you guys need? Can I even, like, can I help you clean? Can I help?” And it’s like, it’s a great community here. And once you dive into it and you really want to actually grow a family, and you want to do things here and spread your wings, it’s really, really possible because everyone knows each other.

So, that’d be my answer. I mean, it’s a lot easier, I feel like, to make it here than it would be possibly to go somewhere else just because there’s so many more dots to connect other places. And the way of life is a lot faster, I’d say, in a San Diego or California so, like, you got to keep up with people’s schedules in other places to where, you know if—I mean, it’s—and I think something like that goes back to traffic and there’s just so many people in other places, that you come here, your phone call away, and they’ll actually call you back or they’ll actually meet you because it’s close in proximity and it’s not too far to drive as well.

Julia: And that’s a really good point. Our traffic has gotten a little worse over the last couple of years, but still nowhere near as bad as anywhere else we go. So, I used to be able to make it to Knoxville in about 15 minutes. Now, it takes me 30. If I were in Atlanta, I would not even make it out of the airport in 30 minutes. So, putting that into perspective, Knoxville is a pretty fantastic place to be, honestly, at the end of the day. All right. Tell us about the UK flag hanging in the back up there I just now noticed. Is this all the colleges that you’ve sent kids to or is this just—what is this?

Zane: This is where—yeah, I’ve trained some of the guys here that have gone on to go there and then Kole Cottam right there, he is with the Red Sox; I had to represent him. And I did not put it all up in any specific order. Tennessee happened to go on top though of Kentucky, so sorry about that, but—

Julia: You’re like, “I’m not saying that I helped you win. But—” [laugh].

Zane: And then over here we have some of the countries that I’ve played in over there. So, we’re going to add a few more.

Julia: That’s awesome.

Zane: Just represent the culture. And at least in baseball, there’s not a lot of other countries here in Knoxville, so that’s what’s cool about this facility is we actually have some culture from outside the states training here. We got the Aussie flag back there because we had an Australian guy come in a few months ago. So yeah, just creating a culture.

Julia: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. All right, tell us a little bit about—so if the kids and the parents in Knoxville—or anywhere they are really because they can bring their kids, you travel—tell us about the, like, the types of training that you do, what you offer, how people can find that about you.

Zane: So, we have travel teams, baseball travel teams, that we only specifically focus on high school age, possibly 14, but we want to focus on the older guys right there. We offer strengthing, conditioning here. We do one-on-one training, we do group training, and then we’re getting into—we’re building a little field out back so that we can actually provide baseball development and not so much half an hour lessons—excuse me—half an hour lessons to where we actually teach the game of baseball. They can find me on @nochancehq on Instagram, and then nochanceHQ on Facebook. And then our website is nochancehq.com.

And for that, I mean, we live in a town that we have to play against the elements and against the weather, so growing up in San Diego, it was beautiful all year round, so we could actually get on the field all the time. So, some of the best, at least, per capita baseball players come from warmer regions because they can get on the field more, so their baseball IQs are higher. So, that’s what we’re trying to do is change the culture here that, you know, we can provide a service that we not only do the training, the hitting inside, but we also teach the game of baseball outside. And that’s the best way to learn is on the field. So, that’s something that I’ve been trying to do for the past three to four years here is to be able to get that field.

And it’s an infield, so I mean, that’s all we really need right now for development with bunt coverages and first-and-thirds and ground balls and showcasing and stuff like that. So yeah, we’re just trying to teach the game more because the IQs, at least in this town, are down. And I honestly correlate that to not being on the field as much, you know? And I mean, that’s how you get better at baseball. It’s the most difficult game to get better at in the world. So… such a mental game that, you know, we need to be on the field, that way they can fail on the field in those elements, as opposed to failing all the time inside.

Julia: That’s a really good way to look at it, pretty much for every sport that you can think of. And people from up north just so happen to be better at hockey because they’re indoors all the time because it’s freezing outside, so the only sport that they really get to play all the time is hockey. So, if anybody in the South wants to compete in hockey, which Nashville has done well, but just recently here with the Preds, your kids grow up playing the sport that their outdoors create for them. So, that actually makes a lot of sense. How’s that going? How’s the field coming along?

Zane: Good. We’re looking at, we’re actually going to start a little model or marketing plan to raise some money to actually donate into the field. We’re looking at just getting used turf on the field, that way the rain doesn’t slow us down at all. I know once now it’s going to start raining a little bit more, so that’s always an issue. There’s not enough baseball fields in Knoxville to actually host and handle all the practices and games and tournaments because there’s not enough turf fields.

And we don’t have a complex that has multiple baseball fields on it made of turf. So, a lot of fields that you have to rent here play on the dirt and that always is an issue in the fall and early spring because I mean, you get washes or wash-outs, rain, and it cancels tournaments, it cancels middle school games and that’s a big issue. So, we’re trying to put some used turf out there, that way we can at least, you know, get on the field as much as possible.

Julia: Sure. So, anybody watching this that has used turf, any of the college campuses that take theirs up, anybody just got it, baseball teams, whatever it is out there if you need to contact them or they need to contact you, go to @nochancehq. So, I think that that is an absolutely fantastic idea. I know Farragut is probably one of the biggest baseball high schools that we have in the area. Very big baseball-oriented high school, so I think that that would be something that maybe some of the parents watching can assist with.

And once you put that campaign together, come back and let us know. We’ll add that website and donation link. You know, as I always do, I’ll share anything that you share with me. I always want to support your growth. I think you’re fantastic. So, I really appreciate all of that. We’ve got five minutes left and I want to do a fire around of random questions about Knoxville. So, I always start off: favorite restaurant?

Zane: Chivo.

Julia: [laugh]. It’s so good. It’s so good.

Zane: Lakeside Tavern.

Julia: Oh, Lakeside Tavern’s made it three times so far. What’s your favorite thing on that menu?

Zane: The strawberry chicken salad. Yeah, Katie brought it home one night [unintelligible 00:25:43] school. So, I get that all the time.

Julia: It’s very good.

Zane: Yeah, the Buffalo [unintelligible 00:25:49].

Julia: Oh, that’s delicious. I just finally learned how to make that myself on a TikTok video. I had to figure it out. It’s so good. It’s still not as good as theirs but it’s still pretty gosh darn good. Favorite bar, pub, or brewery? Or all three.

Zane: Phew. Not that I can’t choose; I just haven’t been to the bar brewery in a while. I like—well, when I was living in South Knox, Alliance down there, Alliance Brewery down there on Sevier Avenue, I liked that little strip right there. They got a good thing going down there with the breweries down there.

Julia: They really do. South Knoxville is growing quite a bit. It’s very impressive. So, where are you at now? West Knoxville. So, what’s your favorite thing to do in West Knoxville?

Zane: West Knoxville? Well, we have Carl Cowan Park right across the street, so Katie and I like to bring our two golden retrievers over there and run around and the dogs both jump off the dock now, so we just like bringing the dogs over there to the park. When my buddies come out or when my buddy comes out from East Knox, he always goes and fishes over there for catfish. So, down there at Concord is a great fishing spot that he goes out there and sometimes I’ll tag along because he’s on the hunt for the biggest catfish in Tennessee. So.

Julia: You should probably just take him to a Calhoun’s, during, like, game—right after game day where everybody throws their bread off of the thing. There’s catfish everywhere.

Zane: Oh, I’ll let him know that, actually.

Julia: Yeah that’s a huge one. Calhoun’s has all the catfish that come around there. They [unintelligible 00:27:24] have those little catfish feeders. It’s a very interesting dynamic that Calhoun’s has there. Yeah, it’s very interesting. All right. What is, in your opinion, the best-kept secret that you’ve discovered about Knoxville that every time you tell your friends about it, that’s, like, the thing?

Zane: I mean, one of the very first thing that I heard was the tailgating for Vols football game. So, I don’t know if it’s a kept secret, but these people here go nuts for Vols football or baseball. Any sport here with the Vols. So, I mean, I don’t think it’s a secret, but I mean… and I have not yet thrown on the checkered suspenders and stuff like that, but these people get crazy. I mean, you saw the game the other day against Alabama and everything like that.

So, it’s a… people have to experience a football game here and the vibe and the energy and stuff like that. I mean, I believe it’s one of the biggest stadiums in the world. So, you just got to come out and experience that. And they have great concerts there, too. So, they get some good names in there.

Julia: So, in the history of you playing baseball, have you ever seen people tailgate for a baseball game?

Zane: Yeah.

Julia: So, that’s normal? Because when we started that last year at UT it was the first time we had ever done tailgates for baseball.

Zane: Yeah. Any professional game, everyone’s tailgating in the parking lots and stuff like that. That’s why you see probably fights go on inside stadiums at games because everyone comes in a little bit hammered. So.

Julia: See at UT, we just throw mustard bottles, just [laugh]. All right, anything extra that I haven’t talked about that you want people to know about Knoxville?

Zane: If you play baseball or softball, definitely come check us out. This is the place to be honestly. I mean, I’ve traveled all around the world, all around the states. You don’t have to—you get all the seasons here of weather. I think that’s really neat. It’s not just hot all the time or 70% a year. Although this past summer was pretty hot, but—

Julia: It was warm.

Zane: We’re rolling into fall. You know you’ll get your snow a little bit here. The leaves change colors here, so it’s really a very beautiful year of weather. And yeah, like I said, play baseball, softball make sure you come here. No Chance HQ and we’ll take care of you whatever you need defense, hitting, speed, agilities, and yeah we’re—this is where to be.

Julia: It is. Zane, thank you so much for spending time with us today. We appreciate everything that you do for Knoxville and all the talent and time and energy and positivity that you bring our way. Joe and I are so excited for you and Katie to bring your very first child into the world. We are super excited for your growth and your future. Knoxville, if you need Baseball and Softball Training, this is the only person that I can refer you to. And if that’s something you need, we’re here to Connect the Knox. Bye, everybody.

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Kole Cottam is a professional catcher for the Boston Red Sox and a long-time Knoxville resident. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, Kole describes why he loves Knoxville compared to all the other cities in the country he’s traveled to as a professional ball player. Kole also reveals what he thinks can be done to attract younger residents to Knoxville, and why he feels Knoxville is a perfect place for his growing family. Julia gets Kole to open up about some of his favorite Knoxville spots, and Kole gives some encouragement to all the up-and-coming baseball players at UT.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

00:23 Kole describes his journey to Knoxville and how he became a pro baseball player

04:07 Julia and Kole discuss Kole’s growing family

05:22 How is Knoxville different from Boston in Kole’s point of view

07:49 Kole reveals his favorite city in the country (besides Knoxville, of course!)

10:11 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

13:22 What Kole thinks Knoxville can do to attract younger residents

18:00 Ad - Just Homes Group

18:35 Kole answers Julia’s fire round of questions about his favorite Knoxville spots

21:55 Kole shares his favorite experience at a Knoxville sporting event

26:17 The advice Kole would give to up-and-coming baseball players at UT

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Episode Summary

Gloria Johnson, State Representative in House District 90, is a former educator who ran for office after seeing certain political issues not getting the attention they deserved. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, she describes what that journey was like and how important it is to get involved politically if there’s an issue that’s important to you. Gloria also reveals her deep roots in Knoxville, and shares wonderful insights into why people love our city.

Highlights 00:00 Intro

00:19 Julia introduces Rep. Gloria Johnson, who describes her Knoxville roots and why her and her family were eager to return to Knoxville

03:31 How Gloria went from being an educator to running for a seat in the state legislature

07:06 Ad - GoSeeDrJoe.com

08:30 Julia and Gloria discuss why it’s important to speak out about political causes you care about

12:20 How children’s mental health affects the classroom

14:20 Gloria discusses the importance of teaching children how to think, not what to think

16:47 The big issues that Gloria is planning to push for this year in the state legislature

19:26 Ad - Just Homes Group

22:21 Gloria and Julia discuss the importance of women running for political office

23:50 Gloria’s favorite memory of growing up in Knoxville

24:39 Gloria describes some of her favorite restaurants and spots in Knoxville

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Tammy White, President & CEO of Leadership Knoxville, came to Knoxville in 1990 and has been working to shape the growth of the city ever since. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, she describes the incredible work that Leadership Knoxville is doing in our community, including the many programs they offer for UT Students, business executives, and the leaders of tomorrow - the youth of Knoxville.

Highlights:00:00 Intro

01:06 How Tammy came to Knoxville and what it was like as a newcomer and now

03:40 The history of Leadership Knoxville

06:53 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro www.goseedrjoe.com

07:25 Tammy walks through the programs that Leadership Knoxville offers and their focus on diversity as an organization

11:56 Tammy describes a partnership with UT Knoxville called Leadership Knoxville Scholars

13:37 Leadership Knoxville’s fourth program, Youth Leadership Knoxville

17:09 Tammy describes Connect Knox, a civics solutions lab, started by Leadership Knoxville

18:57 What is The Big Table program, and how it brings people together throughout the community

22:58 Ad - Just Homes Group

24:01 How people can get involved with Leadership Knoxville and find more information on their programs

25:56 Julia takes Tammy through a lightning round of questions about her favorite spots in Knoxville

Links:

  • Leadership Knoxville: https://www.leadershipknoxville.com
  • Email: https://twhite@leadknox.com

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Randy Boyd, legendary Knoxville entrepreneur and current President of the University of Tennessee, is a lifelong Knoxvillian who’s dedicated to giving back to his community. On this episode of ConnectTheKnox, he describes how an early failed business in his career lead him to where he is today, and the work he’s doing to help send Tennessee kids to college free of charge. Randy and Julia discuss how UT is growing along with the rest of Knoxville, and ways that the local community can get involved in their Everywhere You Look, UT campaign.

Highlights:00:00 Intro

00:50 Randy introduces himself and describes his dedication to Knoxville and family

2:13 Randy describes his entrepreneurial journey and how he started his non-profit, tnAchieves

05:12 Why Randy launched the “Everywhere You Look, UT” campaign

10:32 Randy describes the partnership between UT and Oak Ridge National Lab

12:33 The Tennessee Promise program and how it inspired Randy to create something similar for UT

16:10 The growth plan for UT Knoxville and the rest of the UT campuses state-wide

19:13 Ad - Just Homes Group

19:58 How people can help support the Everywhere You Look, UT campaign

21:03 Randy describes his running career and his favorite marathons

23:46 Julia fires off her lightning-round questions on Randy’s favorite local spots

Links:

  • tnAchieves: https://tnachieves.org/

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Michelle Lewis, Executive Director of the Loudon County Education Foundation, has been supporting excellence in local education for over 11 years. Watch this episode of ConnectTheKnox to learn how she got involved with LCEF, as well as how LCEF is supporting local educators and students. Michelle and Julia talk through some of their favorite LCEF fundraising events, and Michelle explains how that money is used to help fund programs like Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, grants for local educators, and so much more.

Highlights

00:00 Intro

01:02 Michelle introduces herself and her local roots, and describes her journey to become the Executive Director of the Loudon County Education Foundation

02:37 The history of the Loudon County Education Foundation and the changes she’s seen in education over the past 11 years

06:11 Michelle explains how the LCEF works with Imagination Library and why it’s so important to Loudon County children

07:35 Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

08:57 Michelle and Julia discuss how LCEF currently fundraises, as well as some of their biggest annual fundraisers and favorite fundraisers of the past

16:10 Michelle explains how COVID has affected fundraising for LCEF

21:04 Julia asks Michelle how LCEF is anticipating the growth of surrounding areas like Farragut and Knoxville

24:33 Ad - Just Homes Group

25:43 How you can find and support the Loudon County Education Foundation

26:27 Michelle tackles Julia’s lightning round of questions about her favorite Knoxville hot spots

Links:

  • Loudon County Education Foundation https://lceftn.org/
  • Dr. Joe Chiro www.goseedrjoe.com
  • Just Homes Group www.justhomesgroup.com
  • Meadowview Greenhouse & Garden Center https://www.meadowviewgreenhouse.com/
  • Painted Tree Knoxville https://paintedtree.com/locations/knoxville-tennesse

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  • Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

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Marcus Hall, CEO of Marc Nelson Denim, has been bringing high-quality custom fashion to Knoxville for the past 13 years. Tune into this episode of ConnectTheKnox as he and Julia discuss how his great-grandfather and family ties to Knoxville inspired his journey, his focus on local manufacturing, and the growth he’s seen in Knoxville both as a business-owner and as a downtown resident. Highlights:

00:00 Intro

01:01 Marcus introduces himself, tells the story of how his great-grandfather influenced his career, and explains why he moved from L.A. back to Knoxville

05:13 Marcus describes the growth that he’s seen in Knoxville over the past 13 years, both in his business and the city overall

08:06 How Marcus developed his talent for designing and tailoring custom clothing

11:12 Why custom clothing is an investment, and how to ensure the pieces you buy will last you a long time

13:49 Ad - JustHomesGroup.com

14:18 Marcus shares how he focuses on local manufacturing as well as how his travels have influenced his brand

23:45 Julia and Marcus chat about the small-town feel of Knoxville as well as the opportunities that come with its tremendous growth

29:38 Marcus answers Julia’s lightning round of questions about his favorite Knoxville hot spots

Links:

  • Marc Nelson Denim: https://shopmarcnelson.com/
  • Marcus’s Favorite Knoxville Realtor: Just Homes Group

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  • Buy or Sell a home in Knoxville -

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  • Find my Home Buyers & Home Sellers Guide here: https://linktr.ee/thejuliahurley

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With so many people moving to Knoxville, there’s no doubt that a woman-owned business like Eugenia Almeida’s A New Hue paint and plaster company is in high demand. Join me as we discuss why she chose to make Knoxville her home, her journey as an entrepreneur, and her mission to help future artists of Knoxville.

Highlights:

00:00 Intro

01:16 Eugenia introduces herself and explains how she came to Knoxville and became a business-owner

04:40 Why Eugenia decided Knoxville would be the perfect place to settle down and follow her passions

07:39 - Ad - Dr. Joe Chiro

08:20 Eugenia lists some of the residential and commercial clients she has worked with

10:31 Having come from Argentina, Eugenia describes how Knoxville encompasses a perfect blend of culture and comfort

12:50 Eugenia explains how the A New Hue studio is open to the public and expanding

14:47 The next steps for Eugenia and her goal to collaborate with up-and-coming artists

19:41 Eugenia answers the lightning round of questions about all her favorite local spots

22:41 How parents of Knoxville can involve their children in the arts

Links Referenced:

A New Hue: https://anewhue.net/

Transcript:

Eugenia: Exactly. You know, I want to try it all, right? This is so magnificent. I’m freezing here but at the same time the time—

Julia: [laugh].

Eugenia: —the sun is shining. Life is good. Life is good.

Julia: Hi everybody and welcome to this episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville with the nation. Today’s guest is a rockstar interior designer. I’m telling you all folks right now, if you can get your hands on an appointment with this woman, everything that you have ever thought was stylish, she will make it better. Miss Eugenia Almeida, owner of A New Hue, as in the color, H-U-E, A New Hue, and you can find that on Facebook and online. Eugenia, please introduce yourself and tell us every amazing thing about you because I can’t even. I wish I had photos that I could post in the video of things that I’ve seen you design. I can’t even imagine your story. So, tell us about you and how you ended up in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Eugenia: Julia, thank you so much. My name is Eugenia Almeida. I am originally from Argentina, South America. I came to this country 38 years ago with my husband and my kids. And my husband was at the University, Iowa State University, so for many years, I did many different jobs.

But when we came to Knoxville and my youngest daughter started school, I decided to do something that was going to fill my heart. So, we are a plaster company, we do plaster sand for finishes, we work with the boxes, and concrete, and all the materials that you can imagine. And the beauty about our company right now is 80% woman, female, and 70% Hispanic. So, we are a company full of artists that love what they do. And we travel all the time, we travel all over United States.

At this moment, I am in Charlotte, and a week ago I was in Texas in Woodland. So, we travel a lot for work. We are humble, but we have so much pride in the product that we give. And when we said we have a hundred percent client satisfaction because our priority is the people that we work with. For many years, we didn’t have cards or anything, not Instagram, Facebook, because it was a word of mouth.

And I really believe that is super important for a company to have that, to always have their eyes on the client, on what the client wants, what you can provide. You never promise things that you cannot achieve. Be honest. We are a hard-working group of people. I have 15 full-time employees. We have a beautiful studio in Knoxville that I hope you come for a cup of coffee.

Julia: Oh, you count on that. Count on that. Yes.

Eugenia: And get your fingers dirty with some plaster and color. And we’ve been blessed. We’ve been blessed with super fantastic jobs that we can create and innovate and bring new things into the plate. Because I am Hispanic, I have a different view of colors, so it took some time for people to have faith in me, you know? I was like, “Oh, we need to paint this store red.” And they were like, “I don’t think so with red.” No, it’s like, “It will look phenomenal.”

But now it’s something incredible. We are blessed. We are a blessed group of people who do what we love. And we do it with honesty and hard work and always God with us, honestly. I cannot have a conversation without mention him because he is the one that took us through so many different things.

Julia: So, tell us, everybody out here in the world, from Argentina to Knoxville, Tennessee, to all over the country with clients, how did you settle on staying in Knoxville? What makes Knoxville the place for you?

Eugenia: The most important thing in my life is my family. I have five kids and I came to this country because my husband was going to do his Master’s and PhD in Iowa State University. So, I was like the bag, you know? We are carrying her with us.“, oh, she’s going to make it.”

I came to this country with no English. I learned French in my country. My parents thought that it was a great idea to send me to a Catholic school that was French. So, when I came here, I didn’t have any, any English. So, from Iowa State, when my husband finished with his PhD, he have a position at the University of Tennessee.

So, we move here, my kids went to school. My youngest one started school and I decided this is the time that I’m going to do something that it will fill my life. Before I did so many odd jobs and I did everything that I need to do, you know, to help, but at the point that I was able to say, “Okay, I’m jumping. I’m going to jump and I’m going to do it and it’s going to work.” And I think that is what we need to feel when we start something and put every cell of our bodies on what we do.

Julia: I think that that’s probably the best advice I’ve heard from people in general. And that is a across the board conversation with every person that we’ve interviewed, every person I’ve met who’s successful, you’re either in it or you’re not. And it’s one thousand percent, every part of you has got to be in it to win it.

Eugenia: And it’s harder, you know? When you start it’s really hard because you get, oh my gosh, where is the money going to come from? I don’t have any clients. I cannot show what I do. I worked from my basement for years until I was able to rent a studio, and now we own our studio close to downtown.

So, they are hard times, but I really believe that we need to do it in faith and hard work. If you don’t put the sweat and the prayers together, when you do it, I think it’s harder, you know. So it, we were extremely blessed. There were years that they were hard, really hard. But right now, our company is, I think we are one of the best companies in the country because we have such manpower that we can come and do 15,000 square feet in ten days.

Julia: Wow.

Eugenia: Of plaster, Venetian plasters, concrete, carved concrete. Because we are a group. We are a group that we love each other. We know what the other person needs all the time, but our main focus is our client, our clientele, the people that said, “Okay, I have faith in this company. Let’s do it.” And I don’t think I have one client, never, that cannot—can say that he wasn’t satisfied. We don’t leave the place until the client says, “Oh, I love it.” If you say that you like it, I’m sorry. It’s not enough. You need to love it [laugh].

Julia: That is so perfect. I love to hear that. Can you share—if you cannot that’s okay—can you share some of your client list with us? Is there anybody that we would know?

Eugenia: Residential, I work with many, many different people. I worked for developers downtown in Knoxville. When I started, I worked with David [Duchart], I worked with Jeffery Nash, I worked with, oh, so many, so many developers downtown. I can name many residential clients but I didn’t ask them, so I’m sure they will be happy to do it. And in commercial we were with Patricia Nash. She’s a phenomenal artist. I love working with her. She’s my personal friend as her family is.

I work with Altar’d State, the clothing company that is in Maryville. We do all the stores for them over the country. And wonderful people, wonderful people. We work for many, many—we done some stores for Cotton On, and we just finished the first Saks Fifth Avenue that we done in Atlanta with some—

Julia: That’s amazing.

Eugenia: [laugh] we did some columns with Venetian plaster for them. And but I’m going to tell you, absolutely everything that we do, somebody refers to. Somebody said, “Oh, I know the person.” We done a concrete [unintelligible 00:10:02] under cabins, and the person could call us said, “You know, they told me that for this crazy idea, the only human that can achieve this or the only company is A New Hue.” And we done it.

We are going to do another big project with [trees 00:10:18] in Oklahoma, in January. We are going to be doing a huge hotel downtown with the Fall architects and designers. We do big places, but we do some residential. That is what I really love, you know? I like that connection between my client. I mean, I love the coffee, I love talking to them and knowing how can we help. We have servers. We are really servers.

Julia: I love this. I love this so much. So, one of the questions that I ask every person on the podcast is, as you’ve traveled and experienced all the world and all the food and all the culture, how do you feel like Knoxville is still culture-forward, but home? How does Knoxville encompass that for you?

Eugenia: And you’re asking that question to the perfect person because my roots are in Argentina, South America, but Knoxville is the city that make me feel home. I’ve been here 30 years, 30-something years in Knoxville, and Knoxville, and the people from Knoxville, the city, the culture, the artists, I felt home. I feel a hundred percent calm. In Knoxville, you can get any food you want from any country you want because we are so diverse. You have artists who are magnificent in the city, you know?

You have artisans that they are proud, we’re proud of what we do. I’m a part of The Maker City that I love with all my heart. They invited me a couple of years ago to be a part of that. And it’s so many things that make Knoxville my home. On top of that, I have all my grandkids—three of my grandkids here, too in Ithaca, New York.

But I think Knoxville and after living for five years in Ames, Iowa, every day when I woke up and I leave my house, I live in a top of a hill and I see the mountains as a background and I see the green. I said, “Thank you God. What a beautiful place to be.” On top of that, I develop friendships who are family. And that make it even more home. I go to Europe, I go to South America, I go to Central America, and when I come back, Knoxville is my home.

Julia: I love that. And everybody that we talk with says the same thing. It’s the biggest small town.

Eugenia: Exactly.

Julia: Exactly. You see the same people that you see everywhere you go with new twists and turns, but it’s so familiar.

Eugenia: It’s familiar, it’s inclusive. I always felt a part—even you know when I arrived. I always felt a part of the city. And the weather is beautiful [laugh].

Julia: Yeah [laugh]. Sometimes you get four seasons in one day [laugh]. So, all right. Is your studio open for tours or is that a closed studio? Tell me about the studio.

Eugenia: My studio is open, on a schedule. We have visit, but we have somebody at the studio every day from nine to five. We are expanding the studio right now because when we bought the property, they have a couple of houses on the side that my plan is to have it for people who wants to learn and wants to come and take classes—I teach a lot—and for artists that don’t have a place yet to fit in. So, we got these two houses and we’re renovating right now. Probably by February, we’ll have them working. And it’s a great idea.

All that area, I mean in Tennessee Avenue, in the Lonsdale, it’s improving by the day, it’s getting beautiful, it’s getting full of people who wants to do things, you know? So, it’s going to be a really—I have a vision. I can see that that is going to be a small art district in the city where people can come and participate, or if you don’t have a place that you can do your samples or your paintings, “Hey, Eugenia, can I use this?” Come and use it.

Julia: I love that. So, where can people find the studio?

Eugenia: At the studio? Actually, you can find it in Google. If you put ‘A New Hue,’ they will guide you to the studio, but the address is 1009 Tennessee Avenue. Now, we have 007 and 111. So, I’m thinking what is the studio [laugh]? 1009 Tennessee Avenue. And people loves it. People who comes really like it, so I hope you come for a cup of coffee soon.

Julia: Oh, I will come for sure. That sounds amazing. So, let me see. You pretty much traveled the world, you design all over the world, you design huge, huge retail stores, you do individual residential. What’s the dream? What’s the next step? What’s the big next thing?

Eugenia: To start, I want to tell you, we do the design of the plasters and the walls. We work with designers who tell us what their idea is. These are the colors, this is what we want to see, we want to see a thick texture, a very soft texture. So, we usually work under them. We do the samples, they approve it, we do the walls.

What is my next step? Because even when I’m trying not to do it, I’m getting older, I think I’m going to start working on huge canvases—

Julia: Oh yeah.

Eugenia: Collaborating with people who do different kinds of art. And I see helping new artists because it was hard, you know? And if you have somebody who can give you a hand and said, “Okay, let’s do it together. Let me show you how you can do it.” You don’t have a place that is big enough for you to be, come to the studio, come to the studio.

I see myself there. I see myself—but the problem is all my people said, “Eugenia, don’t go in the scaffold. Don’t go in the scaffold.” I’m going to go on top of the scaffold until they have to take me down. And probably that will be my last time in the scaffold, but for now—

Julia: [laugh].

Eugenia: —[crosstalk 00:17:28] and more carefully. But I love what I do. I love that life gave me so much, coming from another country with three small kids, I have another two here. I have so much. And I really am a walking testimony that when you work hard and you’re honest—you are honest; if you’re dishonest, you will never make it in life—but if you’re honest and work hard, you’ll make it.

This is a country of possibilities. This is a country who give chances. Don’t take chances from people. Do it. Show them that you can do it and they will give you the space to show that you can. That is my belief, as an immigrant, as a woman, as a mother of five, as a grandmother of five, as an artist, as an artisan, as a woman, [unintelligible 00:18:29] I need to start giving. I always give back, even when I didn’t have anything. But this is my time to give back, to help the new generation that is starting. “Listen, we can do it this way. I know nobody teach you to do it but I promise it will work.”

Julia: Side note, I’m currently in the process of writing my very first book in the book is about exactly that. Like, here’s all the things that I’ve learned to do through mistakes and I’m not only going to tell you what they are, I’m going to share with you how to also do it a different way. And I feel like that’s been missing for so many people. They like to talk about, “Well, you know, you could do it a different way but—” or they say, “Well, this is wrong,” or whatever, but they never help you understand how to do it right or different.

Eugenia: Exactly. We need to give—we need to all hands. I think in this life we have this hands to hold people, to hold people when they are hurting, to hold people to go the next step. Because I had people who inspire me all my life. My parents are my inspiration. My sisters are my inspiration. And I miss them dearly every day, but I have all these other people who said, “Eugenia, yes, let’s do it. You can do this.” And I was like, “Thank you. Thank you.”

And now it’s not that we don’t have to prove ourselves anymore. We need to keep proving ourselves and doing better and better. Because we are creating things that I never thought we will be creating. You see? I’m creating plasters who are three inches thick and carving them. So, we need to help the people and when we see that they are going through that stage, say, “Hey, I don’t hold the truth on everything, but I know how we can do it faster, or better, or shinier.”

Julia: I love that. I love that. I love that give-back spirit. I think it’s very Knoxville-indicative. I feel like Knoxville brings that out in people even if it’s already there, they bring it out in a different way. Because everybody here wants you to be successful.

Eugenia: Yes.

Julia: I really feel like that. I feel like Knoxville itself is just like this big hug and it’s just waiting for people to come in and say, “Okay, what can we do for you today?” And that’s how Knoxville makes me feel.

Eugenia: Yes.

Julia: All right, so I’ve got a few interesting questions for you.

Eugenia: Okay.

Julia: Okay. What is your favorite Knoxville restaurant?

Eugenia: Can I do OliBea.

Julia: I like OliBea’s breakfast. It’s so good.

Eugenia: We’d eat OliBea. All the finishes on the walls are from us.

Julia: What is your favorite, like, ethnic food restaurant?

Eugenia: Casa Don Gallo.

Julia: Yes. So, one of my favorites is the Ethiopian restaurant on Sutherland.

Eugenia: I’ve been there. I love it. I’ve been there. I love it. I love it. I love all the foods from every country and every culture. And I’m open to try absolutely everything on food, and drinks, on anything. I want to—when I leave this world, I want to experience all that I could.

Julia: I think that Knoxville has such a diverse ability to do that.

Eugenia: Exactly. You know, I want to try it all, right? This is so magnificent. I’m freezing here, but at the same time the time—

Julia: [laugh].

Eugenia: —the sun is shining. Life is good. Life is good.

Julia: Life is fantastic. All right. Favorite bar in Knoxville?

Eugenia: Favorite bar? Actually, I’m going to tell you I love my margaritas. It’s a restaurant, Chez Guevara. I cannot find another Margarita like that. So, when I go to drink, I go with my husband to Chez Guevara and we are old enough that if we drink too much our kids pick us up.

Julia: That is a—you’re the first one to list that but I was actually there last Wednesday. I love that place.

Eugenia: You need to have those Margaritas [laugh].

Julia: [laugh] okay. Let’s see. Um, favorite clothing store?

Eugenia: Altar’d State [laugh].

Julia: Oh, yes, obviously. Obviously. Um, favorite grocery store?

Eugenia: The Whole Foods.

Julia: Yes. We only have the one Whole Foods. I’m waiting for more. You know, I’m waiting for more. I’m like, “Okay, can we get one in Farragut [laugh]?”

Eugenia: It’s going to come. It’s going to come.

Julia: It will. If Knoxville is growing—

Eugenia: Yes. Oh, yes. And it’s building and so much work here to do, so much work is offer. So, even us, we are going to recruit more artists to work with us because we have more work for next year. So, everybody’s hiring. We are going to keep growing. It’s no way that this country doesn’t keep growing.

Julia: Well, since you mentioned that, I know that the Knoxville Museum of Art does so many things that people don’t know about, classes, just like beginner lessons for parents and for kids. They do a lot of things that people don’t know are very hands-on artist projects that if they don’t—if parents outside of the downtown market do not have the ability to understand art or don’t have an art class at their schools, tell us a little bit about what they can do in Knoxville to connect with you, to connect with the art scene, to get their kids involved in understanding art.

Eugenia: We are working with a couple of organizations. I’m working with [unintelligible] and we are trying to bring more kids to have—you know, I want to start with a Saturday play date. And after the kids have Covid, it stopped absolutely everything that we were planning. We were planning this three years ago. So, now what I done is I went to a school and I work with the kids as a volunteer doing summer work.

But we are going to be reaching out to families and I want to reach out to my community, to the Hispanic community because some of the parents, you know, cannot communicate very good in English, it’s hard for them to understand what they can do. I’ve been talking with Austin-East School, too. We did a huge mural for them there a year and a half ago. So, the idea is to start working with elementary school, middle school. We will start with elementary and see how this goes. But I will keep you posted with all this news.

Julia: Yeah, please do. You know Mark Nelson…

Eugenia: Yes, I know—

Julia: Mark Nelson [crosstalk 00:25:47], he went to Austin-East and while he was there is when he took all kinds of classes on design and sewing, things my generation has no access to and I think this next generation after me, the Gen Z generation has no idea about art or working with your hands. It’s just not something they talk about or teach. And I think that what you’re doing is amazing. Please let us know so we can get that information out.

Eugenia: I will keep you posted. Julie, I will keep you posted.

Julia: Yes. And I’ll come visit you in a couple—after Thanksgiving, after the holiday, I’m going to come visit your studio.

Eugenia: Perfect.

Julia: Perfect. All right. We are out of time and you’re freezing. Thank you for taking time for me today. Thank you so much for sharing your blessing with the world.

Eugenia: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and I want to meet you in person. I know Patricia put us in contact because I saw the comments that oh because you went to Ancient Lore Village.

Julia: Yeah, yes. Oh, my I have—I’m interviewing. I’m interviewing their marketing—like, the lady that runs the whole thing. Marissa. Melissa.

Eugenia: She’s phenomenal. She’s phenomenal. You’re going to love it. That was a fantastic project. You see proof like this that comes from an idea, from a dream that you were able, you saw the walls, and absolutely everything, that they—the core.

Julia: Stunning. I took pictures of the bird, the little bird. It’s this big. I took a picture of it. I was like I cannot believe that one person did all this amazing.

Eugenia: It’s incredible, but it was my crew. I always said when we finish a project like this, this is 15,000 square feet what we’re doing here, it was not me. It’s not me. I cannot do it. It’s all my people. It’s all this talent and talented people who loves art and love me.

Julia: You’re easy to love.

Eugenia: I’m crazy.

Julia: You’re easy to love [laugh].

Eugenia: You so much.

Julia: Thank you, Miss Eugenia. Have an amazing day.

Eugenia: You too, my dear.

Julia: Bye.

Eugenia: Bye-bye.

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Some of the best Knoxville football talk comes from Fan Run Radio and LO is one of the hosts.

_LowRain_ on instagram and twitter, LO is a local PT and avid Vols supporter.

Join her on Overtime radio with Jake Miller weeknights from 6-8PM, https://fanrunradio.com/overtime-d-team-6-8pm/.

LO is one of the top followed females in the Knoxville radio and sports talk arena and is setting the stage for young women to follow their passions and contribute to the sports world while maintaining some privacy and a career outside of the fun.

ConnectTheKnox with Julia Hurley, is all about connecting people inside of Knoxville with the world around them and to the nation. Follow TheJuliaHurley on https://www.instagram.com/TheJuliaHurley

You can find ConnectTheKnox on Spotify, Itunes, Youtube, and IheartRadio.

If you have a deep connection to Knoxville and want to share your connection, contact us on our website. www.ConnectTheKnox.com

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Derrick Furlow, Jr, former VOL football player dives into his new company, Sports Life Business and what his plans are to help atheletes access mental health, financial success and NIL deals that are best.

To connect with Derrick visit his website https://www.sportslifebusiness.com/ for more information and a FREE copy of his book, and for more information on how to help NIL athletes (and all athletes) get the help and success they deserve.

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Julia Hurley interviews national insurance owner and Citrus Bowl Scout, Bart Howell, who has made Knoxville hi home for life.