UTC men's basketball coach Will Wade directs players during the Mocs' SoCon basketball game against the UNCG Spartans on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, at McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga, Tenn.As we prepare to leave 2015 behind, a few points seem irrefutable. From the what-you'd-like-to-take-back department, nothing can probably top entertainer Steve Harvey's gaffe in announcing the wrong Miss Universe winner last weekend. That Harvey then misspelled the names of the countries the two women represented - Colombia and the Philippines - in his Twitter apology only made the problem worse.
On the flip side, the Best Athlete department - at least as long as you're willing to concede that an athlete can be a horse - has to be American Pharoah's run to the first Triple Crown in 37 years, plus his victory in the $5 Breeders' Cup Classic on Halloween at Keeneland. The horse's reward for such a history-making year? He gets to retire from the track at the ripe young age of 3, then earn his owners a whopping $200,000 per at stud. You know anyone who can top that? Anyone? Anywhere?
But for those of us in the Tennessee Valley, looking back on the best and worst of 2015 would seem to signal a pretty good year, though it's hard not to look back without getting a sense that 2016 is going to be even better. Either way, taking a month-by-month glance back, here's one sports writer's view of 2015:
' January: The Big Orange Nation's hopes for the 2015 football season were lifted sky-high by the Volunteers' 45-28 victory over Iowa in the Taxslayer.com Bowl on Jan. 2. Who knew then that Iowa would not lose again until the final seconds of the Big Ten title game and the Vols would finish 8-4, those four defeats coming by a total of 17 points?
Ohio State won the innaugural College Football Playoff after surprising Alabama in the semifinals.
Former UT basketball coach Bruce Pearl ended the month by bringing his first Auburn team to Knoxville. Said Pearl before that 71-63 loss: "For those who do not know me, I can get watery. This will be the hardest return. Playing on Pat's (Summitt) court. That will be hard."
Afterward, he said of his six NCAA trips in six seasons on the Big Orange sideline: "A very special time in college basketball history."
' February: The accusations actually began in January, just after the New England Patriots routed the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game. But when the Super Bowl arrived on Feb. 1, the storyline centered on Deflategate and whether the Patriots illegally altered the inflation level of the footballs in their victory over the Colts. Though the case may drag on in the courts for one final appeal by the NFL, the Pats' 28-24 victory on the field against the Seattle Seahawks pretty much cemented quarterback Tom Brady's legacy as one of the greatest QBs in the history of the game now that he owns four Super Bowl wins.
Closer to home, UTC's decision to drop men's track - despite the fact the team led the nation in grade point average - created an understandable firestorm within the Scenic City running community and among those who believe the "student" portion of student-athlete again was ignored.
* March: Tennessee fired men's basketball coach Donnie Tyndall after one season for NCAA wrongs he committed at Southern Miss. Will Wade's men's Mocs suffered a stunning, season-ending loss to Furman in their opening Southern Conference tourney game and Jim Foster's women's Mocs capped off a storybook season with a head-scratching NCAA tourney loss to Pitt inside Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville.
* April: Wade, we hardly knew ye. Just two years after replacing John Shulman at UTC, and having failed to win a single postseason game, Wade left the Mocs for Virgina Commonwealth, where he had been a Rams assistant before coming to the Scenic City.
Florida assistant Matt McCall would soon replace Wade at UTC and former Texas coach Rick Barnes replaced Tyndall at UT. The common thread in all those moves? VCU coach Shaka Smart replaced Barnes at Texas, opening the door for Wade at VCU and Barnes to trade one UT orange wardrobe for another.
* May: American Pharoah began his historic assault on thoroughbred racing by winning both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
Far closer to home, a TSSAA baseball playoff game between Copper Basin and Grace Academy brought out the best in the human condition. Knowing that 15-year-old Basin outfielder Ben Key was at T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital at Erlanger fighting a rare form of cancer, the players for both schools donned No. 2 jerseys - the number worn by Key - during the game.
We also said a bittersweet goodbye to the U.S. Pro Cycling Championship, which announced after a very successful three-year run in Chattanooga that it would be moving to Asheville, N.C.
* June: American Pharoah completed his Triple Crown with a win in the Belmont, and the Golden State Warriors shocked basketball purists by successfully bombing 3-pointers from all points on the court - particularly whenever launched off the magic fingers of former Davidson star Steph Curry - to knock off LeBron James and the battered Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
In our town, fitness guru James Lawrence, a.k.a. The Iron Cowboy, completed his 18th triathlon in 18 days in 18 states on his way to successfully doing 50 in 50 states over 50 days to bring awareness to childhood obesity.
* July: As horrible as the July 16 terrorist attack was for everyone in this city and the five families of the five military victims, the Chattanooga Football Club's South Region semifinal win over Miami two days later at Finley Stadium was both heartwarming and healing, especially during the singing of the national anthem.
Said opera singer Caitlin Hammon Moore after perfectly delivering the anthem to an emotional crowd of 6,143: "(The anthem) was a lot more poignant after all that's gone on here the last couple of days. It was a little hard to sing. I definitely wasn't looking at the flag."
Hixson resident and McCallie School grad Sean Ryan qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro by finishing fourth in an international 10,000-meter open-water swim.
* August: Four words - Women's World Cup champs. That's who brought a standing-room-only crowd to Finley on Aug. 19 to watch the U.S. women's soccer team blast Costa Rica in an exhibition match delayed two hours by thunderstorms. A couple of months later, US Soccer announced that the online auctioning of jerseys worn by the U.S. team in that contest had raised more than $60,000 for the Chattanooga Heroes Fund to benefit the families of those servicemen killed in the July terrorist attack.
* September: Eleven straight losses to Florida. That's what Tennessee football fans are likely to painfully remember about the first month of the football season. Ahead by 13 inside of five minutes, having forced the Gators into a fourth-and-14 with 1:29 to play while still leading by six, UT watched Florida score on a 63-yard catch-and-run that made the Gators 28-27 winners.
"Well, what can I say?" UT coach Butch Jones noted after the loss. "I feel awful for our fans; I feel awful for our players."
* October: On a Halloween afternoon at Keeneland, American Pharoah crushed the field in the Breeder's Cup Classic, then retired to stud. A few miles away at Commonwealth Stadium, the Tennessee football team spotted Kentucky a 7-0 lead, then trounced the Wildcats 52-21. The Vols would not lose again in 2015.
* November: Any mention of high school football in Chattanooga in 2015 must begin with East Ridge, which won its first 12 games despite the home side of the school's Raymond James Stadium being condemned at the start of the year. In an irony of sorts, Notre Dame ended the Pioneers' run in the quarterfinals at Finley Stadium. The Irish, it turned out, often played home games at East Ridge before their home stadium was completed.
The month also saw Mark Richt's tenure at Georgia come to an end despite a 9-3 record. Richt's alma mater, Miami, made sure his unemployment was short-lived.
* December: Alabama won the SEC title game over Florida to move into the College Football Playoffs opposite Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Eve.
On that same sunny Saturday, UTC lost a overtime heartbreaker to Jacksonville State in the second round of the FCS playoffs. Given that the Gamecocks' next two playoff victories have come by a combined 72 points, if they can defeat North Dakota State in the title game on Jan. 9, the Mocs probably deserve consideration for being the second best FCS team in the land.
On the hoops circuit, new UTC coach McCall guided the Mocs to huge road wins over Georgia, Illinois and Dayton - snapping the Flyers' 26-game home winning streak - before Santa slogged his way through a soggy East Tennessee sky.
Was it a great sports year? Perhaps not. But it could lead to both the men and women Mocs reaching their respective NCAA basketball tournaments in 2016, along with UT football challenging for the SEC East title and the Mocs football program gunning for at least a share of a fourth straight SoCon crown.
But should they come up short, perhaps Steve Harvey can hand them the trophy anyway, a picture always being more powerful than a thousand words in the years to come for those who weren't there to dispute it.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com