It was an ambitious idea, bringing the NCAA Division I football championship game to Chattanooga.
The city never had hosted such an event, and at the time former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic director Ed Farrell conceived of the idea, in 1995, the facility that was to host the game, Finley Stadium, wasn't even built.
"I don't really know that there was any bolt of lightning that lit me up," Farrell said of the idea to bid for the game. "I guess it just struck me as something we ought to try to do with the stadium. It was out there and I thought, why not us?"
After 13 years of hosting the game, Chattanooga now is having to fight to keep it. Chattanooga and Frisco, Texas, a Dallas suburb, are the two finalists to host the 2010-12 championships. They will make their presentations to the NCAA on Thursday in Indianapolis, and the NCAA is expected to announce its decision Friday.
Before its arrival in Chattanooga, the championship game was played at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. -- Marshall played in it four of the five years it was the host -- but the Thundering Herd were moving up to Division I-A (now called the Football Bowl Subdivision).
That left the game without a home and created an opportunity for Chattanooga. Farrell was on the board of the Greater Chattanooga Sports & Events Committee and pitched the idea to his colleagues.
"There were people in that group that were ambitious about Chattanooga and the kind of city it was," he said. "I don't think it was a hard sell at all, really."
After the Sports Committee decided that the game was worth pursuing, Farrell, Merrill Eckstein, Gordon Davenport and George Ross, then UTC's vice chancellor, flew to Huntington for the 1995 championship game.
Eckstein, who was president of the Sports Committee at the time and now is the Finley Stadium executive director, said they came back excited about the possibility of bringing the game to Chattanooga. In February 1996, local officials attended the NCAA Football Championship Committee's postseason meeting in Florida and made their presentation.
"We really went out on a limb concerning community support, because we were just convinced that the community would support the game, but really we had no evidence of it," said Rickie Pierce, vice president of the Stadium Corp. board, who made the trip.
Chattanooga was awarded the game -- there were no other bidders, Eckstein said -- but there were some stipulations since construction of Finley Stadium had not yet begun.
According to Eckstein, the NCAA said construction had to begin by the fall of 1996, the project had to be halfway finished by the beginning of April 1997 and UTC had to play at least one game in the stadium before the 1997 national championship game.
The stadium was completed on time, an announced crowd of 14,771 attended the first championship game (Youngstown State beat McNeese State 10-9) and the game has been a big event in Chattanooga ever since.
Asked if he feels a sense of pride every year when the game is played, Farrell, who resigned as athletic director in December 1996, had a low-key response.
"Quietly," he said softly. "Just quietly up here on Signal Mountain."
Farrell said he doesn't attend the game, but he follows it closely. He said he hopes the game remains in Chattanooga and that one day UTC will play for a national championship in its home stadium.
"Can you imagine the Mocs playing in the game here in Chattanooga?" he said, his voice rising. "I would make that one."