Mark Wiedmer

If you're like me, you may have often begun to feel as if you're NBA superstar Chris Paul in those television commercials with Jake of State Farm. Something's always about to go wrong. Disappointment is always just around the corner. Our lives are now always half-empty, if not three-quarters so.

Sometime this afternoon, the 12-member Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Board of Control will gather at Murfreesboro's Siegel High School to hear an eligibility appeal from a South Pittsburg High School student who the TSSAA banned a week ago from all athletic competition at the school for a full year for what was termed an "improper benefit."

Take undefeated and overall No. 1 seed Gonzaga out of the mix, and every team in college basketball has been up and down for one reason or another this season.

For all that is slowly being regained, so much more has been lost the past 12 months, including whatever your normal was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adam Dukes wasn't searching for a new documentary film project the first time he attended a Chattanooga Football Club game at Finley Stadium several years ago.

Last year, the pandemic wiped out the NCAA tournament. March Madness will soon return, but the coronavirus could very well have an impact on the 68-team event's outcome.

With the federal government about to write $1.9 trillion worth of checks, perhaps discovering the University of Tennessee football program is going to pay one Kevin Steele close to $900,000 NOT TO WORK isn't that big a deal.

The story first appeared on CNN's website Tuesday morning.

When the University of Kentucky visits Ole Miss tonight for a 9 p.m. Southeastern Conference basketball game on ESPN, the Wildcats will do so as college hoops' all-time winningest team.

They were everywhere Sunday afternoon at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession, all these PGA Tour golfers dressed in red shirts and black pants.

There was no blueprint for any of this.

Another day, another downer.

The words rolling off Tennessee men's basketball coach Rick Barnes' lips on Saturday afternoon weren't exactly string music to citizens of the Big Orange Nation.

Thursday's icy dawn surrendering little of its bite later in the day, local women's basketball treasure Grace Keith was mustering scant enthusiasm to attend that night's epic clash between second-ranked South Carolina and the No. 21 Tennessee Lady Volunteers in Knoxville.

The beauty and beast of the Southern Conference men's and women's basketball tournaments has always been that only the winner is assured of a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Let's take the high road here.

Lorraine Potter was the most loyal and passionate coach's wife and mother imaginable, and McCallie football players were among those who benefited from such devotion.

Meigs County senior offensive lineman Malachi Hayden thought he was doing all the right things last summer and fall to land a college scholarship from a Football Championship Subdivision program.

My esteemed colleague Jay Greeson first broached the idea in his Tuesday morning "Five at 10" internet column for this paper.

Will the real University of Tennessee men's basketball team please stand up?