Mark Wiedmer started work at the Chattanooga News-Free Press on Valentine's Day of 1983. At the time, he had to get an advance from his boss to buy a Valentine gift for his wife. Mark was hired as a graphic artist but quickly moved to sports, where he oversaw prep football for a time, won the "Pick' em" box in 1985 and took over the UTC basketball beat the following year. By 1990, he was the newspaper's lead sports columnist, a title he still holds today after a couple of Tennessee Sports Writer of the Year awards and a box full of other honors. He joined the staff of the Chattanooga Times Free Press when the Free Press and Times merged in 1999. Mark hails from Hopkinsville, Ky., and graduated from Centre College. Contact Mark at 423-757-6273. or mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.
The words came from Atlanta Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos during a weekend interview with MLB.com.
by Mark WiedmerEverything's relative. Pressure to win a summertime youth tennis tournament isn't exactly up there with pressure to feed your family or create a vaccine to combat a deadly virus.
by Mark WiedmerAccording to the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Educational Foundation, University of Tennessee redshirt senior Hendon Hooker is one of the best quarterbacks in college football, even if he has yet to take a snap for the Volunteers.
by Mark WiedmerMaybe it was the full moon occasionally shining through the numerous clouds.
by Mark WiedmerIt was probably always a long shot, this notion of a 34-year-old Tim Tebow returning to the National Football League at a position (tight end) he'd never played before.
by Mark WiedmerA sweltering sun baking the plastic grass of Scrappy Moore Field late Saturday morning, UTC football coach Rusty Wright sat in a rare spot of shade, grinning over the activity taking place before his eyes.
by Mark WiedmerEven being the best at what you do can have its wake-up calls.
by Mark WiedmerAccording to 65 college football coaches blessed with varying degrees of skill as a soothsayer, the University of Alabama - which just also happens to be the sport's defending national champion - deserves to be ranked No. 1 in the preseason Coaches Poll.
by Mark WiedmerIt was early August, 1998.
by Mark WiedmerFormer University of Tennessee and NFL quarterback Peyton Manning's greatness goes far beyond the football field, and Chattanooga has benefited from his charitable nature on multiple occasions.
by Mark WiedmerIf this four-man University of Tennessee quarterback competition that's about to begin was being decided by a video game, redshirt sophomore Brian Maurer is pretty sure he knows who would win.
by Mark WiedmerIt should have been different. After all, this was Hank Aaron Weekend at Truist Park, the Atlanta Braves honoring the greatest player in their history a few months after his death.
by Mark WiedmerHope. Isn't that what the start of every sports season brings us, especially football?
by Mark WiedmerThe pain in former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfing great Derek Rende's voice late Tuesday afternoon was obvious, yet sadly familiar.
by Mark WiedmerCheck the roster of the 2016 United State's men's basketball team that won Olympic gold and you'll find such names as Kevin Durant, Jimmy Butler, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and Paul George, All-Pros all.
by Mark WiedmerForty-two years.
by Mark WiedmerChange is almost always hard. Yours truly is still coming to grips with the fact that the Earth is apparently round instead of flat. It's so much more comfortable for some of us when everything stays the same.
by Mark WiedmerIt's easy to grow cynical about the future of big-time college athletics, especially Power Five conference football and men's basketball.
by Mark WiedmerIt was the summer of 1974. Beverly Narrimore had just graduated from Hixson High School and was working in her parents' bait and tackle shop, selling worms, when she got a phone call from Grace Keith.
by Mark WiedmerIs everybody still so sure we have this vicious virus where we want it? Is no one concerned those bold predictions of full football stadiums this fall and packed college basketball arenas next winter may yet come a cropper?
by Mark Wiedmer