Randy Smith: Bill Nash Would Have Loved This Past Weekend

  • Tuesday, February 21, 2017
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith
It was really great to be in attendance at McKenzie Arena last Saturday evening. My wife and I decided to forego a quick trip to the beach to go watch the Mocs play ETSU as well as pay homage to the 1977 NCAA Division II National Champs. Seven of the Mocs who played on that squad were there along with trainers, managers and, of course, head coach Ron Shumate. However, It was someone who wasn't there whom I thought about a lot all weekend.

Long time "Voice of the Mocs" Bill Nash, who passed away in 1998, would have absolutely loved to have been part of that reunion.
Due to contract changes concerning radio rights that occurred in 1976, Nash was no longer the announcer for the Mocs, but when they won the National Championship he was still courtside with the team. In fact, he still sat on the bench......right next to Coach Shumate. He sat next to Shumate for every game, home and away all season long. He always felt that Shumate needed him there, and if you ask Coach Shumate about that relationship, he will readily agree.

You see, when the song "Rocky Top" was first heard as the theme song or fight song if you will for the Mocs , it had not been used in Knoxville at Tennessee yet as an official fight song......one that is considered to be the best in college sports today. It was used in Chattanooga and it was Bill Nash who first brought it up to Coach Shumate. The Mocs had been to the NCAA D-II finals the year before and lost. So when Nash mentioned to Shumate that his team should try to climb back up to "Rocky Top" for another drink of that "wonderful water" Shumate agreed and a legend was born. "Rocky Top", a bluegrass song written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and performed by the Osborne Brothers, became UTC's unofficial fight song. It wasn't until a few years later that both Tennessee and UTC adopted the song, which was finally dropped by UTC. 

When the seven former players who were able to be there along with Coach Shumate sat and told stories over the weekend, I imagine a lot of Bill Nash stories were told. Nash was one of the more colorful characters in Chattanooga media history. But make no mistake.... he was also one of the most important people in the early development of what we know today as "Mocs" Basketball. No matter what coaches Murray Arnold, Mack McCarthy, Henry Dickerson, John Shulman, Will Wade and now Matt McCall have done as head coaches, early success was all started by Ron Shumate; who always had Bill Nash by his side.  

Bill Nash, who was nicknamed, "Nasty", was a real marketing genius. That's why his career in radio was so successful, and it carried over to the early marketing development of UTC athletics. Nash was as important as anyone to Coach Ron Shumate's National Championship squad back in 1977. He laid the groundwork with his twenty-two seasons of Mocs play-by-play, then when he was no longer allowed to broadcast the games, he took over as chief caretaker for Coach Shumate; sitting beside him during the entire 1976-77 season. As we remember the great work and contributions of that 1977 squad, we should also fondly remember the great Bill Nash who was quietly present for it all, forty years ago.
* * *

Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer.  His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for 30 years. He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga television for more than a quarter-century. In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith. They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.

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