The CheckerBoard

Climer is a UT grad, as I recall. He is not pro-Vandy. He isnt't pro-anyone. In person he is sort of a frowny-face with an I-smell-ish attitude.

His two contributions to UT literature are the phrases "showed their Big Orange backsides" and "tempest in a UT pot." He overused these clever gems to the point people began to ridicule him for it.

Think he used to cover the Vols on a regular basis in the late 80s and early 90s. He and a couple others (maybe Biddle? Maybe Mo Patton?) would drive over from Nashville a few days each week. Eventually the Tennessean hired a UT beat writer that was based in Knoxville.

lol, when you put it like that, yea i guess. i was just curious about him

Lessee, Kevin. Larry Woody, maybe? Larry Taft was there, but did more High School stuff, IIRC. Seems like Dwight Lewis wrote some UT stuff from time to time. Probably others that I can't recall.

Climer isn't anti-UT. He doesn't have an axe to grind. He's just a columnist doing his job. Everybody in basically every major sports city thinks the sports columnists for the local paper are out to embarrass the home team, for some reason. But that's probably not true the vast majority of the time, and it's certainly not true with Climer, I can assure you.

The Vols may make for an easy target right now, but he's just doing his job, and he definitely has teed off plenty on Vanderbilt, the Titans and others over the years.

i've been a UT fan for over 40yrs. and until 11 months ago the tennesseean was were i got almost all of myUT info. climer is the reason i got myself a computer and found 247. i know that may sound crazy but i sware that it's true. i got tired of his bull.
GO BIG ORANGE!!!

When I covered the Vols for an international wire service, the Tennessean beat writer was a salty old dog named F.M. Williams. He was a nice guy one you got to know him. Also knew Dwight Lewis -- havent heard his name in years.

I don't think anyone wants a homer, just an objective writer. I disagree that a beat writer or professional journalist is a paid critic, they are expected provide objective information to the population they serve.

Respect your opinion, Ryno, but I disagree. Been reading ol' Dave Climer for at least 30 years and he's consistently been pessimistic on UT. Now, I don't know that it's UT in particular - may well be that he likes to be negative towards pretty much everybody he covers, to some extent. There are some writers who work this route to stir up some interest - sort of a old-school, quaint precursor to today's shock jocks.

For what it's worth, there's not a single other writer I've ever thought this about, covering any team, ever. I'm not predisposed to this kind of thought at all. But, I doubt that I missed 5 of his articles concerning UT over a 25 year period (like many, I sort of quit the 'newspaper' about 5 years ago), so I feel like I've done enough homework to have a good opinion. There were many other UT writers for the Tennessean and Banner over the years and I never thought it about any of them.

Fair is fair, though. He and I did agree on two point conversion strategy and exchanged a few emails about such back in the 90's. He's solid on that front.

PC

Well, now we're getting right down to it. A guy who'd 'whine about free beer' will pretty much complain about anything.

Is only natural that his writing would have an negative bent to it and I think that it does.

Constant negativity in a journalist whether commentator or beat writer is intellectual laziness. They don't have to be cheerleaders but they do need to have an imagination at least as big as their ego's. I can name on one hand the sports journalists I respect. JMO