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Jim Freeman is a WVLT Volunteer TV News anchor and reporter.
Thank you for taking a second to read up on me, and extra thanks to you for watching WVLT!
Our viewer numbers continue to grow, and we greatly appreciate you helping us move right on up the ratings ladder.
Now I wasn’t born in Knoxville, but I got here as soon as I could. My family was in Washington, D.C., when I came into the world (about a hundred years ago), and we moved back home to Fountain City when I was just a pup. I spent a lot of time between Campus Lane and Gainesborough Drive as well as with Mamaw and Papaw Leinart in Dutch Valley in Anderson County. Dad moved his practice to La Follette when I was about school age. La Follette and Knoxville have pretty much doubled as my home over the years.
Just because I’m new to WVLT don’t start thinking I don’t know #16 the Swap Rat or #31 the Crossville Comet or the quarterback that wore jersey #7 and is nicknamed Peanut. I was sitting in Section TT in 1968 when the Vols played Georgia to that 17-17 tie in the first game played on artificial surface at Neyland Stadium. My Christmas gift in 1970 was a ticket to the Sugar Bowl! Yep, when Bobby Scott, who was named Sugar Bowl MVP and UT spanked the Air Force Falcons on New Year’s Day, I had the pleasure of taking that one in at the old Tulane Stadium. Oh, I was there for the first game under lights at Neyland Stadium, too, when Jo Pa and the Nittany Lions lost to the Vols in 1972. And I almost decided not to go, but I did, to the 1982 Alabama game when we broke the Tide’s string of wins over us in what was Bear Bryant’s last time coaching against Tennessee. Lucky me was also in attendance when Pete Maravich missed last-second free throws and the Vol Freshman team beat previously undefeated LSU. Then Ron Widby broke the single-game scoring mark with 50 points in the varsity game later that night as the Vols ran away with the win in March 1967. Enough of that, but maybe I did stir a few memories for a baby boomer like me.
And, yes, I am related to Matt Leinart of Heisman Trophy, NCAA National Championship and NFL fame. We are double-cousins. My great-grandfather and Matt’s great-great-grandfather were brothers (Charlie and Henry Leinart). They married the Dunkin sisters (Charlie and Della then Henry and Etta) and all four of them are buried over on the family farm in Dutch Valley.
As I close in on 40-years in the business, my broadcasting career began at the ripe old age of 14, and being on the radio playing music and doing sports was where I wanted to be. Radio stops for me include my start at WLAF in La Follette, then Oak Ridge, Knoxville, Louisville, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Dayton. For a total of ten years, I had the pleasure of broadcasting college football, basketball and baseball radio play-by-play for Carson-Newman, Miami University and Tulane University.
Television was also part of my Carson-Newman and Tulane duties, and that’s when I decided I might like a switch from radio to full-time TV and did in 2003. After three years at WVLT’s sister station, WYMT in Hazard, Kentucky, I was invited onboard here at WVLT AND was able to move back home. And boy, am I glad to be back in Big Orange Country (the phrase coined by Coach Ray Mears) and even more thrilled to be a part of the All-Vol team at WVLT.
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