Chattanooga-(WDEF-TV) With News 12 celebrating our 70th anniversary this month, we thought we would celebrate with former News 12 Sports Director Randy Smith.
He started here in 1978 and enjoyed a ten year run.
Doing local TV sports back then was a far cry from what it’s like today.

Reporter:”How many plaid jackets do you own?”
Said Smith:”(laughs) I belong to a couple. You know when you see the movie Ron Burgandy. That’s right. That’s the way everybody looked. Limit the long hair and the side burns. The weather guy smokes a pipe and all that kind of stuff.”
And there’s the sports guy, banging out scripts on a typewriter.
But the typewriter wasn’t even close to being the oldest relic Randy used during his early days at News 12.
Said Smith:”The first thing I ever shot was on a silent film camera. 16 millimeters. I didn’t even know how to cut the film when I got it shot. We would stand up on the roof of Engel Stadium and shoot the games with our silent film cameras. There’s just something about Engel Stadium that still captivates me when I drive there.”
And if Randy had a captivating story, he could literally cash in.
Said Smith:”I remember being able to come up with some stories that I sold the network. Got like a $175 a package for it.”
While it was easy to sell a story, it was a challenge actually getting the story back to the station.
Said Smith:”We did some stories when UTC played in the NCAA Tournament in Atlanta. Played Oklahoma the first round of the tournament. All the pre-tournament game stuff we shot it, and we paid a cab driver to drive it from Atlanta to Chattanooga to get it on the air.”
Randy also broadcast Mocs basketball games that were televised on News 12.
He enjoyed a special night in March, covering UTC in the NCAA tournament.
Said Smith:”In 1982 we were in Indianapolis, and the Mocs beat North Carolina State. The same night that Tennessee knocked off Virginia when Virginia had Ralph Sampson. We beat’em on the same floor. Tennessee and UTC. You talk about Rocky Top being played a lot that night. It was. My time at Channel 12 was special. It really was. It really kicked off a lot of things for my career.”