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'It's time': Watch Mike Keith's video introducing himself as Tennessee's new 'Voice of the Vols'

IMG_3593by:Grant Ramey•about 10 hours•

GrantRamey

Tennessee Football | Tennessee Athletics
Tennessee Football | Tennessee Athletics

Mike Keith’s dream of being the “Voice of the Vols” at the University of Tennessee dates back 50 years. More specifically, it dates back to a 7-year-old Keith sitting in the stands at Neyland Stadium —  in Section V, Row 15, Seat 21.

That’s where Keith started in a video posted on social media on Thursday, after he was officially named the new “Voice of the Vols,” hired by Tennessee and The Vol Network to replace the retiring Bob Kesling. 

“Where I sat when Stanley Morgan’s last-second touchdown changed my seven-year-old heart forever,” Keith said in the video. 

That was just the beginning, though. Keith traced traced his trips to Stokely Athletic Center for Tennessee Basketball, rushing Shields-Watkins Field at Neyland Stadium after a 1982 win over Alabama, dog piling on the infield at Lindsey Nelson Stadium after Tennessee Baseball clinched a College World Series berth and to The Vol Network booth, where he worked alongside the legendary John Ward.

“There were trips to Stokely to see the Ernie & Bernie Show,” Keith said the video. “Storming the field when Mike Terry closed the door on Alabama in ’82. In person at the ’86 Sugar Bowl, when Jeff Powell went roaring down the greensward. Going to work for John Ward. And experiencing more than 500 broadcasts with him, including standing right behind him on play number one. Packing them bags and heading to Omaha was great too.”

Keith spent the last 27 years in Nashville as the one and only voice of the Tennessee Titans, after the franchise moved from Houston to Memphis kin 1997 then to its new home in Nashville in 1998.

Keith described it as “leaving to find his own voice.”  

“Which led to 27 wonderful seasons in Nashville,” he said. “But then the call comes.”

‘The heart of that seven-year-old still beats loudly all those years later’

The call came after it was announced in November that Kesling would be retiring at the end of Tennessee’s basketball season, stepping away from the microphone after 25 years as just the third Voice of the Vols. 

He took over for Ward in 1999, after Ward retired following the 1998-99 basketball season, with Tennessee’s 1998 national championship football season being his last. 

Ward took over for George Mooney in 1967, after Mooney succeeded Lindsey Nelson in 1952. 

“The heart of that seven-year-old still beats loudly all of those years later,” Keith said. “The memories come rushing back. No matter where you go or what you do, it never leaves you. Tennessee never leaves you. 

“(It’s) an amazing honor to be in the chair where four legends have worked. Time for the next moments to last a lifetime. It’s time.”

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