Randy Smith
The 2015 class of the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame will be inducted tonight at the Trade Center and among the inductees is Paul Jackson "Skip" Viall in the media category. Since the new inductees were announced several weeks ago, I've heard this same question asked over and over again; "Who is Skip Viall?" Some even suggested the HOF committee didn't do their homework by electing someone that "no one" had ever heard of. This is hardly the case.
Paul Jackson Viall has been on the nominating list for a couple of years.
He was finally elected this year and will join the Hall of Fame class posthumously as he died in 1990. That's very likely the reason few people have ever heard of him. He was killed in a plane crash twenty-five years ago at the age of 37. He had been with WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina from 1977 until his death in 1990, and twice won South Carolina Sportscaster of the Year honors. He was one of the most well-known and respected sports reporters and anchors in the south, but he grew up in Chattanooga and started his career here.
I met "Skip" Viall in college at MTSU in 1974. He was a year younger than me, and while I was working on the Blue Raider Radio Network, he was working a student job in the sports information office. We became good friends and when I came to Chattanooga and started working full time at WDXB radio in 1975, I hired him to do high school football games with me. In 1976, I used what little influence I had to get him a job at WDEF radio as a copywriter and part time sports reporter. He spent two years as an assistant to the late Ernie Feagans on the "Hold That Line" scoreboard shows on WDEF. He was offered a job in television at WSPA in 1977 and had a great, though too brief career.
"Skip" was a very talented individual as very, very few people could have made the transition from radio sports reporter in Chattanooga, Tennessee to a weekend sports anchor position in the 37th largest TV market. He did and succeeded very well.
So if you are one of the ones asking "Who is Skip Viall?" take my word for it; he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The HOF committee has done a wonderful job looking at biographies and resumes for years and of the 22 people to be honored tonight, every single one of them is deserving of the honor.
Among the attendees this evening will be "Skip's" daughter, Elizabeth who will accept the award for her father. At the table with Elizabeth will be his sister and his mother as they will remember, as I do, the wonderful moments of his life. The pranks and practical jokes along with the sudden bursting out of Broadway show tunes made "Skip" who he was; a true Hall of Famer.
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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. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.
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 thirty 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 four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.