Wirt Gammon Jr., who has gone from sports writing to landscaping, is shown with his sister, Ann Weeks. Click to enlarge.
Wirt Gammon Jr. has gone from digging for a good sports story to digging in dirt.
During the warmer part of the year, the 72-year-old former sports writer with the Chattanooga Times works a few hours a week at the H&L Nursery on North Dayton Boulevard and volunteers one day a week at the Reflection Riding/Chattanooga Nature Center greenhouse.
He also still keeps his hand in sports as one of the official scorers at Chattanooga Lookouts’ baseball games.
Many Chattanoogans still vividly remember seeing his byline stories in the Times from the 1960s to the 1980s. His father, Wirt Gammon Sr., had worked as a sports writer or editor there from 1930 until the mid-1970s. He then continued writing a column once a week until shortly before his death in 1985.
“I grew up reading the sports page because my father had a column in there every day,” Mr. Gammon said.
As a youngster, he traveled with his father to occasional Tennessee football games, including the Orange Bowl loss to Rice in Miami after the 1946 season. He also went to the Lookouts’ spring training in Florida one year.
When the younger Mr. Gammon went to work for the Times in 1966, he initially covered and helped coordinate the coverage of high school sports. Then, in 1972, the Tennessee football beat became available. Jay Searcy, who was offered the position, preferred writing columns and did not want to be tied down to just one sport or team, he said.
So, Mr. Gammon became the UT football beat writer and held the position for 14 years. During that time, Coach Bill Battle’s teams began a slow, downward slide, forcing him to resign after the 1976 season. Former star tailback Johnny Majors was then hired, but he needed several seasons to get the program winning again consistently.
Among Mr. Gammon’s highlights of covering Tennessee was in 1982, when the Vols beat Alabama for the first time since 1970 and the students tore down the goal posts at Neyland Stadium.
“It was a wild celebration scene on the field,” he remembered. “He (Coach Majors) was so happy he finally got to beat ‘Bear’ Bryant. He looked like he was going to have a stroke.”
During his tenure, Mr. Gammon became acquainted with a number of the coaches and players. Joe Avezzano was on the staff of some of Johnny Majors’ early teams at Tennessee, and Mr. Gammon remembered seeing him later on television as a special teams coach with the Dallas Cowboys.
Mr. Gammon’s last game covering UT was one of the most memorable for Big Orange fans – the 35-7 upset victory over Miami in the Sugar Bowl after the 1985 season.
A short time later, he decided he was ready for a new challenge, so Mr. Gammon left the Times after 20 years.
In 1988, he went to work helping then County Commissioner Harold Coker in his difficult and unsuccessful challenge to unseat longtime Democratic Congresswoman Marilyn Lloyd.
Shortly after that, Mr. Gammon decided to take a horticulture course at Chattanooga State. After years of watching blossoming sports stars, he wanted to learn about blooming plants.
A few years later, he went to work for H&L Nursery and stayed there on pretty much a fulltime basis until retiring in August 2005. At the business’ request, he has since gone back and continued to help on a very limited basis in the greenhouse during the busy season.
The Red Bank resident also volunteers with several others a few hours on Tuesdays during the growing season repotting plants in the Reflection Riding greenhouse.
“The end product we are aiming at is getting the potted plants ready for the spring sale that raises money for Reflection Riding,” he said. “They make a fair amount of money. It is all native perennials.”
This year’s spring sale is April 13-15. A sale is also held in the fall.
Mr. Gammon said he is not a certified master gardener, but several knowledgeable people are on hand during the sales to answer buyers’ questions. Among them is Paola Craddock, the director of the Nature Center’s greenhouse and a former resident of Turin, Italy. He said that she is one of the most knowledgeable people regarding plants he has ever seen.
He has learned a little as well and has developed an appreciation for horticulture. “I have enjoyed seeing something grow and prosper after you have nurtured it a little bit,” he said. “And I enjoy the aesthetic quality of some of the blooms you run into.”
As far as sports are concerned, Mr. Gammon is still considered one of the local experts. About 10 years ago, he was asked by Lookouts’ radio announcer Larry Ward to become the official scorer at the Lookout games. Former Times sports writer Rick Goins had left, and the Lookouts were looking for someone to take his place.
Mr. Gammon agreed to try, but first told them he had to make sure he really knew the baseball rules. He is the one who decides if a batter had a hit or the team in the field made an error. He also determines whether a run is earned or not.
“You do your best not to favor one side over the other,” he said, adding that he is paid by the Southern League and not by the Lookouts.
The Lookouts play 70 home games a year, and Mr. Gammon scored all of their games for the first six years. Andy Paul, who had been a Lookouts’ pitcher in 1998, later began alternating with him.
Mr. Paul has a fulltime job as a pharmaceutical representative, so Mr. Gammon now usually does about 40-45 percent of the games, including the day games.
Besides his schedule, the venue has also changed since he started. In 2000, the Lookouts moved to BellSouth Park from Engel Stadium. According to Mr. Gammon, that was an adjustment.
“Now that I am accustomed to it, I like it fine,” he said. “But at first I didn’t think anything could replace Engel Stadium.” He added that the Engel Stadium press box was more on top of home plate than in BellSouth Park.
“I understand the reason (owner) Frank Burke had to build another stadium,” he said. “The upkeep on the plumbing and the electrical wiring was astronomical. And it had totally inadequate cooking facilities to do the cooking for the luxury boxes.”
From luxury boxes to perennial plants for window boxes, Mr. Gammon has seen it all in his multi-faceted career.