The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame is hosting a celebration of Gus Manning’s 65 years of sports history with a dinner and roast on August 11, 2016 beginning at 6:00 p.m. at Bearden Banquet Hall on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tenn.
Manning, who is the longest serving board member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, started his athletic career in 1951 when he was hired by Tennessee’s first Athletic Director, General Robert Neyland. Over the six decades Gus held most of the University of Tennessee’s athletic department administration positions serving athletic directors General Robert Neyland, Bob Woodruff, Doug Dickey, Mike Hamilton, Joan Cronan and Dave Hart.
Manning has been honored as an inductee of three Halls of Fame including the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1994. Others are the TSSAA Football Officials Hall of Fame and the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame. In 1989 Gus was named Business Manager of the Year by the College Athletic Business Managers Association. He also served as president of the Southeastern Conference sports information directors and later as president of the SEC business managers.
For the past 56 years, Gus has been associated with radio station WIVK with his Vol Sports Reports, both football and basketball and serving as co-host on WIVK for 49 years with Haywood Harris on the Locker Room, the longest continuous running radio sports program in the nation. Since Haywood death in 2010, Bud Ford has served with Gus in Locker Room production which will enter its 56th season this fall.
Manning and his late friend Haywood Harris also have co-written two books ; Six Seasons Remembered: The National Championship Years of Tennessee Football and Once a Vol, Always a Vol! The Proud Men of the Volunteer Nation.
At 93 years young, Gus is a virtual encyclopedia sports history across the state of Tennessee as well as the nation.
To make your reservations for this memorial night please contact Lynn Powell Toy (615)202-3996 or lynnpowelltoy@gmail.com . Tickets are $45.00 a person. $100.00 for a half page congratulatory ad in the tribute program. Ad deadline is July 18, 2016.