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Wes Rucker would have been the first person to bust my chops about taking a week and a half to write this tribute to him.
It took me that long to get a chance to organize my thoughts about Wes, who left us far too soon last month in a car accident in Knoxville. First, because my family was busy welcoming a new member; and second, because I struggled to put together words on Wes that would come off as something coherent, and not just aimless rambling.
Wes was an institution on the Tennessee beat. That showed in the number of tributes to his memory after his passing. Rick Barnes talked about Wes at a media availability the next day, and then again mentioned his family after his Vols beat Vanderbilt that weekend. The university’s athletic media relations staff left a seat open in his memory at Vol baseball home games, and for last Saturday’s home basketball game against Alabama.
I asked some colleagues to share if they had any thoughts on Wes and his passing.
Ron Higgins, who worked for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis when I was on the UT football beat, was a frequent visitor to Knoxville. He’s now a columnist for the Shreveport Bossier-Journal in his home state of Louisiana:
“I knew Wes mostly professionally. I admired his work because he was the essence of a true journalist. He was fair but didn’t pull any punches. The fact he was respected by the Tennessee coaches he covered speaks volumes about him as a writer and as a man who will be greatly missed.”
Chris Dortch, a longtime college basketball writer who covers the SEC for us here at I-81, wrote an entire tribute to Wes on Hoops HQ.
Wes and I first met when he was still in college and covering the Lady Vols basketball team as a stringer. We then both moved on to Tennessee football – me for the Kingsport Times-News, and Wes for the Chattanooga Times Free Press and then 247Sports.
I spent seven years on the football beat and Wes was there for all of them. We got along well. And it certainly did not hurt that we were both big Cubs fans. It’s tough covering a program like Tennessee from an hour and a half away. Not everyone who works that beat on a daily basis has respect for writers who only can come in once or twice a week. Wes never did that. In 2010, when he started an afternoon radio show, he was gracious enough to have me on each Monday following the weekly football press conference. I have good memories of going to that tiny building (which I am pretty sure is no longer standing) on Central Street downtown and getting to jaw about sports for a few hours, then head to the practice field that evening for another media availability before driving home.
That extra exposure certainly helped me more than it did his show. He didn’t have to do that; that was just the kind of person he was.
One memory of Wes stands out for me. It was the spring of 2008, when the SEC basketball tournament was going on in Atlanta and an EF2 tornado hit the city, doing direct damage to the Georgia Dome. I was watching from home (UT basketball was never in the budget at Kingsport, at least for me), and began texting people who I knew where there — Wes included. He was shocked that my message came through. He had been trying to let his people know he was OK but his smart phone would not connect for calls or texts. At the time, I was still a Luddite, using one of those Nokia flip phones that was made of solid metal and nigh indestructible and my little 3G phone that could had been able to reach him. He passed along the numbers for his family so I could let everyone know he was fine.
Like most people you get friendly with on a job, once I chose to leave the daily newspaper racket and go freelance, we fell out of contact. It had been several years since I had heard from him. I had shared my plan to leave the paper with him late in that 2010 football season — only one other person knew aside from my wife at that time. I don’t think it was ever the type of decision Wes would have made; he loved being on the Tennessee beat and having his finger on the pulse of Vols athletics. He was supportive, though. In the last conversation we had in person, he wished me luck because he knew that the move was something I wanted.
That was more than 15 years ago.
Despite the gap in contact — we traded a few Facebook messages and texts in subsequent years, but nothing for a long time — Wes’ death hit me hard. Part of that was the fact he was younger than I was, and that I knew he had a wife and a young son and another child on the way. Those who knows me well already are aware of this, but I lost both of my parents in a span of about eight months, between November of 2024 and July of 2025. It’s hard watching a loved one pass, even when you know it’s coming. It’s hard watching someone you love fight a disease for so long and just give out. It’s hard watching someone you love wither away and you know there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
I can’t imagine how hard it is to lose someone as suddenly as Wes’ family lost him.
Another reason Wes’ death struck me is that, less than 24 hours before I found out, my daughter gave birth to her son. The juxtaposition between the start of my grandson’s life and the sudden end to Wes’ shook me to my core. I encourage everyone who’s able to make a donation to the GoFundMe that has been established to help Wes’ immediate family through this difficult time.
In my dad’s final days, my daughter told him, “My kid’s going to know about you.”
Wes won’t have to worry about being forgotten. As we’ve seen from the outpouring of love and support since his sudden departure, there are plenty of people who will remember him and the type of person he was.