Tennessee
Nic Moore talks Tennessee offer and more
Jefferson County lineman Nic Moore picked up an offer from Tennessee on Friday after Glen Elarbee stopped by to check on the talented interior offensive lineman. It’s been a recruitment that has gotten more and more traction.
“I think the recruiting process has been coming in waves,” Moore said. “It’s been ups and downs. There have been periods where I get talked to by lots of coaches and there are low periods where I’m working on my own. Overall I think I’ve gotten recruited by a lot of great schools so I believe the recruiting process has gone very well for me.”
Moore got the offer he has been looking for as Elarbee delivered the good news.
“When coach Elarbee and I were talking, it was a more relaxed vibe,” Moore said. “He is a really chill guy and we were just talking about our lives and stuff like that. When I got the offer it was a great feeling because the team right down the road believes in me to offer me a scholarship to play at the University of Tennessee so it was a really great feeling.”
His dad played ball at Jefferson County. He has grown up in the area and Tennessee football is a big deal in the state.
“It’s meant a lot,” Moore said. “In this area where I live, everyone is Tennessee fans. Game day is one or the biggest things, even if we aren’t down in Knoxville. I feel like the University of Tennessee has always been part of the East Tennessee culture for me.”
So what do schools like about him? What would a school get in him?
“I feel like even though I’m an undersized athlete, I bring leverage,” Moore said. “When I’m going against 6-foot-4 and 5 guys, I’m obviously closer to their shoulder pads than their shoulders. I’m more close to their chest plate so I feel like I bring good leverage to the table. I believe my speed is elite for an offensive lineman. I feel like my improvement is constant. I’m always working and even if my career is going perfect I’m still striving to find ways to improve.”
Moore doesn’t have an official visit set up yet but is working on getting one set up with Elarbee.
“We are planning on going up there this summer and seeing it from a closer standpoint,” Moore said. “It’s something I’m looking forward to doing. We just have to get a date locked in.”
Moore will leave next week for the state track championship in Murfreesboro where he will compete in the shotput. After that he will take visits like one to Clemson at the end of the month. He is looking for a school that fits him both on and off the field. 
“I’m looking for a school that fits my academic needs and can give me good job placement when football is over,” Moore said. “I’m looking for a team that hasn’t necessarily had the best season but for a team is improving and a place with good culture. A place that is like a family. I’m looking for more than a business transaction. Now and days the NIL is getting crazy and I’m wanting to go somewhere not for the money but because this is where I want to spend my four years and live afterwards.”
Former Tennessee baseball pitcher Garrett Stallings was called up by the Milwaukee Brewers on June 30.
Stallings, 28, likely will make his major league debut against the Cincinnati Reds on June 30 in the second game of the Brewers’ four-game homestand.
Stallings played at Tennessee from 2017 to 2019 in the early years of Tony Vitello’s stint at the Vols’ head coach. He earned a starting role as a freshman and became the ace by his junior season.
In 2019, the Los Angeles Angels selected Stallings in the fifth round of the MLB draft. He bounced around in the minors before landing firmly in Triple-A with the Norfolk Tides, and later the Brewers’ affiliate Nashville Sounds, in 2024.
Stallings posted a 3-3 record with the Sounds in 2026 with a 3.45 ERA and 59 strikeouts in 62⅔ innings.
He will be the 54th player in Tennessee history to reach the major leagues and the 12th since 2020. He will join left-hander Garrett Crochet (2020); right-hander Ben Joyce (2023); infielder Andre Lipcius (2023); IF Trey Lipscomb (2024); outfielder Jordan Beck (2024); RHP Seth Halvorsen (2024); RHP Chase Dollander (2025); RHP Blade Tidwell (2025); INF Christian Moore (2025); OF Drew Gilbert (2025); and RHP Chad Dallas (2026).
Dallas made his debut for the Toronto Blue Jays on June 4.
Wynton Jackson covers high school sports for Knox News. Email: wynton.jackson@knoxnews.com
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BELL BUCKLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The poet laureate of Tennessee has just died. Margaret Britton Vaughn was 87-years-old. Friends knew Vaughn as hilarious, talented, and deeply unique.
Visiting Bell Buckle, Tennessee over the years, I’ve just found this little place has so many artists. A proud addition to that is Vaughn.
“When Maggi was your friend, you knew you had a friend,” said longtime friend Annie Rooney. “It wasn’t if you’re rich or poor or have four matching tires on your car, she was your friend.”
Going way back, Vaughn was a songwriter for some country greats.
“Loretta Lynn, yes!” said friend Carla Webb.
To understand the uniqueness of Vaughn, listen to this story.
“Maggi says, ‘honey, you wanna go to the movies with me?’” friend Billy Phillips remembered.
Phillips was nine when he and Vaughn became friends and took a trip to the Carpi Theatre in Shelbyville.
“When I get into the car, there were 200 empty boxes of chocolate bunny rabbits!” Phillips laughed.
“She loved chocolate,” Rooney agreed.
“It couldn’t be hollow milk chocolate,” Phillips continued. “It had to be solid milk chocolate.”
That was just one of many loves. One of the times I got to talk to Vaughn was in 2023. She was selling eclectic things she’d collected. They included a typewriter built out of clothes hangers and a lamp made of forks and spoons.
“Maggi had a lot of stuff!” Phillips said.
She’d call around to antique shops.
“Got anything that looks like me, honey?” Rooney laughed, remembering Vaughn’s calls.
Talking to Vaughn, you came to understand something. She had a deep appreciation for the art and the artist who made it. That’s something that sprang from Vaughn being an artist herself.
“My mother looked down and said, ‘are you sure you don’t want to be a nurse?’” Vaughn told me in 2023. “I said, ‘no, momma. I wanna be a songwriter and a poet.’ People say, ‘Maggi, these books. You’ve written my life.’”
“Maggi had front porch books, not coffee table books,” Webb said.
“She was a poet of the people,” Rooney continued.
Vaughn took on prejudice in her work. She also wrote about all things she loved.
“She covered rural life, southern things,” Phillips said.
That writing carried her to become the poet laureate of Tennessee in 1995. The next year, she wrote Tennessee’s bicentennial poem.
“I gave her her last kiss the other day,” Webb said.
“I’m on the verge of tears,” Phillips added. “This will be a real gut punch.”
Asking around town, people seemed to agree on their favorite of Vaughn’s works.
“Is That You Mama?” Phillips said, naming one of Vaughn’s poems.
Webb read me an excerpt of the poem. It ended with these lines;
“Well, mama, I’m okay now. You tell the Lord I said hi. Was that you, mama, that just kissed me bye?”
“Maggi was a true original, and Bell Buckle was proud to call her our own,” Phillips said.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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