Sports
How love, Warriors basketball and poetry brought Tom Meschery back
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The poet has been upstairs in his office, tapping at the keyboard on various projects. Most of his mornings begin this way … so much work to do. Some days he tends to his blog, and on other days he tidies up his memoir that is nearing publication. Or he may put the finishing touches on another of his mystery novels. And of course, his poetry. There is always his poetry.
Much of his poetry chronicles his remarkable life. He was born in Manchuria to Russian parents, and from ages 3 to 6 lived in a World War II internment camp in Tokyo. Just before he turned 7, he crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge. After moving to America, he later became an accomplished professional basketball player who did more than just start alongside Wilt Chamberlain. He was a 1963 NBA All-Star and the first player to have his number retired by the Golden State Warriors. He also was a failed bookstore owner, coached basketball everywhere from Portland, Ore., to Africa, and spent 24 years teaching high school English.
His eclectic path is made more fascinating in that at 85 he refuses to become idle and bask in the accomplishment of a life well lived. He says he is “obsessed” with being productive, which for him means writing. He has authored five books of poetry. Written two memoirs. Six novels. The majority of his literary work has come after he turned 70. He tries to explain the “why” behind his obsession but ultimately concedes that perhaps poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson put it best in Ulysses:
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life!
It’s that last line that particularly resonates with the poet, Tom Meschery. Just because you are breathing doesn’t mean you are living.
In 2005, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that has no cure. Doctors estimated he had five years to live. Now 19 years later, he is as prolific as ever, even as he sacrifices an afternoon to break from his computer and regale a visitor with stories. He credits medical science, and in particular the drug Revlimid, for keeping his cancer in remission. But he also feels something deeper, something more powerful has been behind his late-life renaissance: a love story. His love story.
He is not big on sentimentality, lest it come across as maudlin. However, he is a romantic and therefore acknowledges that his love story is more than just a poet falling for an artist. Like his poetry, which he says “seems to come out of nowhere,” she came from an online dating site and changed his life. Not only changed it but also played a role in saving it.
“I think love acted as a barrier to the cancer,” Meschery says. “It was like the door was closed. Maybe it wasn’t locked, but the love was holding onto the door and not letting the cancer in. And that kind of love changed my attitude toward living. I started spending all my time thinking about living, rather than dying.”
Melanie and Tom Meschery at their home in California. (Max Whittaker / For The Athletic)
When Tom Meschery received his cancer diagnosis in 2005, he was already in a bit of a spiral. He was newly divorced and had just retired from a teaching job he loved. Living in Truckee, Calif., a ski town on the outskirts of Lake Tahoe, he had become engulfed with loneliness. He was 68 and wrestling with his purpose in life. Now, faced with a diagnosis that sounded like a death sentence, he slipped into what he called a suicidal depression.
His spiral was palpable. After separate visits following their father’s diagnosis, his three children — Janai, Megan and Matthew — all left concerned.
“We were all really worried about him,” Matthew says. “Not just because of the cancer, but also the circumstances of him being alone up on the mountain, just going through that mostly by himself.”
The siblings remember comparing notes after visits. They all remarked how the house they grew up in — one filled with activity, laughter and lively discussion — had become so quiet.
“It was a house that was always filled with people, a very social place, and dad was always the one holding court,” Janai says. “And the contrast … was hard on all of us.”
By 2008, Meschery could no longer suppress his depression. With Matthew visiting, Meschery remembers halting the ironing of a shirt and blurting out to his son: I’m lonely.
Matthew made a suggestion.
Go online, Dad. Everybody does it.
So he put himself out there. The poet went on his first date.
“I wasn’t particularly impressed,” he sniffed.
His second foray on the dating site seemed improbable from the get-go. Her name was Melanie Marchant, and her profile picture was stunning. There is no way, he reasoned, that she is in her 60s; she looks 30. And it seemed too perfect that like he, she was creative, an accomplished painter located two hours away in Sacramento. For a month, they chatted online and on the phone. They talked about literature, cooking, her two children and his three.
On Valentine’s Day 2008, a first date was arranged at a Turkish restaurant in downtown Sacramento. As he hurried into the restaurant, late, she was waiting with the maitre d, toe-tapping in mock disgust. She playfully stuck her tongue out at him.
They exchanged cards. His card to her featured the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. The poem represented his vulnerability, his willingness to be open.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Her card for him? A Valentine left over from one of her grandchildren, featuring Batman. Almost two decades later, it still humors him.
After dinner, they went to her place. She says she had a surprise for him. As they went up the stairs, he became enraptured. Lining the walls of the staircase were religious icons. He was taken back to his youth and his Russian Orthodox roots. Then, the surprise: she had rented “Ratatouille” — the animated movie about a rat who has a nose for cooking — which played off their frequent conversations about recipes and cuisine.
“And that was it, babe. I was in love,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “As I drove back to the mountains that night, I knew this was going to be a lifetime relationship. I just knew that she and I were going to be together for the rest of our lives.”
One year after their first date, they were married.
She had been divorced for 30 years and says “if you go 30 years, you know when you find something.” They connected over their creative curiosities and their love of literature — she estimates in their first year of dating they spent between $2,000-$3,000 on books. And soon, she became his trusted editor. He figures she has edited 53,000 pages of his writing.
“I would go through his manuscripts and write “Booooooooring!” Melanie says chuckling. “But I think his writing is wonderful. I do worry when I ask him how he slept, and he says ‘Not well …’, because that means he has written another book in his head. He’s got three or four of them up there now.”
He says she has become his muse, but more accurately she has become somewhat of a life coach. She calls him Thomas and he calls her Mel, and they are constantly engaged in playful banter, trying to get the other to chuckle. One of her favorite pastimes is charting who she considers the most handsome players in the NBA (De’Aaron Fox, Steph Curry and Harrison Barnes top the current list).
However, she turns stern and blunt when it comes to his cancer. She is adamant that our bodies are not separate from our minds, and from the onset of their relationship, she has conditioned his mind to revel in the now rather than dread what could be ahead.
“When he told me he had cancer, I said, ‘Yeah? I know a lot of people who have cancer. When you are 70, people get cancer,’” Melanie says. “I don’t do drama. I don’t do sobbing. What I’m good at is, if there is a problem, it’s not a challenge. You just take it and solve it. And the man I met was so healthy and happy … he has cancer? Not today. That’s just how I felt.”
His mindset changed. He stopped thinking so much about the future and instead embraced what was in front of him. There was poetry to write, grandchildren to enjoy, dinners to be had and basketball games to watch.
“When I met Mel, I knew that I had found the love of my life,” Meschery says. “And from that point on, I became more positive about myself, about my cancer and about how long I would live. I just couldn’t whine about it with her, she wouldn’t stand it. She inspired me to just let it go, and trust my instincts.”
He is on a maintenance dose of Revlimid — 28 days on the drug, 10 days off — and every three months he has blood drawn to chart his cell count and presence of proteins. Every test since he has met Melanie has shown the cancer to be in remission.
“And we laugh about it: Another three months of putting up with me,” Meschery says. “It has become a much more casual conversation, almost like it’s not life-threatening anymore. And I think that was all her doing, which became my doing. It was like she passed on this belief system to me, and gave it to me as a gift.”
Tom Meschery has published over 100 poems about sports and is working to finish his memoir. (Max Whittaker / For The Athletic)
NBA players from the 1960s would chuckle at the idea of Meschery as a poet, trumpeting the powers of love. To them, he was the Mad Manchurian, a 6-foot-7 bear of a man who was known for his intensity and physicality, which sometimes morphed into rage. He played power forward, and after 778 career games — six seasons with the Warriors, who moved from Philly to San Francisco in 1962, and four with the Seattle SuperSonics — Meschery averaged 12.7 points and 8.6 rebounds. But as his nickname suggests, he was as known for his temperament as he was for his skill.
He once grabbed a chair during a game and chased Lakers center Darrall Imhoff into the stands. And he remembers fighting Philadelphia’s Chet Walker, and after both were ejected, charging at him in the back hallway.
He has yet to reconcile with the dichotomy between how he played and how he views himself. He addressed his unease in his last book of poetry, “Clear Path,” with the poem Rumors.
He writes of his wife on an airplane, and a passenger remarking to her that Meschery “was the meanest son of a b—- I’d ever seen play basketball.”
…there was my epitaph being written
at ten thousand feet above the earth
by a stranger who might have seen me play
or maybe not at all, and just heard from someone
else that I was mean. How rumors start. How unjust
a life can be, viewed through someone else’s eyes.
“It always shocked me that I often reacted so violently on the court,” Meschery says today. “I know in my heart I was not a violent man. But if you experience violence once in yourself, I think you are forever going to second guess the possibility that it is a part of your personality. And it can hang there for a lifetime. I can’t look in the mirror and see myself as a mean son of a b—-. But I know there was a part of me … and that poem was part of that reflection that I sensed, and regrettably so, that there is something in me that would allow anger to enter. And it’s not a good feeling.”
He also never bridged the barrier between him and his father, whom he loved but with whom he struggled to connect. His father wanted him to go into the military and never watched him play basketball, deeming it unworthy as a profession. He opened Meschery’s eyes to poetry, as he would recite poems in Russian at the dinner table, unafraid to weep. Meschery says one of the great regrets in his life is not arriving in time to say goodbye to his father before he died. In his first collection of poetry, “Nothing We Lose Can Be Replaced,” his piece entitled Tom Meschery is essentially a letter to his father, who once asked, ‘What kind of work is this for a man?’
Old immigrant, I admit all this
too late. You died before I could explain
newspapers call me a journeyman.
They write I roll up my sleeves
and go to work. They use words
like hammer and muscle to describe me
…father, you would have been proud of me:
I labored in the company of large men.
Meschery also recounted the night Chamberlain scored 100 points against the Knicks in 1962. Meschery started beside Chamberlain and played 40 minutes, amassing 16 points and seven rebounds. In the poem Wilt, he captured a viewpoint from the team bus: the contrast between a historic night of work on the hardwood and the ordinary, everyday life in the Pennsylvania countryside.
As a rookie I watched
Wilt score a century in one game
in Hershey, Pa., with the smell
of chocolate floating through the arena
…but mostly, what I remember about that game
is this: …on the bus driving through the dark Amish countryside,
outside a farmer in a horse and buggy,
hurrying home in the all
too brief light of his lantern
He has more than 100 poems published about sports and quips that he is subconsciously trying to match the 2,841 personal fouls for which he was whistled during his career. When asked if he ever reflects on the breadth and depth of his life’s work, he pauses, then equates measuring his life accomplishments to evaluating his poetry.
“I think I’ve done the best I could,” Meschery says. “If I look at life like a whole series of poetry … I can only pick out 15 or 20 poems out of the entire collection that I think are truly inspired poetry. I am just a poet. But I recognize I’ve written some really, really good poems. But I also recognize that a lot of my poetry is … meh. Not bad. Not awful. And that’s okay. I’m not unhappy about it. That’s a little bit the way life is.
“Can you look at your life and honestly say that most of your life has been inspired? Probably not. But you do pick out those moments when you did really good. And I think I’ve been able to do that. But at the same time, I’m not so egotistical to believe that every moment of my life has been a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sky hook.”
Another force helped pull Meschery out of his malaise following his cancer diagnosis. It was a friend from long ago, one with whom he hadn’t kept in touch: basketball.
In 2006, Matthew, concerned about his father’s well-being, bought him NBA League Pass, a subscription that provides coverage for every NBA game. By then, basketball had become an afterthought for Meschery. He had not been involved in the NBA since 1976 when he finished a two-year stint as an assistant under Lenny Wilkens in Portland. And he hadn’t been involved in basketball period since 1985, when he went to West Africa to coach teams in Mali, Ivory Coast, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.
When he tuned in, his interest in the NBA was rekindled. He was drawn to his former team, the Warriors, and that 2006-07 team — an uptempo, free-wheeling and stylistic squad coached by Don Nelson and led by Baron Davis, Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson and Jason Richardson — stirred him. He was once again inspired by the game he once played.
“I hadn’t kept up with the NBA, but once I started watching this new version of basketball, I went crazy. I just loved it,” Meschery says. “The ball was moving … they were flying through the air … and I was just astounded these guys could do this stuff.”
Then, in 2010, under the new ownership of Joe Lacob, the Warriors reached out to Meschery. The organization wanted to reconnect with its past. Meschery, the first NBA All-Star not born in America, and the first Warriors player to have his number retired, was brought back into the fold. He was invited to games. Introduced to players. He rode in all four championship parades, including 2022, when Warriors star Klay Thompson spotted from the team bus Meschery riding on the parade route on Market Street. Thompson got off the bus, and while holding the Larry O’Brien Trophy, beelined for Meschery, wrapping him in a bear hug.
“There was a time when we were worried about my dad losing a sense of himself,” Matthew says. “Basketball was a big part of his life experience and who he is, and the Warriors helped bring that back.”
Before this season, the Warriors asked Meschery to write a poem to commemorate Golden State’s new City Edition uniforms, which paid homage to the San Francisco cable cars. Meschery recited Mason Street Line at the unveiling.
“When I think back on my cancer, love saved me and helped cure me,” Meschery says. “But I think the Warriors had a little something to do with it, too.”
Tom Meschery has been in all four of the Warriors victory parades, including this appearance in 2022. (Courtesy of Matthew Meschery)
There is nothing poetic about how the poet handles the moments when the inevitable thoughts come, the thoughts of dying, of the cancer eventually winning.
“I’d be lying if I told you I don’t think about it from time to time,” Meschery says. “I think anybody who reaches the age of 85 knows they don’t have much time left. But I don’t dwell on it.”
When those moments arrive, he finds he is usually in bed. “Then I have a little mantra I say to myself: Tom, you are not going to die tomorrow. And Tom, you are not going to die in the next week. And probably not for the next six months. More likely, not for another year. So f— it, get on with your life.”
Then, he says, he goes back to sleep, intent on seeing his grandchildren, seeing his latest works published, including his memoir “The Mad Manchurian in August, and in October the publication of “The Case of the VW Hippie Bus,” the third installment in his Brovelli Brothers mystery novels.
In the meantime, he spends most of his nights watching the Warriors, or the Kings. Melanie, who turned 80 on Sunday is often nearby, flipping pages of the latest book she is reading, pausing briefly to make a quip or note the handsomeness of an opposing player.
“I call her my basketball buddy,” Meschery says. “And she says, ‘That’s exactly what every woman wants to hear.’”
The point is no longer how long he will live, he says, but rather doing what is enjoyable and productive. That he has found love with Melanie, and in turn found his muse and purpose, gives him a bittersweet vantage on his sunset.
“I think it makes you fear death more,” he says. “I’m really going to miss living. The idea of not seeing my grandchildren, the idea of not being able to write a poem, to enjoy a meal … that can be quite terrifying. But you can’t live your life worrying about death.”
And so he continues to appreciate living. And laughing. And loving. And ever the poet, he continues writing.
It was three years ago when Meschery wrote the poem 2,841 Personal Fouls. It has little to do with his basketball career, and more to do with his love story. In the poem, he laments that the “thought of dying still pisses me off” and he equates his anger to the unfairness he felt with many of the 2,841 fouls for which he was whistled. But he counters with the outlook Melanie has so ingrained in him.
This morning, didn’t I wake up to sunlight
and a warm breeze? Didn’t my wife
poke her head into the office
to tell me she loved me? I flavor
my coffee with honey that is sweet as life.
I should live a little longer.
(Top photo: Max Whittaker for The Athletic)
It sure sounds like Cam Ward knows which team is drafting him next week.
Ward has become the consensus No. 1 pick in most NFL mock drafts — including both of ours — with the big day coming in a week.
The Tennessee Titans own the top selection, and as the weeks have gone by, speculation is they are going to hold on to it and take Ward.
Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward drops back to pass against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the third quarter at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field in Atlanta Nov. 9, 2024. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)
And it sounds like Ward is confirming that speculation.
While playing Fortnite on a livestream, he mentioned Titans running backs Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears as the best in the league.
He also mentoned his top four receivers: Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase, Calvin Ridley and Treylon Burks. Burks calls Nashville home.
Earlier in the offseason, it seemed like Tennessee was more than willing to deal the first selection considering the talent atop the board. Travis Hunter and Abdul Carter, the projected No. 2 and 3 picks in our latest mock draft, could easily be No. 1 selections other years.
Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward after a game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Hard Rock Stadium Nov. 23, 2024. (Sam Navarro/Imagn Images)
NFL DRAFT PROSPECT ISAIAH BOND SUES SEXUAL ASSAULT ACCUSER DAYS BEFORE EVENT
With Will Levis struggling in his two years with Tennessee and a new front office, it’s starting to look like the Titans will go with a player who could become a franchise quarterback.
Ward broke the record for the most touchdown passes in a career in Division I history, surpassing Case Keenum’s record in the Pop-Tart Bowl.
Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward gestures during the second half against the Iowa State Cyclones at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., Dec. 28, 2024. (Jasen Vinlove/Imagn Images)
Ward led all of Division I with 39 touchdowns, and he finished as an All-American while finishing in fourth place in the Heisman Trophy voting.
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Clayton Kershaw took the next step to a return from the 60-day injured list, making his first rehabilitation appearance in triple-A Oklahoma City on Wednesday.
The longest-tenured Dodger tossed three scoreless innings in a start against the Tacoma Rainiers in a rare Wednesday morning contest, giving up two hits, striking out two and walking none on 30 pitches (22 for strikes). Kershaw underwent left-knee and left-foot surgery — to repair his left big toe — during the offseason. He missed the 2024 postseason because of his toe injury.
“I think anytime with rehab you want to feel healthy, which I do feel good today,” Kershaw, 37, told reporters after the game at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. “Then you want to see your stuff — obviously — play. There’s some things that I need to work on still, but for the first [rehab appearance] overall, it was a good step forward.”
The future Hall of Fame southpaw’s fastball velocity averaged 87.5 mph and topped out at 88.8 mph — more than a full mile per hour down from the 89.9 he averaged in 2024. He threw 12 sliders, 10 fastballs, four curveballs and four change-ups, generating five swings and misses.
Kershaw, entering his 18th season with the Dodgers, has struggled to reach the velocity of his younger days when he’d turn up his fastball to the mid-to-low 90s, turning toward increased slider usage and continuing to toy with a fourth pitch: a change-up.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said that with Kershaw, it’s not about his arm health, but rather how he’s progressing from his toe surgery. The operation to repair a ruptured plantar plate is not a common operation for baseball players, leading to speculation as to how Kershaw’s recovery would advance.
“I think with a guy like Clayton is more of how he feels,” said Roberts, later adding that training staff reports pointed to Kershaw’s toe being in good shape. “I know he’s probably happy with the uptick in velocity, the toe is the last part of it. The body feels good. The arm feels good.”
Pitching coach Mark Prior said Wednesday that Kershaw “turned a page” in the last 10 days, complimenting his performance in Oklahoma City, noting the awkward swings the lefty forced on his offspeed offerings. For Prior, he’s looking forward to seeing a fully healthy Kershaw on the mound.
“[Kershaw’s] like, ‘My arm feels good. My arm feels good,’” Prior said. “We just want to see him be able to go out there and compete on a very consistent basis, every week, every six days, seven days, whatever that is, being able to repeat that and continue to build up.”
With Kershaw trending towards a mid-to-late May activation off the injured list, his return will only further complicate the Dodgers starting rotation.
Before being optioned to triple-A to make way for Bobby Miller’s start Wednesday, right-hander Landon Knack made two starts, while left-hander Justin Wrobleski tossed a spot start while the team was in Washington.
Blake Snell, the Dodgers’ prized free-agent acquisition, has already made a trip to the 15-day injured list with left shoulder inflammation on April 7. The former two-time Cy Young award winner began a throwing program Monday and has played catch every day since then. Roberts said Wednesday there is no current timeline for Snell’s return.
Right-handers Tony Gonsolin and reliever Evan Phillips are likely the next to return from the injured list. Phillips earned the save for Oklahoma City on Wednesday, tossing a scoreless inning and appearing in a game for the second consecutive day for the first time in his rehab stint.
Gonsolin made his longest rehab start yet Tuesday, giving up three earned runs while fanning five batters across four innings. Roberts said Gonsolin will throw another rehab start — aiming for the five-inning marker — in Oklahoma City next week, and is on track with his tune-up.
If Miller is optioned back to Oklahoma City after his start Wednesday, the Dodgers will need to fill a spot start next week once again.
Teoscar back in the lineup
Outfielder Teoscar Hernández will return to the lineup against the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday after missing the last two games with a stomach bug.
“[I feel] great,” Hernández said pregame Wednesday. “The last two days it’s been a little tough, but I feel better. Just to be able to go on the field, feel good, be with the guys and play the game.”
Hernández will start in right field and hit cleanup. The second-year Dodger has slashed .281/.309/.563 to begin the season, tallying five home runs and 16 RBI so far.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Thursday evening, Tennessee’s quarterbacks gathered for an annual tradition, with Nico Iamaleava among them.
On their off day ahead of Saturday’s spring game, Tennessee’s quarterbacks sat around the table at quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle’s home. His wife, Cara, made tacos. It was mostly business as usual, despite a report earlier in the day that returning starter Iamaleava was in negotiations for a new contract. He’d all but begun the era of school-affiliated collectives spending big money on recruits when he signed an $8 million deal with Tennessee as a high school senior for his name, image and likeness.
A few hours after the initial report emerged, Iamaleava’s father blasted both the report and reporter, denying negotiations were taking place a week before the 10-day spring transfer portal window opened.
“More games being played off the field than on the field,” his X post read in part.
It was part of a whirlwind 72 hours that ended with the Volunteers publicly parting ways with their returning starting quarterback after a contract dispute that could shift the power dynamics of college sports and impact programs far beyond Tennessee. Three years after signing a game-changing deal, Iamaleava became college football’s first high-profile, public holdout.
Tennessee had gone about its business with a low-key set of spring practices mostly focused on the usual position battles and rebuilding a defense and offensive backfield missing key stars headed to the NFL.
Iamaleava was part of that amid negotiations, and aside from a few minor details, there weren’t many red flags that a divorce was imminent. Tennessee hoped Iamaleava would leap a second-year starter set to make $2.2 million in the final year of a four-year contract that started paying him as a senior in high school.
After Tennessee’s 2024 season ended in Columbus, Ohio, with a lopsided loss to eventual national champion Ohio State in the first round of the 12-team College Football Playoff, Iamaleava’s camp had explored the possibility of a transfer, including engaging in conversations with representatives at Miami, who eventually signed Georgia transfer Carson Beck, paying him more than $3 million.
With Tennessee’s spring season about to wrap, Iamaleava’s camp, including family friend and former Florida personnel staffer Cordell Landers, was adamant nothing was happening.
“The family are happy (with Tennessee),” Landers told CBS Sports. “There are no (contract negotiations); they’re happy with the contract they have.”
It quickly became clear that wasn’t true, despite the public denials. Tennessee officials were frustrated with the ongoing negotiations, said a source briefed on those conversations, but were hopeful for an amicable resolution. Iamaleava does not have an agent; his father and Landers were handling the bulk of negotiations with programs and their collectives.
Friday morning after Iamaleava’s father hit send on that post, Tennessee took to the practice field for its final workout before Saturday’s Orange & White Game.
The Vols’ starting quarterback was a no-show.
Iamaleava hadn’t informed Tennessee he planned to be absent, according to a team source. No one on staff could get in contact with him throughout Friday.
And when Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel walked off the practice field, he learned there was still no word from Iamaleava.
In that moment, Heupel decided the program would be moving on from Iamaleava, who had mixed results in his first year as a starter as a redshirt freshman. He threw 19 touchdown passes, with six in six games against SEC bowl teams; four of those six came in the season finale against Vanderbilt. In three consecutive games at midseason against Arkansas, Florida and Alabama, the Vols failed to score in the first half. Tennessee rallied to beat rivals Alabama and Florida and reached the Playoff, but largely did so on the back of a defense ranked fifth nationally in yards per play and running back Dylan Sampson’s school record 22 touchdowns.
Iamaleava was good, but not good enough for Tennessee’s staff and collective to decide to satisfy a demand nearing the top of the quarterback market at $4 million, according to the source briefed on the conversations. They added that nothing materialized into any meaningful negotiations.
“I’m proud of the stand we took as a university,” former Tennessee coach and athletic director Phillip Fulmer told The Athletic.
Iamaleava’s sudden holdout and departure will have lasting ramifications in the sport. (Photo: Lance King / Getty Images)
Friday’s absence pushed the relationship between Tennessee and Iamaleava to the point of no return, even if Iamaleava managed to salvage his relationship with the coaching staff and Heupel suddenly felt the urge to welcome back his starting quarterback.
“On Friday, he lost the locker room,” one program source said.
Quarterbacks Jake Merklinger and early enrollee George MacIntyre, both made available after Saturday’s spring game, were present at that Thursday dinner but said they found out about Iamaleava’s absence at practice the same time as the rest of their teammates: when he didn’t show.
“I’ve been a part of some really talented teams that haven’t won a whole lot because there were individuals on those teams,” said Alabama transfer tight end Miles Kitselman, who caught four touchdowns from Iamaleava last year, more than any returning player. He added there was “no other group” he wanted to work with and compete alongside than the players Iamaleava left behind.
Iamaleava’s multiyear contract is a rarity; most players sign one-year deals. His original contract from March 2022, the infant days of NIL, was written when the NCAA’s pay-for-play ban still seemed enforceable. There is no stated requirement he play for the Vols to collect his money, but it includes a standard integrity clause that allows for termination if the player does not “conduct himself in a manner exhibiting utmost character and integrity.” The collective also negotiated the exclusive use of his NIL through the end of the term, December 31, 2025. That seemingly means Iamaleava himself would need to terminate the agreement for another school to pay for his NIL rights.
More recent NIL contracts give the collective an out if the player transfers and, in some cases, even include a buyout provision.
In the three years since Iamaleava signed his record-breaking multiyear deal in March 2022, he’s been passed by at least a dozen other quarterbacks and would have been well below the highest-paid at his position in 2025. In that same span, Tennessee mounted a legal defense to preserve his eligibility with the NCAA looking to restrict athletes from signing NIL deals while still in high school. The university enlisted the state’s attorney general, among others, to secure an injunction that allowed Iamaleava to stay on the field and further open the door for more money to flood into locker rooms across the country.
Those efforts have put Tennessee back on the market for a quarterback when the 10-day spring transfer portal window opens on Wednesday. Merklinger is the presumed starter for now.
“With only two scholarship players at the quarterback position, we’re going to have to find another guy,” Heupel said.
Among 247Sports’ top eight quarterbacks in the Class of 2023, Texas’ Arch Manning is now the only one who hasn’t transferred from the school he signed with out of high school.
Where Iamaleava goes next is uncertain. Signing with another SEC school is highly unlikely, as he wouldn’t be immediately eligible because of a conference rule banning immediate eligibility for intraconference transfers who enter the portal after Feb. 1.
A return home to Southern California could be in order. UCLA director of player personnel Stacey Ford coached at Warren High School in Downey, Calif., when Nico, a Long Beach, Calif., native, starred there. Appalachian State transfer Joey Aguilar is projected to be the starting quarterback in Westwood. There were rumors of interest from Texas Tech, one of the biggest spenders in the portal this offseason, but a source familiar with the Red Raiders’ decision-making said they have no interest and will move forward with quarterback Behren Morton, who threw for 27 touchdowns last season.
Some at Tennessee believe that Iamaleava’s decision is not his own, but that he’s following his father’s lead in pursuing the most financially lucrative landing spot with less regard for the fit on the football field or the timing of his exit. Iamaleava will have to learn a new offense and gain the trust of a coaching staff and roster with just a month of practice in preseason camp, a rarity within the sport.
Kevin Pearson, who coached Iamaleava in high school, described Landers as a close and trusted friend to Nic Iamaleava. Landers is well known in high school and college football circles, especially on the West Coast, and has helped numerous high school football players, including Nico, manage their college recruitment. Landers was not directly involved in any of the recent contract talks between Iamaleava and Tennessee’s collective, a person involved in those discussions said.
A source close to the family noted the similarities to Nic’s handling of younger son Madden’s senior season of high school last year. Madden Iamaleava, also a quarterback, transferred from Warren High School to Long Beach Poly three games into the season, along with receiver Jace Brown. His father told the Press Telegram it was to improve the tandem’s chemistry and receive different coaching. Madden never played a game there after being ruled ineligible.
Madden and Brown, then UCLA commits, flipped to Arkansas on signing day and enrolled in January, with his dad acknowledging to 247Sports, “We never even visited Arkansas.”
Iamaleava’s father and Landers have not responded to repeated interview requests from The Athletic.
“At the end of the day, just in a leadership position, you have standards of who you’ve got inside the building and outside of it,” Heupel said. “At the same time, every individual’s a little bit different, so in leadership, just have learned to try to keep a cool head and also understand the dynamics of all situations, family, everything.”
Subtle signs that all was not well had emerged since the end of the season. In December, Iamaleava’s father sent an eyebrow-raising series of tweets as rumors persisted that Iamaleava was testing the transfer market and eyeing an exit from Knoxville.
“Need all the help we can get!” he wrote alongside a parade of crying laughing emojis. Since the deadline for Iamaleava to enter the portal had passed, it was easy to laugh off the lighthearted posts. Then Nic Iamaleava, who had been a fixture at practices through his son’s first two seasons, was absent this spring from practice and the team facility.
“I know they (the Iamaleavas) are very loyal,” said Pearson. “Money is important to everybody, but I don’t think their only reason for doing this is to earn another million and a half dollars. I don’t think (the Iamaleavas) just threw this at (Tennessee).”
Iamaleava’s quiet, aloof nature caused some within the program to question if he could be the kind of vocal leader that marks many of the most successful quarterbacks. He was well-liked within the locker room and facility but didn’t immediately have the kind of command of the team that made his teammates sit up and listen when he spoke. Much of it didn’t come naturally to him as a first-year starter last season.
“People who know him in Knoxville will say he’s one of the nicest, most respectful young kids they ever met,” said Pearson.
Friday’s practice was a light walkthrough ahead of Saturday’s game.
“Man, I loved walking out to practice on Friday and gazing around and seeing if anybody was freaking out or gossiping in the corner. Nobody skipped a beat,” Kitselman said. “I love seeing that. It’s plug-and-play. I knew something needed to be said.”
Kitselman, the offense’s most vocal leader and a fifth-year senior, talked to some teammates and members of the program’s leadership council Friday after practice to gauge their feelings about Iamaleava’s absence and ensure they were on the same page.
Friday evening, after practice concluded, Iamaleava informed Halzle he was planning on filing his paperwork to enter the transfer portal. Saturday morning, Heupel met with the team and informed the players of his decision to move on from Iamaleava, who still had not contacted Heupel. Word quickly spread, leaking to the media before the meeting had concluded.
Less than two hours later, when Tennessee’s buses pulled up to a waiting tunnel of fans for the pre-spring game Vol Walk outside Neyland Stadium, there were no signs of the morning’s news. When Heupel was the first face to emerge from the buses, he was greeted with a raucous cheer as soon as his white sneakers touched the pavement.
“Let’s go!” he yelled as fans applauded the team’s entrance.
Word of Iamaleava’s exit didn’t reach every corner of Tennessee in time. Matthew and Chrissy Grant, 49 and 46, made the 90-minute drive to Knoxville from their hometown of Chattanooga, where Matthew works as a truck driver. They sat near the top of the lowest section of Z13, wearing matching gray Iamaleava jerseys. They didn’t hear the news until they were already on their way to campus. They don’t attend regular-season games and elected to pay the $10 entry fee to see the spring game. A few fans told them they should find some tape and cover up the name.
“I’m upset, but it is what it is,” Chrissy Grant said. “Honestly, I felt he was a little greedy, and I was not expecting that. Because he was awesome last season.”
Tennessee will continue on without Iamaleava, and likely will look to the upcoming transfer window for depth at quarterback. (Photo: Caitie McMekin / News Sentinel / USA Today via Imagn Images)
When Tennessee began the scrimmage portion of the spring game, the crowd came to life after MacIntyre — a Tennessee native — was introduced as quarterback. He capped the first drive with a long touchdown pass to fellow freshman Radarious Jackson.
Like many spring games, Tennessee’s sideline was full of VFLs, former stars in the football program. Naturally, Iamaleava was the topic of the day in nearly every conversation, but few wanted to wade into it publicly. Six players from the 2024 Playoff team declined to comment on Iamaleava’s exit. So did Al Wilson, a program legend whose image hangs on the back of the Neyland Stadium scoreboard overlooking the Tennessee River. He captained the Tennessee defense that won the program’s last national title in 1998.
Hendon Hooker, who took Tennessee to No. 1 in the CFP poll in 2022 and threw for 58 touchdowns and five interceptions as a two-year starter under Heupel, said he and Iamaleava talk often but he hadn’t heard from him since his exit.
“I was just as shocked as everyone else,” Hooker said.
The shockwaves of an SEC starting quarterback leaving the program amid a contract dispute rippled throughout the sport.
SMU coach Rhett Lashlee, who coached his team to the Playoff last fall, told reporters on Friday that if a player held out, he’d be off the roster: “We’re not doing that. You’re either on the team or you’re not.”
Said Miami coach Mario Cristobal: “They can be the best player in the world. If they wanna play hold out, they might as well play get out.”
LSU coach Brian Kelly said he suspects Iamaleava will be just the first holdout in college football, with “a lot” of disputes like it in the future. “This is the natural course when there weren’t many guidelines out there.”
Beyond the lack of No. 8 under center, Tennessee’s spring game played out like so many before it. Around 30,000 fans showed up on a picturesque day.
“The guys who want to be here are the guys who want to be here,” junior linebacker Arion Carter said. “Situations like this, this is a test and testimony of who we are as people and a team. As long as we rally around these young guys and get them better and continue to rise, we’ll be just fine. ”
Heupel stepped to the lectern after his team’s on-field exhibition with two pages of notes, some words marked through with a pink highlighter. A photo of Iamaleava on the wall of the room where Heupel holds postgame news conferences had been taken down. Using notes was a rarity for the usually demure national champion quarterback-turned-coach whose postgame news conferences rarely make headlines. He’d rehearsed his carefully-worded statement.
Heupel thanked Iamaleava by name for all he’d done while wearing the Power T and then said: “There’s no one that’s bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
— Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman contributed reporting.
(Top photo of the Volunteers’ spring game: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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