Two former Salem High football teammates were on opposite sides of the line of scrimmage last Saturday when the University of Tennessee played host to Georgia in a nationally televised game in Knoxville. Chris Cole’s Georgia team defeated Peyton Lewis’ Volunteers in a thriller, 44-41, in overtime.
Both former Spartans got plenty of screen time. Lewis, a tailback, ran five times for 19 yards. Cole, a linebacker for the Bulldogs, had a solo tackle and five assists, including a tackle for a 10 yard loss and a pass breakup.
Both former Spartans earned All-American status with the 2023 Spartans, who played in the VHSL Class 4 state championship game and lost a heartbreaker to Phoebus. Both were highly recruited out of high school, and that’s where Lewis’ link to Salem in Knoxville comes in.
Ryan Blevins is a 1993 graduate of Salem High School where he was a standout pitcher and hitter on the Spartan baseball team. He went on to play for Ferrum College and was a teammate of Billy Wagner, who was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame this summer.
Blevins now works for Weigel’s, a convenience store chain that has 85 stores, primarily in East Tennessee. Ryan is the Director of Food and Beverage Innovation and is responsible for the product development of the food service program as well as Weigel’s award-winning coffee and beverages program.
“For the last three years our Marketing Department has forged a good relationship with the University of Tennessee athletic programs and has signed multiple great athletes to an NIL sponsorship,” said Blevins. “Last year we had Zakai Zeigler from the men’s basketball team. Also Karla Pickens, who is one of the most exciting women’s softball players in the country, among many other great athletes. We give out free products in our stores when these athletes hit certain in game milestones, like scoring a touchdown or hitting three pointers.”
The “hitting three pointers” was a vague reference to a column I did in 1985 when Ryan was a kid. He hit a forty foot shot at the buzzer that lifted the North Salem Biddy League recreation basketball team to a one point win over West Salem in the GW Carver gym, and I wrote about it in my column.
Back to our current story. Ryan, now all grown up, recently developed a new spicy chicken for Weigel’s hand breaded chicken tender program called “Knoxville Hot Chicken.”
“You’ve heard of Nashville Hot Chicken,” he explained. “Well, we went and trademarked ‘Knoxville Hot’ and are now selling it in our stores with huge success. During our recent photo shoot with these running backs, I had the opportunity to bring them some of this new Knoxville Hot Chicken so we could get some footage of them holding it and eating it for upcoming promotions.
“I knew that Peyton went to Salem High School so I definitely wanted to meet him, shake his hand and tell him that I was class of ’93 and that I played baseball at SHS. So when he walked into the photo shoot, I had my Weigel’s chef coat on and introduced myself as ‘I am Chef Ryan from Weigel’s. Salem High School class of 93’.
“His reaction was like ‘really? No way!?’ I said ‘yes’ and began to sing the Spartan fight song ‘Salem born, Salem bred…. and then he finished off the song with ‘when I die I’ll be Salem dead’.”
At that point they took the photo you see on this page.
“It was a pretty cool Salem experience I must say,” said Blevins, who added. “We lost this past weekend, unfortunately, but it was a helluva game with Georgia for which I understand there is another SHS athlete on the Bulldogs team.”
Maybe Chris Cole picked up some Knoxville Hot Chicken on his way out of town.
Thanks to Clint Hager, Salem High Class of ’94 and a friend of Blevins, for filling me in about this event. Clint was on the first Salem High state championship basketball team but, as far as I know, never did hit a 40 footer.
Davey Knew Salem
I was sad to learn of the passing of former Major League Baseball player Dave Johnson, who had a great career. He played second base for some of the best Orioles’ teams ever and he also played for the Braves, Phillies and Cubs along with two seasons in Japan.
Johnson won two rings playing for the Orioles, in 1966 and ’70, and in 1986 he managed the Mets to a World Series championship. He managed five different big league teams, was named Manager of the Year in both leagues and managed the US National team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. And that’s only some of the things he accomplished in a great baseball career.
Johnson died two weeks ago at age 82. Shortly thereafter Salem’s most famous person, Murray Cook, sent me this photo of Johnson he took when Davey was with the Washington Nationals. Murray, who is the world’s foremost authority on constructing and maintaining baseball diamonds, had a subscription to the Times-Register and often sent me a photo of some big league star reading our paper. Here’s a picture of Davey reading the ST-R in September of 2006.
“Was thinking of Davey and this photo,” said Cook after learning of Johnson’s death. “Another great manager and player gone. I was with him in Cuba and then Amsterdam, Athens and Beijing Olympics. He loved international baseball.”
I hope he turned to the sports page. From what I remember, Johnson didn’t enter the football contest that week.
Carolina League Playoffs
The Lynchburg Hillcats and Columbia Fireflies are playing for the Carolina League championship this week. In the first round Lynchburg beat Fredricksburg in two games and Columbia did the same to Myrtle Beach.
The Mills Cup final began Sunday and Lynchburg won the first game of the best-of-three, 6-5 in 10 innings. Game two was scheduled for Tuesday in Columbia, and if the Fireflies were able to even the series the finale was scheduled for Wednesday. If Lynchburg won Tuesday the Guardians’ farm team is the 2025 CL champs.
