Tim Priest, a native of Huntingdon, played quarterback at Huntingdon High School from 1964-66, earning All State honors his senior season. Priest then signed a football scholarship with the University of Tennessee where he went on to be named team captain, earning All-SEC honors in 1970. Though he was a successful quarterback at the high school level, Head Coach Doug Dickey saw potential in Priest as a defensive back and thus began a three-year career in which Priest was a member of one of the most heralded defensive backfields in Tennessee history.
In 1970, the quartet of Bobby Majors, David Allen, Conrad Graham and Priest set the still-existing SEC and school records of 36 interceptions. A modest Priest contends he was simply a member of the group, but he remains today Tennessee’s career leader in interceptions with 18. He led the team in 1969 with seven interceptions and recorded nine during the 1970 campaign. His career interception return yardage of 305 stood as the UT record for 39 years until this season when Eric Berry passed the mark and extended it to its current figure of 487.
Tennessee teams on which Priest played had a 28-5-1 record, claiming one SEC championship (1969) and capturing a 1971 Sugar Bowl win over Air Force. A Cum Laude graduate of Tennessee (BS 1972), Priest also earned his law degree in 1975. Priest was named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll in 1968, 1969 and 1970, when he was also selected Academic All-America. A prominent Knoxville trial lawyer with the firm of Pryor, Flynn, Priest & Harber, Priest was admitted to the bar in 1976. He has served as a member of many associations and law boards in Tennessee and also served as a municipal court judge for the town of Farragut from 1999-2005. Priest began a hobby radio career in 1975 as co-host of “Football Finals” radio program on WIVK radio in Knoxville. He continued until 1999 when the Vol Network tabbed him to be the color analyst on the Vol Football Radio Network. He continues to serve in that capacity along with play-by-play announcer Bob Kesling. Priest is married to former UT cheerleader Betsy Minnis and they have two children: Adam, a former Vol baseball player and now a partner with the firm, and Laura, an acute care nurse practitioner. Hobbies include golf and enjoying his grandchildren. Priest was inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.