It has been said of Bud Ford: Ask him what time it is, and he'll tell you how to make a clock.
Helpful soul that he is, though, Bud won't just tell you how to make one. He'll offer to assemble it for you. Then he'll make sure the darn thing ticks.
From my own experience, I know that if you need to get to Bud's new house in Halls, he'll draw up a map for you that would put Rand-McNally to shame. It will include about a half-dozen more landmarks than you could possibly need.
(Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the house technically is located in Powell, but being the old Halls boy that he is, Bud insists that it be identified with the community where he has spent most of his life.)
What it boils down to is that UT's 61-year-old sports information director has an obsession for detail -- including its preservation -- that makes him invaluable as the Vols' certified collector of records, photos and assorted documents.
It's a trait that newsmen covering the Tennessee sports beat have relied on since Bud joined the athletic department, part-time in 1964, and on a permanent basis after he received his UT degree in 1966.
And it helps explain why there is widespread celebration of his forthcoming induction into the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame. The enshrinement dinner is slated for July 27 at the Knoxville Convention Center.
This is turning out to be quite a year for Bud in gaining recognition for the work he has done superbly for the university through four decades. He was recently named the 2006 winner of the Arch Ward Award, the highest honor bestowed by the national sports publicity directors association.
Let it be reported here that Bud isn't hung up on awards, hall of fame honors or other tokens of the high esteem with which he is universally regarded. Nonetheless, he has agreed to make an appearance in Nashville July 3 to receive his Arch Ward accolade. He even seems kind of excited about it.
Credit for putting Ford on the UT payroll in the first place should go mainly to Vol administrator Gus Manning. When an opening developed for a student assistant in the publicity office in 1964, Gus suggested that I should hire Bud, who once upon a time had been the Mannings' paperboy.
Ford, a UT junior looking for part-time work, had recently left the employment of the Kroger Co. Because Bud possesses an assertive personality, Gus and I later came to the conclusion the grocery chain had probably fired him for trying to organize the bag boys into a labor union.
Ford denies it. Only Kroger knows for sure.
But nobody ever pitched into a spare-time job more enthusiastically than Ford. The student assistant position paid the princely sum of $75 a month, but as far as assigning tasks to Bud was concerned, he might as well have been on full-time salary.
Working an average of more than 60 hours a week -- while allegedly still attending class -- his pay was really about 25 cents an hour. And as I like to remind Bud, he was almost worth it. Fortunately for the university, the statute of limitations has long passed for him to collect back pay (I think).
As proud as Ford should be of his record for filling every request that comes into the sports information office, he seems to enjoy most his relationship with the student assistants, about a dozen of whom have left UT and found similar work at other schools or with professional sports teams.
``Bud has been their mentor,'' says the department's longtime secretary, Susie Treis. ``The biggest lesson he teaches is that they shouldn't be clock-watchers.''
Susie adds: ``Bud uses a lot of humor with the students. But they know that when he means business, the kidding comes to a close.''
In the audience the night of the induction along with Bud's wife, Sandra, will be son Brent and daughter Julie, both of whom are immensely proud of their old man and thankful for the life lessons he has passed along to them.
You can also be sure that J.D. Rutledge, Mark Dyer, John Painter, Gibson Smith, Tim Hix and Kerry Tharp -- among a large group of UT alumni who learned under Ford -- will be on hand to salute one of the true masters of an unusual but fascinating profession.
Haywood Harris is a former Associate Athletics Director for Media Relations at the University of Tennessee. Write to him at: Haywood Harris, c/o The Daily Times, P.O. Box 9740, Maryville, Tenn., 378