How to Be a New York Football Fan In Tennessee -- 2018 Edition

Next Sunday, the New York Jets travel to Nashville to play the Tennessee Titans.

Before You Go. Nashville is in the South. Not the Deep South, but the Mid-South. However, Tennessee rejoined the Union a long time ago, and you won't need to bring a passport or change your money.

If you were going to a baseball game, or an early-season football game, the heat might be an issue. But this will be at the beginning of December, so heat won't be a factor. What could be a factor is rain: The website of Nashville's main newspaper, The Tennessean, is predicting rain for the morning, but it should end by gametime. As for temperatures, they're talking mid-50s for daylight and mid-40s for night. You'll need a jacket, at least at night.

Nashville, like most (but not all) of Tennessee, is in the Central Time Zone, an hour behind us. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. The Titans are averaging 66,297 fans per home game this season, about 96 percent of capacity. Tickets might be hard to get.

The entire lower bowl, the 100 sections, is sold out to season ticket holders, and only the lower bowl has end zone seating. In the 200 level, it's $189 in midfield and $142 at the ends. Seats in the upper level, the 300 sections, go for $75 in midfield and $57 at the ends.

Getting There. It's 892 miles from Midtown Manhattan to downtown Nashville, and 881 miles from the Prudential Center to the Bridgestone Arena. So your first instinct would be to fly.

This looks like a good idea, since a round-trip flight could cost only a little over $700. The downside: You might have to change planes in Charlotte. Nashville International Airport is 8 miles east of downtown, and the Number 18 bus can get you to downtown in under half an hour. (The airport was originally named Berry Field, after Colonel Harry S. Berry, the Tennessee administrator for the New Deal's Works Progress Administration.)

You can't take Amtrak: It doesn't serve Nashville. Greyhound can get you from New York to Nashville in a little under 30 hours, for $466 round-trip, although it could drop to as little as $295 with advanced purchase, although you'd have to change buses in Richmond. The Greyhound station is at 709 5th Avenue South, 5 blocks south of the arena.

If you do drive, it's far enough that you should get someone to go with you, to trade off, especially if one can sleep while the other drives. Get into New Jersey, take Interstate 78 West into Pennsylvania. At Harrisburg, get on Interstate 81 South, and take that down through Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia, into Tennessee, where it flows into Interstate 40 West. Take that halfway across Tennessee. Exit 210 is for downtown.

If all goes well, you should spend a little over an hour in New Jersey, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in Maryland, half an hour in West Virginia, 6 and a half hours in Virginia, and 2 hours and 45 minutes in Tennessee, for a total of 13 hours and 45 minutes. Given rest stops in Pennsylvania, one at each end of Virginia, and 1 in Tennessee, and we're talking about a trip of at least 17 hours -- each way.

Once In the City. Founded in 1779, and named for General Francis Nash, killed in the Battle of Brandywine outside Philadelphia in the War of the American Revolution, Nashville is in central Tennessee. It is the State capital, home to 684,000 people with a metropolitan area of about 1.9 million.

The State House, formerly featured on Tennessee license plates.

That statue of Andrew Jackson, Tennessee pioneer,

has copies in Washington across from the White House,

and in downtown New Orleans.

"White flight" hasn't hurt Nashville nearly as much as it's hurt Memphis or many other cities, North and South alike. As late as 1970, Nashville was 80 percent white; in 1990, 74 percent. Now, it's about 56 percent white, 28 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian and 1 percent Native American. While Nashville was spared the kind of post-Civil War racial violence that Memphis suffered in 1866, when Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, Nashville suffered some looting.

The sales tax in Tennessee is 7 percent, and within Davidson County, including Nashville, 9.25 percent, even higher than New York's. ZIP Codes for the Nashville area start with the digits 370 to 374, and 384 and 385. The Area Code for Nashville is 615. Nashville Electric Service (NES) runs the utilities for most of Middle Tennessee.

Address numbers on east-west streets increase away from the Cumberland River, and Broadway separates north from south. The The Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (NMTA) runs buses, with a $1.75 fare, and the Music City Star, a commuter rail service to the city's eastern suburbs, with a fare double that, $3.50.

The Music City Star, with Nissan Stadium,

home of the Titans, in the background

Going In. Nissan Stadium, whose naming rights are currently owned by the Japanese carmaker, has been the home of the Tennessee Titans since it opened in 1999. It was known as the Adelphia Coliseum until 2002, simply The Coliseum until 2006, and LP Field until 2015.

The official address is 1 Titans Way, across the Cumberland River from downtown, bordered by Russell Street on the north, S. 2nd Street on the east, Victory Avenue on the south and Titans Way and the River on the west.

There's no bus service, but it accessible from downtown by taking the Music City Star to Riverfront Station, and then walking across the John Siegenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, which makes for a great visual on Titans gamedays. (Siegenthaler was a reporter for, and eventually the publisher of, The Tennessean. After his death in 2014, the former Shelby Street Bridge was renamed for him.) If you drive in, parking is $25.

Siegenthaler Bridge, with the stadium to the right

The field is aligned (roughly) north-to-south, and has been natural grass since it opened. The 69,000-seat stadium has seen the Titans win the AFC Championship in its inaugural season, and nearly win Super Bowl XXXIV, and Division titles in 2000 (the old AFC Central), 2002 and 2008 (the new AFC South). Tennessee State University, a historically-black school in Nashville, splits its home games between the stadium and an on-campus facility. The stadium also hosts the annual Music City Bowl, and concerts, including the CMA Music Festival every June.

It's also been a soccer facility, including hosting the U.S. national team in a 1-0 loss to Morocco in a friendly on May 23, 2006; a 3-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago in a World Cup Qualifier on April 1, 2009; a 1-0 loss to Paraguay in a friendly on March 29, 2011; and a 4-0 win over Guatemala in a friendly on July 3, 2015. That game was riddled by operational and logistical issues, with the Twittersphere exploding with discussions of the stadium's inadequacy even before kickoff.

Since then, 2 more USMNT games and 1 U.S. women's national team (USWNT) game have been played there, without similar issues: A 1-1 draw with Panama in the CONCACAF Gold Cup on July 8, 2017, and a 1-0 in over arch-rival Mexico on September 11, 2018. The women's team played a game of the She Believes Cup there, beating France 1-0 on March 6, 2016. It has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup.

(UPDATE: It has now hosted the CONCACAF Gold Cup for 2 games in 2017, and 1 in 2019. The U.S. women's team played a SheBelieves Cup match there on March 2, 2019, a 2-2 draw with England.)

On September 12, 2017, Thrillist had an article ranking all 31 NFL stadiums. Nissan Stadium only came in 23rd: 

During the Titans’ string of mediocre-to-dismal seasons, the team cut back on stadium personnel, leading to long lines to enter the stadium and purchase much-needed beers, despite dwindling attendance. Both the team and the crowds are improving, but the stadium is nearing the backside of its useful lifespan.

(UPDATE: On November 4, 2020, MoneyWise published an article ranking the Worst NFL Stadiums. Nissan Stadium came in 7th, making it 24th out of 30: "Nissan Stadium lacks modern amenities and has been described as bland. The juxtaposition with the glitzy surrounding area makes the stadium feel even more lackluster.")

Food. Memphis has a reputation as a city of fine Southern food, particularly barbecue. Nashville, less so: They're known for music first, and food, and everything else, somewhere down the line. According to StadiumJourney.com:

Nissan Stadium offers more than 60 concession locations, spread throughout the stadium. However, the food plazas behind each end zone offer the most selection and convenience. The stadium does offer the typical stadium fare through its Classic Hits locations, but you’re in Nashville, so you owe it to yourself to check out one of the stands featuring some Southern delicacies. These include Nashgrille (fried chicken, chicken tenders and burgers ), Bent Buckle (BBQ), Coop (Nashville Hot Chicken Tenders, Hot Chicken Waffle Sandwiches) and Jack Daniels (BBQ with some extra spirit added!). It is best to get your food selections before the game, as the food plaza offers picnic tables for you to eat your food, so you won’t be spilling it in your lap or on somebody getting to your seat. It also is a great way to meet the locals and the opposition in a friendly environment, as seating is family style. There are plenty of locations closer to your seats to get a drink or a snack later.

Team History Displays. As the Houston Oilers, playing from 1960 to 1996, the franchise now known as the Tennessee Titans won the AFL Championship in 1960 and 1961; the AFL Eastern Division in those years, 1962 and 1967; the AFC Central Division in 1991 and 1993; an AFL Wild Card Playoff berth in 1969; and AFC Wild Card berths in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1992.

They played in Memphis in 1997 and in Nashville in 1998 as the Tennessee Oilers. As the Tennessee Titans, they've won the 1999 AFC Championship, before losing a classic Super Bowl XXXIV that went down to the last play of regulation; the AFC Central in 2000; the AFC South in 2002 and 2008; and AFC Wild Card berths in 2003, 2007 and 2017.

The Titans have 8 retired numbers: 1, quarterback Warren Moon, 1984-93; 9, quarterback Steve McNair, 1995-2005; 27, running back Eddie George, 1996-2003; 34, running back Earl Campbell, 1978-84; 43, safety Jim Norton, 1960-68; 63, guard Mike Munchak, 1982-93; 65, defensive end Elvin Bethea, 1968-83; and 74, offensive tackle Bruce Matthews, 1983-2001, including 1997-2001 in Tennessee.

Moon, Campbell, Norton, Munchak and Bethea played their entire tenures with the franchise in Houston. George played the last season in Houston before moving to Tennessee, McNair the last 2. Matthews was the only one of these who spent at least 5 seasons in both places. Munchak was also head coach in Tennessee, 2011-13.

However, there is no sign or banner for any of their achievements or retired numbers, as Oilers or Titans, in the fan-viewable areas of Nissan Stadium. Looking for such, you'd never know this franchise was nearly 20 years old -- or nearly 60, depending on how you look at it.

There are 15 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who have played for the Oilers/Titans franchise, including Moon, Campbell, Munchak, Bethea and Matthews (but not Norton). Also in Canton due in part to their performances with the Oilers are quarterback-kicker George Blanda (16, 1960-66), safety Ken Houston (29, 1967-72), receiver Charlie Joiner (18, 1969-72), defensive tackler Curley Culp (78, 1974-80), linebacker Robert Brazile (52, 1975-84), and tight end Dave Casper (87, 1980-83). So far, though, Matthews is the only player in the Hall who ever suited up for the Titans.

In 2000, on the franchise's 40th Anniversary, Bud Adams, the team's founder and still its owner, established the Titans/Oilers Hall of Fame. It includes all the retired number honorees, plus Blanda, Houston, George, McNair, 1989-93 general manager Mike Holovak, and 1995-2003 tight end Frank Wycheck (89). By a vote of the board of directors, not a decision by Adams himself, it also includes Adams. Therefore, counting only Tennessee Titans personnel, it includes only Adams, Matthews, McNair, Wycheck and George.

Blanda, receiver Charlie Hennigan (87, 1960-66), guard Bob Talamini (61, 1960-67, later a member of the Jets' Super Bowl winners), cornerback Miller Farr (46, 1967-69) and linebacker George Webster (90, 1967-72) were named to the AFL's All-Time Team in 1970.

Ken Houston and Billy "White Shoes" Johnson (84, 1974-80) were named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team in 1994. Blanda, Houston and Campbell were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players in 1999. Campbell and Matthews were named to the NFL Network's 100 Greatest Players in 2010. Of course, except for Matthews, none of those players played so much as a down for Tennessee.

The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame is located at the Predators' Bridgestone Arena. Adams, McNair, George, Wycheck and Blaine Bishop (23, safety, 1993-2001, including 1997-2001 in Tennessee) have been elected.

The Oilers/Titans franchise has had 6 Heisman Trophy winners on its roster. All but 1 have been running backs. Billy Cannon (1959 Louisiana State) was an original Oiler (1960-63). Earl Campbell (1977 Texas) may have been the greatest Oiler (1978-84). Mike Rozier (1983 Nebraska) might have had a good pro career if he didn't jump to the USFL first (Oilers 1985-90).

A previous Tennessee pro football team, the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League, had a Heisman winner: 1964 winner John Huarte of Notre Dame was their starting quarterback in the 1974 and '75 seasons, before the WFL folded in mid-1975.

Eddie George (1995 Ohio State) was with the team when they moved to Tennessee and a bit beyond (1996-2003). And the Titans are the only team with 2 Heisman winners on their current roster: Quarterback Marcus Mariota (2014 Oregon) and running back Derrick Henry (2015 Alabama).

Geographically, it would make sense for the Titans' rivals to be another Southern team. But they don't really have an arch-rival yet, despite beating the Jacksonville Jaguars, now a fellow AFC South team, in the 1999 AFC Championship Game. Their biggest rival might be a different AFC South team, the team that replaced them in their former city, the Houston Texans. The Titans lead the series, 18-15.

Stuff. The Titans Locker Room is at the southeast corner of Nissan Stadium. There's also an outlet at the Rock Creek Mall, 1800 Galleria Blvd. in suburban Franklin, 16 miles south of downtown. No public transit.

As one of the NFL's newer teams (though not one of its newer franchises), there aren't many books about the Titans. Sara Gilbert (not the actress) wrote the Titans' edition of the NFL Today series of team books in 2013.

In 2008, NFL Films released a DVD titled Tennessee Titans: 3 Greatest Games. It includes the 1999 AFC Championship Game, the Playoff win over the Buffalo Bills that became known as the Music City Miracle, and a 2007 win over the Texans featuring a thrilling performance by Vince Young.

During the Game. A recent Thrillist article on the NFL's most obnoxious fans ranked Titans fans 30th -- the 3rd-least obnoxious:

You poor bastards almost won a championship your first season after moving from Houston. (Their third, actually.) But let's face it, those memories are as fleeting as Mike Munchak's and Mike Mularkey's tenures as head coach -- it might be time to try someone with a name that doesn't scream "evil high school P.E. teacher." Now, your lone claim to fame is “selling out” your stadium by dumping thousands of tickets on StubHub. And because most of you also wear Creamsicle orange on Saturday (meaning the Vols), America kinda feels bad for you. But thank you for not taking your disappointment out on us.

Nashville people don't like Memphis people. And Tennessee people don't like Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida people -- holdovers from college football rivalries. But Titans fans have nothing against Jets or Giants fans. So as long as you don't make any wiseguy remarks about this being a North vs. South game, you shouldn't face anything beyond the usual nonviolent "My team rocks, your team sucks" talk.

From September 1 to 7, 2017, at the height of the NFL National Anthem protest controversy,
FiveThirtyEight.com polled fans of the 32 NFL teams, to see where they leaned politically. Titans fans, within a fairly liberal city surrounded by very conservative, very Southern suburbs, were rated 1.1 percent more conservative than liberal. They were 1 of 6 teams whose fans were more conservative than liberal.

This season, the Titans are wearing a 20th Season (not 20th Anniversary, that would be next year) patch on their uniforms.

The Titans' mascot is T-Rac the Raccoon, because the raccoon is the State animal of Tennessee -- as in the coonskin cap, which really was worn by frontiersman, soldier and Congressman David Crockett -- even if he never called himself "Davy" like he's been called in popular culture since his death at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.

After the Game. If there was an NFL team in Memphis, Nashville fans wouldn't like them. But they've never been known to turn on New Yorkers or New Jerseyans. Jets and Giants fans shouldn't get any hassling, as long as they aren't the ones to bring it on.

Being in downtown Nashville, there are plenty of places to go for a postgame libation. Just don't call it a "libation" when you're in one, or you might get some funny looks. Robert's Western World, at 416 Broadway, is a honky-tonk famed for cold beer, fried baloney sandwiches and live country bands. Across the street, Rippy's specializes in barbecue. And there are many others.

However, I could find no place in Nashville catering to fans of any Tri-State Area team: Not the Yankees, the Mets, the Giants, and so on... and certainly not the Devils. Besides, Charlie Daniels thinks we went down to Georgia. (Which hasn't had an NHL team since April 2011.)

If you visit Nashville during the European soccer season, which we are now in, the best place to watch your local club is Fleet Street Pub, 207 Printers Alley, off Church Street between 3rd and 4th Streets downtown.

Sidelights. Nashville is about music 1st, Tennessee State government 2nd, and sports 3rd. But it's a good sports town, even though it's never had an MLB or an NBA team. On February 3, 2017, Thrillist made a list ranking the 30 NFL cities (New York and Los Angeles each having 2 teams), and Nashville came in 2nd. They said: 

Nashville's a damn fine place to be, what with the music and the fantastic barbecue (no, it's not just Memphis) and the just-right amount of country. It's simultaneously small town and thriving city in the best possible way. It's going to be crushed when Marcus Mariota doesn't live up to the hype, but not THAT crushed because everyone cares way more about college, anyway.

UPDATE: On November 30, 2018, 5 days after I posted this, Thrillist published a list of "America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and Nashville came in 16th. 

* Vanderbilt University. If there was an "Ivy League" for Southern schools, this school, founded by 19th Century railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, would be one of them. It is superb academically, but those high standards have hurt it when recruiting athletes, who tend to go to less stringent schools, thus leaving Vandy, whose teams are called the Commodores after Cornelius' nickname, struggling within the Southeastern Conference in most sports. Their women's basketball team is an exception, but, even then, they are overshadowed by their neighbors in Knoxville, the University of Tennessee.

Dudley Field opened in 1922, but was demolished and replaced with Vanderbilt Stadium in 1981, although the playing surface is still called Dudley Field, for William F. Dudley, dean of the University's medical school and the founder of the precursor league to the SEC.

Vanderbilt's athletic complex

After leaving Houston following the 1996 season, the plan was for the Oilers to play at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis for 2 years, as the Tennessee Oilers, before moving to the new stadium in Nashville for 1999. But this was a public-relations disaster, as Memphians stayed away from Nashville's team in droves, heedless of the State's name on the team.

So after topping 32,000 in only 1 home game (the last, 50,677 seeing them beat the Pittsburgh Steelers to finish 8-8), and getting less than 18,000 in 2 of their games (the smallest NFL crowds since World War II, except for the Scab Year of 1987), Bud Adams took the hint, and swung a deal to play in Nashville a year early. Vanderbilt Stadium seated only 41,448 people, making it the smallest NFL stadium since the early 1960s, but they sold it out in 4 of their 8 games. The next year, they moved into what's now Nissan Stadium, and dropped the Oilers name to officially become the Tennessee Titans.

Vanderbilt Stadium is adjacent to Memorial Gymnasium, built in 1952 as a memorial to the servicemen and -women of World War II. It is unique in college basketball (although this was not he case when it opened) in that both teams' benches are behind one of the baskets. Other unusual touches, and its age (there are several Division I schools with older facilities still in use) have nicknamed it The Fenway Park of College Basketball. 210 25th Avenue South, about 2 miles west of downtown. Number 3 bus.

* Bridgestone Arena. The home of the NHL's Nashville Predators is downtown, with an official address of 501 Broadway, at 5th Avenue South. Across Broadway, on either side of 5th, are the Nashville Convention Center and the Ryman Auditorium, legendary home of The Grand Ole Opry.

The Arena, easily identifiable with its sloping roof and its antenna at the north end, opened in 1996, with the generic name Nashville Arena. It was renamed the Gaylord Entertainment Center in 1999, after a locally-based media company that was a minority stockholder in the team. In 2005, Gaylord sold its stock, and in 2007 the arena was renamed the Sommet Center, after Sommet Group, a local company that oversaw software development and payroll services. But Sommet was a company built on fraud, its founder went to prison, and in 2010 locally-based tire company Bridgestone bought the naming rights, and holds them to this day.

The Arena has hosted Southeastern Conference Tournament, Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, and NCAA Tournament basketball -- in each case, both men's and women's. It hosted the Women's Final Four in 2014. The Country Music Association (CMA) Awards have been held there since 2006.

* First Tennessee Park and site of Sulphur Dell. The original home of Nashville baseball is its home once again. Sulphur Dell stood on the site from 1870 to 1969, but the original ballpark faced southwest, so the State House would be in view. This put the sun in the outfielders' eyes. Along with odors from a nearby dump wafting over, and the occasional flooding from the Cumberland River that forced some games to be moved to Vanderbilt University's field, this earned the stadium the nicknames "The Dump" and "Suffer Hell."

This wooden ballpark was demolished, and replaced with stadium of concrete and steel for the 1927 season. It seated 8,500 fans at its peak. But while the new park fixed the sun problem, it did nothing to get rid of the smell from the dump, and the shape of the plot of land forced a short right field fence with a terrace, much like Cincinnati's old Crosley Field and Houston's Minute Maid Park today. When the Yankees visited for an exhibition game, Babe Ruth refused to play his usual position of right field because of the little hill, and was moved to left field.

The team that played there the longest was called the Nashville Vols, short for "Volunteers," as the University of Tennessee (in Knoxville) calls its teams the Volunteers or the Vols, as Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State. They won Southern Association regular-season Pennants in 1901, 1902, 1908, 1916, 1940, 1943, 1948 and 1949; Playoffs for the SA title in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1949, 1950 and 1953; and the Dixie Series against the Champions of the Texas League in 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1949.

Hall-of-Famers who played for the Vols included Yankee pitcher Waite Hoyt and Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Kiki Cuyler. The 1940 Vols have been remembered as one of the greatest minor league teams. It featured future All-Star pitcher and Yankee World Champion Johnny Sain, former Detroit Tigers pitcher Cletus "Boots" Poffenberger going 26-9, and catcher Charles "Greek" George won the SA Most Valuable Player award. Unlike Sain, George he didn't play much in the major leagues, and after getting called up in 1945 due to the World War II manpower shortage, he punched an umpire during an argument and got unofficially blackballed from baseball. In his case, "Vol" might have been short for "Volatile."

The Negro Leagues' Nashville Elite Giants (who are best remembered today as the Baltimore Elite Giants, and that's pronounced EE-light, not El-EET) played at Sulphur Dell from 1920 to 1928, winning a Pennant in 1921.

The National Association, the governing body of minor league baseball, ordered that all leagues under its umbrella be desegregated for the 1962 season. Rather than comply, the Southern Association folded. The Vols, who valued staying in business over white supremacy, were inactive for 1962, but started again in the South Atlantic League for 1963. But they lost money, and folded.

Like the aforementioned Crosley Field, Sulphur Dell was used as a police impound lot, before being demolished in 1969 and being used as parking for State government buildings.

First Tennessee Park, named for a bank, opened on the site in 2015, and the Nashville Sounds moved in. It seats 8,500 people, with grassy outfield seating pushing capacity to around 10,000. It has a view of downtown Nashville. And it copied the idea of a guitar-shaped scoreboard from Greer Stadium. (UPDATE: In 2020, it was renamed First Horizon Park.)

The old address was 900 5th Avenue North, but it's now listed as 19 Junior Gilliam Way, for the Nashville native who wore Number 19 as a Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers player and coach. A mile from downtown, and several buses go there.

* Tom Wilson Park. Black businessman Thomas T. Wilson built a ballpark for the Elite Giants to use, and they did so from 1929 to 1934, before moving north. It seated 8,000 people, and was demolished sometime after 1946. 2nd Avenue S. and Chestnut Street, about a mile southeast of downtown. Bus 25.

* Herschel Greer Stadium. Named for the late former president of the Vols, this ballpark seats 10,300 people, with standing room pushing it to a possible 15,000, which made it one of the largest minor-league ballparks.

From 1978 to 2014, it was the home of the Nashville Sounds, who started out in the Double-A Southern Association, and moved to Triple-A, first to the American Association, and then, when that league was split up, to the Pacific Coast League. (Yes, I know, Tennessee is pretty far from the Pacific Coast.) The Sounds won Pennants there in 1979, 1982 and 2005, meaning that Nashville has won either a regular-season Pennant or a Playoff Pennant 17 times: 1901, '02, '08, '16, '39, '40, '41, '42, '43, '44, '48, '49, '50, '53, '79, '82 and 2005. (Compare this with Memphis' 10 and Knoxville's 3.)

The stadium was easily identifiable by its nod to Nashville being "Music City": A guitar-shaped scoreboard. But as Camden Yards and a series of new ballparks, in both the majors and the minors, rewrote the rules for what a baseball stadium should be in the 1990s, Greer Stadium began to be seen as outdated, and so a new park was built.

With the Sounds having moved out, its future is uncertain. 534 Chestnut Street, about a mile and a half south of downtown. The Adventure Science Center is next-door. Buses 8, 12 and 25 will get you to within a short walk.

The nearest Major League Baseball team is the Atlanta Braves, 246 miles away, with the Cincinnati Reds a little farther away at 272 miles. According to an April 24, 2014 article in The New York Times, baseball fandom in Nashville is set by TV watching: The 3 most popular teams are the Braves, the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, with some people rooting for the Braves and the Reds due to the comparative proximity.

The nearest NBA team is the Memphis Grizzlies, 213 miles away. But Nashvillians don't root for the Grizzlies, because of the inherent Intra-Tennessee rivalry. For those who care about the NBA at all, according to a May 23, 2014 article in The New York Times, they tend to divide their fandom among the "cool teams": The Los Angeles Lakers, the Chicago Bulls, the Miami Former LeBrons, and the Cleveland Once-and-Again LeBrons.

* MLS Expansion Franchise. On December 20, 2017, Major League Soccer granted Nashville an expansion team, to begin play in the 2019 or 2020 season. The current plan is for a 27,500-seat stadium on the site of the Nashville Fairgrounds, 625 Smith Avenue, about 2 miles south of downtown. Bus 52 to Fairgrounds Station, then a half-mile's walk west on Walsh Road.

Previously, the city was home to Nashville FC, which played in the National Premier Soccer League, the 4th tier of American soccer, from 2014 to 2016, at Vanderbilt Stadium. Until the MLS team begins play, the nearest Major League Soccer team is Atlanta United, 247 miles away.

Don't expect Nashville to get teams in MLB or the NBA: The metro area would rank 28th in population among NBA markets, and it would rank 31st, dead last, in baseball. Then again, assuming no changes -- and even if the Columbus Crew do get moved to Austin for 2019 -- Nashville would still rank 24th, or 25th if Miami begins play earlier or at the same time, among MLS markets.

* Tennessee State University. As with many of the South's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Tennessee State was set up in a city that already had what was then an all-white school, Vanderbilt. Their teams are called the Tigers, and their women's track team the Tigerbelles. This team formed the bulk of the U.S. women's track teams at the Olympics in the 1950s and '60s, including Wilma Rudolph, winner of 3 Gold Medals in Rome in 1960.

TSU has won the National Championship of black college football 12 times: 1946, 1947, 1954, 1956, 1965, 1966, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1979, 1982 and 2013. In 1973, they were also NCAA College Division National Champions, what would later be called Division I-AA and is now the FCS, the Football Championship Subdivision. Their big names have included Pro Football Hall-of-Fame defensive ends Claude Humphrey and Richard Dent, 6-foot-9 Dallas Cowboys All-Pro defensive end Ed "Too Tall" Jones, and "Jefferson Street Joe" Gilliam, briefly the Pittsburgh Steelers' starting quarterback during a slump by Terry Bradshaw.

While they play 2 home games every season at the Titans' Nissan Stadium, their usual home field is the on-campus 10,000-seat Hale Stadium, named for the school's 1st president, William J. Hale. 3500 John A. Merritt Blvd., named for the man who coached both Jackson State (1952-62) and Tennessee State (from 1963 until his death in 1983). 3 miles west of downtown. Bus 60.

Since 1990, TSU have also played the annual Southern Heritage Classic against Mississippi's Jackson State University at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis -- which must have given Dent and his Chicago Bears teammate, Jackson State alumnus Walter Payton, some interesting conversations. Tennessee State leads the rivalry 17-9.

* Ryman Auditorium. If country music has a Yankee Stadium or a Madison Square Garden, this is it. The Mother Church of Country Music, a.k.a. the Carnegie Hall of the South, is easily the most 2nd-most famous building in the State of Tennessee, behind Graceland, the Memphis home of Elvis Presley, who performed at the Ryman very early in his career, on October 2, 1954. After this show, he went across the street and did another show at another famous musical institution, this one long owned by an established country star, the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, at 417 Broadway.

Opened in 1892, it began hosting the weekly Grand Ole Opry ("grand old opera") radio show on Nashville radio station WSM in 1943 (though the show had been broadcast since 1925). The Auditorium seats 2,362 people, and with stars announced ahead of time, there were occasions when thousands had to be turned away.

By the 1960s, the building had deteriorated, and complaints about the dressing rooms grew louder: The men had to share a small one, and the women had to use a restroom. Roy Acuff, often called the King of Country Music, bought an adjacent building just so he'd have a decent place to change. And a new house for the Opry was planned. A wooden circle was cut from the stage, and transplanted to the new Opry House, much like home plate or a square of sod is sometimes removed from an old ballpark and put in the new one.

"I never want another note of music played in that building," Acuff said. He had reason beyond his bitterness over the dressing room: He was a major stakeholder in Opryland USA. (He was a bit about the money: In 1948, he was the Republican nominee for Governor of Tennessee. He lost.) But he died in 1992, and, against heavy odds, the building survived him. Ed Gaylord of Gaylord Entertainment bought the building's parent company, and had it restored.

The Ryman reopened in 1994, with its main entrance moved from the west side on 5th Avenue to the east side on 4th, plus an addition that included, yes, suitable dressing rooms, and, for the first time in its 102-year history, air conditioning. In 2012, the original stage (all but a small portion of it, left for historical reasons) was replaced as part of new renovations.

The Opry has returned every winter, while still broadcasting from its new home the rest of the year. ABC broadcast The Johnny Cash Show live from the Ryman, and Cash -- whose birthday would have been today, February 26, were he still alive -- is among those country legends whose memorial service has been held there.

The revival of the Ryman has coincided with the revival of downtown Nashville, including the construction of the Arena, the Stadium, and the city's first real skyscrapers. 116 5th Avenue North.

* Nashville Municipal Auditorium. While Elvis had many recording sessions in Nashville, after 1954 he didn't give another concert in the city until July 1, 1973, a matinee and an evening show at the Municipal Auditorium.

Opened in 1962, it still hosts concerts and sporting events. It's hosted minor-league hockey, and had the Devils actually moved to Nashville for the 1995-96 season, it's likely they'd have played at the Auditorium for a year before what's now the Bridgestone Arena opened. 417 4th Avenue North, downtown, 3 blocks from the State House.

Elvis also performed in Eastern Tennessee at the City Auditorium in Paris on March 7, 1955; at the Civic Auditorium in Kingsport on September 22, 1955; and at the Stokely Athletic Center at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on April 8, 1972; March 15, 1974; and May 20, 1977.

The Beatles never performed in Nashville as a unit, although individual members did so on their solo tours.

* Grand Ole Opry House. As with sports venues, the Opry decided in the 1960s to leave the city for the suburbs, and create a family atmosphere, even adding an amusement park. Opryland USA opened in 1972, and the Grand Ole Opry House in 1974. The oak circle from the Ryman stage was placed at center stage, and lead singers stand there.

The new theater (no longer so new) seats about 4,000, and had all the amenities that the Ryman did not yet have. I visited Nashville in 1991, before it became a major league sports city, and the group I was with visited Opryland USA and had a great time. But I wanted to see the Ryman. I knew I couldn't get inside, but I still wanted to reach out and touch the brick.

Of course, at this time, Camden Yards was rewriting the rules for stadium and arena construction, and cities took back their leadership role from the suburbs. Attendance dropped, and in 1997, Gaylord Entertainment closed the theme park. The Opry House remained in operation, and the Opry Mills shopping mall and the Opryland Resort & Convention Center opened on the site of the park in 2000.

When the Cumberland River flooded in 2010, my first concern should have been for the people -- and 31 people died, in 3 States -- but it was for the Ryman. Instead, it sustained only minor damage, while the Arena, the Stadium, and the Opry House all got socked, especially the Opry House. It was able to reopen in 6 months, while the show was broadcast from the Ryman and other Nashville locations. 433 Opry Mills Drive, about 9 miles east of downtown. Number 34 bus.

* Museums. Nashville isn't all about country music, although within a few steps of the Ryman (and the Arena) are museums dedicated to Johnny Cash (119 3rd Avenue S.) and George Jones (128 2nd Avenue N.), and the music in general at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (222 5th Avenue S.).

The Tennessee State Museum depicts the State's history, including the Native America, colonial, early Statehood and Civil War periods. Its collection of Civil War memorabilia is one of the largest. It shares a downtown building with the Tennessee Performing Arts Center -- a boring-looking 1981 building that replaced its former home, the much more appropriate 1929 War Memorial Building. 505 Deaderick Street, between 5th & 6th Avenues.

There are 3 Presidents with connections to Tennessee. Al Gore should have made it 4, and he made enough mistakes that, if he had done any one of them differently, his rightful victory would have been too big to get stolen from him. But, like the 3 who actually did get into the White House, he wasn't born in Tennessee, but rather in Washington, D.C., when his father, Albert Sr., was a Congressman. (Both father and son would serve Tennessee in each house of Congress.)

As for the other 3, 2 were born in North Carolina, and the other might have been: Andrew Jackson was born somewhere near the Carolina State Line, although no one is sure precisely where, and both North and South Carolina claim him.

But the 7th President (serving from 1829 to 1837) and War of 1812 General nicknamed Old Hickory is best known, as far as his residences are concerned, for being one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee.

The Hermitage was a plantation he owned from 1804 until his death in 1845. On that property, he and his wife Rachel lived in a log cabin until the main house was completed in 1821. It burned in 1834, and he then had the current house built. Today, conspiracy theorists would have blamed Henry Clay or the Bank of the United States for the fire, even though Jackson himself didn't. (He did, however, blame his political opponents for the smears against both him and Rachel that gave her a heart attack that killed her between the 1828 election and the 1829 Inauguration.)

Aside from George Washington's Mount Vernon and Elvis' Graceland, it's the most-visited former private home in America. 4580 Rachels Lane, in the town of Hermitage, 12 miles east of downtown. It's on a section of the Cumberland River known as Old Hickory Lake. The Number 6 bus gets you to within a mile and a half, and the bus and the walk combined takes about an hour.

The State Capitol, which opened just before the Civil War in 1859, contains the tomb of James K. Polk, the 11th President (1845 to 1849), and his wife Sarah. The man who waged the Mexican-American War and gained us a huge chunk of our West, including all of California, he has been hailed as a visionary and assailed as a warmonger and a racist. He chose to serve only one term, and died just 3 months after leaving office, the shortest retirement of any ex-President. Sarah outlived him by 42 years, a record for a Presidential widow, and only Grover Cleveland's wife Frances, at 50 years, had a longer retirement from being First Lady. 600 Charlotte Avenue.

The other President with a Tennessee connection is Andrew Johnson, the 17th President, who succeeded to the office on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and was impeached for a ridiculous reason: He fired his Secretary of War (also Lincoln's), Edwin Stanton, without the permission of the Senate. He believed that the law barring him from doing so was unconstitutional, and when the aforementioned President Cleveland challenged it in 1886, the Supreme Court said they were both right. For all the good it did Johnson: Surviving his Senate trial by 1 vote, he knew he couldn't get elected on his own in 1868, got back into the Senate in 1874 (welcomed by the men who had tried him with a standing ovation), and died the next year.

He was an unrepentant racist, making it odd that Lincoln would choose him for the Vice Presidency in 1864 (it was because he was the only Southern Senator who stayed loyal to the Union when his State seceded), and he remains a contender for the title of worst President ever. His hometown of Greenville, Tennessee is 250 miles east of Nashville. His museum is at 67 Gilland Street. (Charlotte, North Carolina is actually the closest major league city to Greenville, but it's not close.)

There's actually a 4th President with a minor connection to Nashville: In 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain had the 2nd of their 3 debates at the Black Box Theatre at Belmont University. Compton Avenue at Belmont Blvd., about 3 miles southwest of downtown. Number 2 bus.

Five of the six tallest buildings in Tennessee are in Nashville, only one in the larger city (but not larger metro area) of Memphis. The tallest went up in 1994, but has already changed names with one phone-service company buying out another: The South Central Bell Building, the BellSouth Building, and now the AT&T Building. At 617 feet high, its twin-spired roof has led to it being nicknamed the Batman Building. 333 Commerce Street.

Many music-themed movies have used Nashville as both a setting and a film location, including biopics of Elvis (Elvis, starring Kurt Russell), Patsy Cline (Sweet Dreams, starring Jessica Lange) and Loretta Lynn (Coal Miner's Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek). Each of these included the Ryman as a filming location. While the recent ABC TV drama Nashville was filmed in Los Angeles, the 1975 film of the same title was filmed on location.

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Nashville is more than history and music, as important as those things are. It's also the home of an NHL team that, while not yet very successful, is usually good, has developed quite a following among people you wouldn't think would take to hockey, and is now another good reason to visit this legendary city.