KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In this edition of Heart of the Matter, Abby Ham sits down with Randy Boyd to talk about a very big project that has dominated news headlines for years, the baseball stadium in downtown Knoxville that is meant to benefit much more than baseball.
Boyd, the man with the big idea, has a rich history in East Tennessee.
At a new apartment building in downtown Knoxville, Church and Henley, Ham and Boyd talked about many topics all involving Knoxville.
Below is a snippet of their interview.
Abby: Randy, you and I did a story together probably over a decade ago. I was doing a franchise called "Your Stories"—you remember this? Back then, it was before the baseball team. It was before the run for governor. It was before UT. You were not doing all this yet. Boy, I did not know at that time that you were going to make your mark in a big way.
Boyd: Well, my wife complains about that a lot, that maybe way too many things that—it wasn't intentional. It just turns out that if you decide you want to create a baseball stadium downtown, you get involved in a lot of things. If you try to create a program to send kids to college, you're out recruiting mentors and getting involved to help support Tennessee Achieve and it turns out, UT is kind of involved in a lot of things too. So just by serendipity, I ended up doing more things than I ever intended to be involved in.
Abby: You say you're not a developer, I'll go with that. Whatever you want to call yourself, but you are making big changes in this town's development. We are going to have a huge baseball stadium just outside the Old City, which is so interesting and exciting and fascinating to watch. Has this been something you've been thinking about for a long time, and it's so exciting to see it come to fruition?
Randy: So when I was early 20s, I started traveling around the country with my job and I started going to Major League Baseball parks. And the thing I loved is—I've been, by the way, to 45 Major League Baseball parks—all the current ones and then some that have been closed. And one of the things I loved about the ones that were done well was they integrated the city with the stadium.
Abby: What's your biggest hope for Knoxville? I mean, you're born and raised here. You love it obviously with the fiber of your being. What is your ultimate goal? Like when you are at the end of your road, what do you hope people will get out of this community that you contributed?
Randy: It continues to be a thriving community where people want to live and learn and grow and raise a family and has all the amenities and entertainment and culture that you would want from a big city, but still has a certain authenticity. Now you get to some other bigger cities, I won't mention any, but they just don't feel like there's any authenticity there. I want to be able to keep that while we continue to expand and grow. And I think that baseball is also, it's important that we all grow and thrive together.
You can watch the rest of the interview below.