Keegan Smith, Lillie Murphy, Dr. Jerry Punch, and Judge Tim Irwin recognized at Boys & Girls Club event
By The East Tennessee Catholic
The Diocese of Knoxville was well represented at the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Aug. 21 as four parishioners who are standouts in athletics and beyond in East Tennessee received special recognition.
The annual ceremony—the 44th one that has been held—was sponsored by the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley.
Those honored—Keegan Smith, Lillie Murphy, Dr. Jerry Punch, and Judge Tim Irwin—join a list of current and former diocesan parishioners who have excelled in a variety of sports and have been recognized by the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame for their efforts.
Dr. Jerry Punch was inducted into the Hall of Fame’s class of 2025 for his excellence in sports media. Dr. Punch has distinguished himself as an ESPN commentator on auto racing and college football and is a fixture in East Tennessee media who appears on radio and television.
He has worked as a reporter for ESPN, TBS, and ABC broadcasts of NASCAR and IndyCar races. And as a trauma physician, he has treated and even saved the lives of drivers and others who needed immediate medical care where he was working.
He began his broadcasting career in high school in Newton, N.C., where he was a reporter for radio station WNNC. He played football in college for North Carolina State University, where he was a backup quarterback under coach Lou Holtz. He received his medical degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1979. During his college years, Dr. Punch raced cars on short tracks in North Carolina. He also worked as an emergency-medicine physician in Florida, and for a time his medical and broadcasting careers overlapped.
Dr. Punch began radio broadcasting for Motor Racing Network in 1980, and in 1984 he began working for ESPN as a pit reporter for NASCAR races. He served as a pit reporter for the Indy 500 a broadcast-record 27 times. He is the only multiple winner of the RACER Magazine Pit Reporter of the Year award. He also has been named NASCAR Man of the Year and won an ACE Award in 1988 and an Emmy Award in 1989. He also won the Lindsey Nelson Award for contributions to college football.
Dr. Punch appeared as himself, serving as an ESPN commentator in the film “Days of Thunder,” and he ran the Olympic Torch in Salt Lake City in 2001. Dr. Punch’s wife, Joni Punch, serves as vice president of institutional advancement for Knoxville Catholic High School.
Others inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame with Dr. Punch were Ken Johnson, pro football player who played for Knoxville College; Conchita Owenby, the first woman to receive a full athletic scholarship at Carson-Newman University who also served as a girls basketball coach at Pigeon Forge High School and athletic director at Gatlinburg-Pittman High School; Frankie Randall, who held the WBC light welterweight title in 1994 and 1996; Gary Toulson, former head golf pro at Cherokee Country Club who was named Tennessee Teaching Pro of the Year and Tennessee PGA Player of the Year; Nicky Anosike, former Lady Vols and WNBA basketball player; Adam Brock, a former highly ranked junior tennis player who experienced success as a professional player and is an organizer of the Knoxville Challenger tennis tournament; Bryan Brown, a Hardin Valley Academy coach who has coached football, track, and basketball, winning 13 state titles and multiple Coach of the Year and KIL championships; and Charles Fondren, who excelled in track, football, and basketball at Tennessee School for the Deaf and won gold and silver medals in track at national competitions.
Judge Tim Irwin received the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame’s Buck Vaughn Legacy Award for his many years of service to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley. Judge Irwin is a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Judge Irwin was a standout football player at Central High School in Knoxville, at the University of Tennessee, and in the NFL for the Minnesota Vikings. Following a 13-year career in the NFL, he has served as judge of Knox County Juvenile Court. He earned his law degree while playing for the Vikings.
The Buck Vaughn Legacy Award was presented to Judge Irwin for his many years of service to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley, for founding a fishing tournament in 1987 that has raised nearly $2.2 million, and for serving with the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame. Judge Irwin has been inducted into the Tennessee Boys & Girls Clubs Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement and Boys & Girls Clubs of America Alumni Hall of Fame.
Two Knoxville Catholic High School students, Lillie Murphy and Keegan Smith, also received special recognition at the ceremony.
Keegan was named the Larry Cox Memorial Male High School Athlete of the Year for competing in track and cross country. Lillie was named the Larry Cox Memorial Female High School Athlete of the Year for competing in tennis.
Keegan was one of the premier high-school distance runners in the nation and was named Gatorade Player of the Year in track three times. He won 11 state championships in cross country and track and is an 11-time all-state selection and four-time All American. He holds the national high-school freshman record in the 3,000-meter outdoor, the two-mile outdoor, the 1,500 indoor, and the mile indoor. He had the fastest 5K time in the United States in 2024 and owns four Tennessee state records in distance events.
Keegan, a senior who graduated from KCHS in May with a 4.46 grade-point average, received a track scholarship at the University of Colorado. Accepting the award for Keegan were his parents, Deacon Sean and Melissa Smith.
Lillie, also a senior who graduated in May, was pivotal in KCHS winning three consecutive state championships in Division II-AA with victories in individual and team play. She was a two-time singles champion (2024 and 2025) and won doubles championships in 2022 and 2023 with partner Eleni Liakonis. Lillie was ranked as a five-star recruit by TennisRecruiting.net and was rated as the No. 1 player in Tennessee, No. 17 in the Southeast, and No. 48 in the country. She received a scholarship to play tennis for Furman University. Accepting the award for Lillie was her coach in high school, Rusty Morris.
Dr. Punch spoke to the event attendees on behalf of the Hall of Fame class of 2025. In his remarks, Dr. Punch said none of the honorees would have accomplished what they did without help from “you”—their families, friends and loved ones, and their communities.
“The ‘you’ I’m referring to are you who were there for each of us, you who refused to let us quit, you who refused to let us walk away, you who were there in our darkest moments, you who lifted us up with your love and your amazing faith, and you who took care of our families so we could chase our dreams,” Dr. Punch said.
“Look at us,” Dr. Punch added, referring to the Hall of Fame class. “This is what happens when people love you, believe in you, and refuse to let you stop believing in yourself.”
And Dr. Punch left those attending the ceremony with these parting words attributed to champion boxer Muhammad Ali, whom he had interviewed: “If you do not quit, you cannot lose.”
Bart McFadden, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley, also emphasized the important role of supporters in helping young athletes pursue their dreams, including the Boys & Girls Clubs in East Tennessee.
“When you look at a room like this, filled with champions and fans, it’s easy to think about the big wins, the records, the trophies—to think about these individuals who have become legends. But every athlete here knows that behind every highlight there was something else: a coach who pushed you, a parent who drove you to practice, a teammate who wouldn’t let you quit. These legends we celebrate tonight didn’t get here on their own,” Mr. McFadden said. “That’s why the mission of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley matters so much. Every day, we provide that same support for thousands of kids. We give them a place to belong, mentors who believe in them, and opportunities to discover their gifts and become legends in their own right. For some, that starts on a court or a ballfield. But it doesn’t end there. At the club, we’re not shaping athletes, we’re shaping whole lives.
Mr. McFadden introduced the ceremony’s featured speaker, former Tennessee basketball player Ron Slay, who played for the Vols from 1999-2003 and now is a broadcaster for ESPN and the SEC Network.
The Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame has recognized other Diocese of Knoxville athletes and sports figures since its inception in 1982. They include University of Tennessee athletics administrator Gus Manning, UT swimming coach Joe Hendee, track athlete Christy Baird, football standouts Ian O’Connor and Harrison Smith, basketball standout Luke Smith, football and basketball standout Jack Sompayrac, track athletes Jake Renfree and Callie Grace Tucker, volleyball standout Cassie Kuerschen, and basketball standouts B.J. Edwards and Sydney Mains.