[County Volleyball Tournament] "DAG's Got Nothin'!" Register of Deeds Trounces District Attorney General's Office 25-13

I was shocked today at the noises emanating from the City County Building.  For a brief hour in the early afternoon, the cheers of fun and frivolity replaced the groans and resentful mutterings that usually characterize the quiet desperation of the Great Glass "T."

So, concerned that our local governments were experiencing some sort of mass nervous breakdown, I checked it out. 

Knox County government has a volleyball tournament. Beginning at 11:30 a.m., county employees from nearly every department stepped away from their cubicles and entered the field of battle: the small grassy area on Hill Avenue in front of the City County Building. 

Here were the teams (nicknames made up by author): District Attorney General's Office (The Capital Cases); Register of Deeds (The Excessive Fees); Information Technology (The Fatal Errors); General Sessions Court (The Evictors); the Circuit Court Clerk (the Intent To Prosecutes); and Parks and Recreation (The Kill Murders). 

"It's all part of Knox County Government Week," said County Criminal Investigator Mackie Harper, who was standing at the sidelines watching his own department (District Attorney) get stomped 25-13 by the Register of Deeds office, a game that I (at least) have been calling the Grudge Match of the Millenium. 

A sort of grown-up version of spirit week, Government week, Harper explained, was actually last week. "The volleyball tournament had to be rescheduled because of the rain."

Despite the revelry of the event, I was reminded that we are, in fact, dealing with a local government, when, as I was leaving, Harper, now taking the reins as referee, stopped me.

"There's something very important that you should stress about this," he said. "This was all done during their lunch hour, not on county time."

You got it.