Last week, the family and I enjoyed some rest and relaxation time in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

Aside from the NCAA Basketball Tournament, I really decided to distance myself from the world of sports for the week and relax. Mission accomplished with that. However, reading the local newspaper and catching the local sportscast a few times I did make several interesting observations.

The first story that caught my eye had a local tie. Wes Washpun, the freshman guard for the Tennessee men's basketball team, announced that he was leaving the Volunteer squad and would be transferring to another school for next year.

Washpun played a fairly significant role in the non-conference season for the Vols, but his playing time greatly decreased once the SEC season started. He wasn't happy with that situation, and thus the change. The announcement didn't make much of a splash around the greater Knoxville area. In fact, it was barely talked about in the media. I suppose you could compare it somewhat to the announcement of Brandon Stubbs leaving the Iowa basketball program, although Washpun is a scholarship player for the Volunteers.

It will be interesting to see if Fran McCaffrey goes after Wes once again. From all indications, Iowa put the full-court press on late for Washpun's services before he choose to go to Tennessee. I still believe that Wes would be a terrific fit for the Hawks with the athleticism that he brings.

The other story that I paid attention to was about spring football in the state of Tennessee. Not only for the Volunteers, but even more toward the high school spring football that is permitted in the state, as well as throughout the south.

As we have all heard many times before, football is a religion in the south, and they weren't lying. People eat, sleep and breathe the sport. If you think there is media overkill about spring practices here in Iowa for the Hawks and Cyclones, you haven't seen anything. Television stories about high school prospects and outlooks for teams coming up in the fall are the norm. I had seen this phenominon on our other trips to the south and it doesn't cease to amaze me.

Also, people are wildly loyal to their school and their team's south of the Mason-Dixon line. While at a popular amusement park last week, I noticed almost everyone wearing some apparel for their local high school team, or college team. Loyalty runs very deep. Fortunately, there were no incidents between rival SEC fans that I noticed!

Going away is great, but it's always good to come back home. And it's always very interesting to compare the way of life in different parts of our great land.

And by the way, best of luck to Cedar Rapids native Zach Johnson this week at the Masters. Let's hope he celebrates the five year anniversary of his win in a really big way.

(Scott Unash is the sports and program director at KGYM-AM 1600 (FM 106.3). He is a six-time winner of the Iowa Broadcast News Association play-by-play Announcer of the Year Award. Scott and Mark Dukes co-host the Gym Class weekdays from 3-4 p.m. on KGYM-AM 1600 and FM-106.3)