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Former Tennessee Basketball staffer Justin Phelps found voice in Vegas after time with Vols

IMG_3593by: Grant Ramey11/27/25GrantRamey

LAS VEGAS — Justin Phelps doesn’t just remember the photo. He remembers exactly what was happening in the moment. 

The image shows Phelps, the former Tennessee Basketball director of operations, on the floor at Thompson-Boling Arena during a game against Arkansas in January 2015. Phelps is leaning forward in a crouched stance, pulling on the suit jacket of former UT head coach Donnie Tyndall, trying to bring him back toward the sideline.

“That was on the cover of USA Today,” Phelps told Volquest this week. “It was because he had just gotten told by the referees to stay off the floor, because he was so into the game. That very next play, he’s out at the 3-point line and no one’s saying anything on our bench.

“So I get up and I literally just go out and grab him by the tail of his coat and pull him back in. And they caught it on camera.”

The memory remains so clear for Phelps because Tennessee fans won’t let him forget it. 

“I get memes sent to me on Twitter probably once a week of Donnie and I,” Phelps said, “because they had so much fun with that. And I love it. Honestly, I love all that stuff. I love that.” 

‘It kind of awakens something inside you a little bit’

Phelps and Tennessee fans crossed paths in person this week during the Players Era Festival, with Phelps working as the public address announcer at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, where the Vols beat Rutgers on Monday, No. 3 Houston on Tuesday and lost to Kansas on Wednesday.

Phelps was behind the mic for all three Tennessee games, with the sights and sounds that come with the Vols helping bring back even more memories.

“This is the first time I’ve been in the gym with Tennessee playing since I left,” Phelps said. “The first time around fans, first time hearing Rocky Top come over the loudspeaker, which is emotional to be honest with you. 

“Like, you don’t even realize it until it happens. They’re on a big run, they call timeout. Then all of a sudden Rocky Top starts playing and everyone’s going crazy. It kind of awakens something inside you a little bit.”

Donnie Tyndall, staff fired after one season at Tennessee

Tennessee made an impact on Phelps despite him spending just one season with the Vols. 

Tyndall’s one and only Tennessee team finished 16-16 in 2014-15. He was fired after the season while being investigated by the NCAA for violations committed at Southern Miss, where he spent two seasons before being hired by the Vols to replace Cuonzo Martin. 

Phelps spent the previous three seasons with Tyndall before joining him in Knoxville for what ultimately was a one-and-done stay. 

Over a decade later, Phelps said it does sometimes feel like a lifetime ago.

“And I had an incredible time at Tennessee,” he said. “It was a dream job. But I was only there for a year. I’ve had several stops along the way, I was even in the SEC. Nothing compares to Knoxville. Nothing compares to Tennessee.” 

Phelps worked in college basketball first at Kent State and later as director of operations at South Carolina and Southern Miss. But the abrupt end at Tennessee had him looking for a different path forward.

“It was hard because my wife and I really loved living in Knoxville,” Phelps said. “We loved the fans. We loved being apart of Tennessee. But when a coach gets let go, the whole staff gets let go. So that’s tough.

“I knew I’d be fine professionally. There were several job offers. I just, at that point, I wanted to get out of basketball because you had already played for the Yankees. You don’t want to go somewhere else.”

A return to Las Vegas

Phelps is a Cincinnati native, but it was a return trip when he went back to Las Vegas after his time with the Vols ended. His wife, who majored in hospitality in college, brought the couple to Vegas initially.

“As someone in love would do,” Phelps said, “I got an internship out here, so I ended up coming to Vegas and starting a youth sports league called Nevada Youth Sports and we had like a couple hundred kids.”

That was before his detour into college basketball. 

“Then I got offered a job at South Carolina,” Phelps said, “so I ended up selling (the business). When we got let go at Tennessee, I bought the company back and now we’re up to 26,000 kids. We’re the largest youth sports league in Las Vegas.” 

His voice keeps growing, too, along with the amount of public address opportunities. 

The side hustle dates back his four years at Kent State and, more specifically, to a need that wasn’t otherwise being filled.

“I was working as a manager for Kent State basketball and traveling up and down the roads,” Phelps said, “and I would hear these media relations people just moan about how they can’t find an announcer for soccer, softball, girls volleyball, whatever it was. 

“So I figured out a way to pay for college, just by doing those kind of events and all those games.”

When he went back to Vegas, he got back behind the mic.  

“I saw an opportunity,” Phelps said. 

Justin Phelps works NBA, WNBA, college athletics in Vegas

And he keeps seeing more and more opportunities

Phelps has worked NBA games and WNBA games in Vegas. He gets the call when college basketball conference tournaments come to town in March or for Feast Week work in November.

“It’s worked out pretty well,” Phelps said. “I was just trying to pay for college. I was a poor college kid trying to make a few bucks, you know?”

Phelps hopes it keeps working out, should the day ever come that the NBA puts a franchise in his adopted hometown. 

“I think eventually Vegas gets an NBA team,” Phelps said, “and I might have a shot at that.”

This week, Phelps was just glad to still be a familiar face, and now a familiar voice, for Tennessee fans all these years later.

“That they still remember me at all — I was literally there for what, 10-11 months? — that’s pretty incredible,” Phelps said.