Brent Hubbs, Tennessee's first online journalist to be named as the state's top sportswriter, didn't get his start writing about sports, but he has certainly made a name for himself in the field.

Hubbs is one of many visitors to campus this Wednesday, April 1, as part of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media's "Public Conversation on Web Journalism" event at the Howard H. Baker Center.

As an online journalist, Hubbs has come a long way since his college days of wanting to direct sporting events for television. In fact, he had been involved with television production for six years prior to attending college. He even directed various video productions in Thompson-Boling Arena for two basketball seasons before graduating from UT in 1996.

It was during college Hubbs got what he calls the "reporter bug" when he interned with Mike Keith, who is now the Tennessee Titans' play-by-play man. At the time, Keith was hosting Sports Talk, a four-hour sports talk show on local radio. After that, Hubbs worked in radio until 1999 as a host and reporter. In 1998, two years after he graduated, Hubbs won a national Edward R. Murrow award for sports reporting. Despite his success, Hubbs did not think there was enough growth potential in radio.

"I felt like I was in a role that was not going to change for a long time, and I liked the Internet and its potential," Hubbs wrote in an e-mail communication.

Today, Hubbs is the publisher and editor of Volquest.com. The Web site, a partnership with Yahoo.com and Rivals.com, was launched in January 2000 and has grown from a one-person staff to a four-person staff. When he started at Volquest.com, Hubbs had no idea the site would grow so much as to generate between $650,000 to $700,000 this past year alone.

Going into Web publishing, Hubbs had little to no experience in actual print journalism, and the only news writing he had done was for his high school newspaper. For the past nine years, Hubbs has been learning the job.

Hubbs lives in Corryton, Tennessee, and has two children with his wife, Tracy Jessee Hubbs, who is an engineering graduate from UT. The couple has two children. In addition to his work for Volquest.com, Hubbs also dabbles in radio as well as television.