Tank Black grew up in Greeneville. He still has some family located here, and many long-time sports fans still talk fondly of the Tank they knew, who grew up thrilling this football-loving town with his heroics at both Greeneville High and Carson-Newman College.

Black, now 52, has run the gamut from being raised in self-proclaimed poverty in Greeneville, to becoming one of the nation's best-known and wealthiest sports agents, to a stint in prison as he watched his empire crumble.

After spending nearly eight years in a federal prison, Black is now a free man, and he is telling the world about his rise to stardom and his rapid fall from grace through a book that is available at bookstores everywhere and through his website.

The book is entitled, "Tanked!: Behind the Scene With the NFL's Biggest Stars by Football's Most Infamous Super Agent." It hit the shelves on Sept. 14 and makes for interesting reading.

"I just want the people in Greeneville to know all the things they said I did, the things that got me into prison, are not all true," Black said in a telephone interview from his home in Columbia, S.C. "I never stole money from my players. I did give some players money while they were in college, but it was a necessary part of the profession I was in at the time."

In 2000, Black was sent to federal prison on charges that he laundered drug money, participated in a massive Ponzi scheme, made illegal payments to college athletes for their business, and stole millions of dollars from his clients.

"I believe if people read the book, they'll get the real story about what happened," Black said.

The book takes readers on a wild ride through his life, a ride that started with very meager beginnings, to a successful high school and college football career, to his days as a college coach at the University of South Carolina, to the development and ultimate success of his sports agent business, and finally his heartbreak of losing everything.

The early chapters of the book will be most closely read by Greenevillians, as he begins with his childhood years of being raised by his grandmother, Susie Barnes Black, who he says made ends meet by selling illegal moonshine in her kitchen. He was born in Johnson City, where his father nicknamed him "Tank" the day he was born because of his 11-pound body that his dad said made him look "as big as a tank."

He speaks fondly of many local people who helped mold his young life, including his first coach, "Coach Williams," for the local youth team nicknamed the Rams. He also writes about local businessman Bill Isbell, who he says "was always like a father to me."

In high school at Greeneville, he became a four-sport standout, but he especially excelled at football where he became the quarterback of the Greene Devils, the school's first African-American signal-caller.

Carson-Newman College recruited him as a wide receiver, and he set and still holds receiving records. He was a first team Kodak and NAIA All-American while with the Eagles. He was named Player of the Year in the South in 1978.

He earned a contract with the Atlanta Falcons in 1979, but Tank's stature, he stood only 5-8, was a detriment and he was cut in pre-season camp.

Black joined the coaching staff at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga in 1980, and in 1983, he became wide receivers coach at South Carolina, where he ultimately became that school's top recruiter. He left the program in 1987 after being passed over for what he said had been promised him: the offensive coordinator's position.

In 1990 Black founded Professional Management Incorporated and was on his way to becoming one of the few African-American sports agents in the country. His client roster would later include such NFL stars as Sterling Sharpe, Barry Sanders, Fred Taylor, Mark Clayton, Jevon Kearse, UT's Al Wilson, Rae Carruth and Andre "Bad Moon" Rison. He also got into the NBA agent business by signing Vince Carter.

At one time his list of stars totaled some 75, and Black's company was one of the country's most respected. The dollars piled up. Black leased his own private jet and flew around the country courting prospects.

The downfall of the business began when some of his associates convinced Black to invest in "Cash 4 Titles," a money-loaning company that was actually the front for an elaborate Ponzi scheme run by two men from the Cayman Islands.

The downward spiral continued when Black discovered he had unknowingly aided a couple of Detroit drug lords in laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars by funneling the money through "Cash 4 Titles."

His troubles only got worse when the University of Florida police uncovered how he had been doling out money, through a black employee, to Florida athletes still in college.

It all came crumbling down in 2000 when he was arrested and later sentenced to 82 months in prison on the money laundering charges.

Four years later, while still in prison, Black represented himself in an appeal of a civil suit the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) had filed again him and he won. The court found there was no evidence that Black knew anything about the "Cash 4 Titles" scheme.

Also while in prison, Black sued NBA star Vince Carter for $10 million in unpaid agent fees. Black won that case, too, and later reached an agreement with the Carter family.

The book also details issues Black was involved in with many of his former clients:

* How he went to Toronto to try to appease a girlfriend of Vince Carter, who had gotten pregnant, with an offer of car and cash;

* His relationship with Rae Carruth, a Carolina Panthers receiver who was convicted of conspiring to murder his pregnant girlfriend in 1999;

* Andre Rison's relationship with girlfriend Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of the popular music group TLC, and the fit of rage that drove the woman to burn down Rison's Atlanta mansion.

It is a tell-all book, and one that will be more interesting to Greenevillians because many people here still remember Black's exploits with the Greene Devils.

The book is available for order on-line at http://thetankblackstory.com . Its cost is $26.77, plus shipping and taxes.