Located in an area of the country with a great amount of chess activity but not a large number of titled players, the Tennessee Tempo entered the USCL in 2006 with great determination but facing an obvious uphill climb.

     The Tempo greatly struggled in their first two seasons mostly due to being fairly outrated in nearly all their matches but continued to show great heart as their team slowly but surely improved.  Combined with the addition of GM Jaan Ehlvest in their third season and then also GM Alex Shabalov in their fourth, the Tempo soon became a very real threat and a team that no one was taking lightly.

     But while the addition of these world class GMs greatly improved their team, recruiting such high level talent to play for them was obviously also a great burden on their other players and supporters.  Unfortunately, the Tempo management felt that they could no longer support the huge demands of doing this along with also running the team and ultimately decided that they should not be a part of the USCL after 2009.  The League wishes them all the best in their future chess endeavors and hopes that their players may, in the future, be a part of other teams should such an opportunity arise for them.