I am in the same boat as you. New to Knoxville, I have not yet found a group. I have been paying since the days of AD&D (early 80s), with a long break from 1992 until around 2005. I am willing to learn new systems, having played Mutants & Masterminds, Mouseguard, Godlike, Star Wars Saga Edition, Champions and the various iterations of D&D. I am still partial, I must admit, to 3.5 for its volumes of source material.
I tend to get pretty deep into my character's backstories, but try to be flexible to fit my concept into the world the DM/GM is envisioning. Here is a recent example of a character I played: epicwords(dot)com/characters/4242 (Just replace "(dot)" with a period. Sadly, I cannot post links yet, so forgive me this work around, please.)
I've also run games before, so that is a possibility as well. As I am still settling into my new job and a new city, my hope is to find a group, start as a player, and then kick around ideas for a game of my own with the group.
So if anyone knows of a Knoxville based group looking for a player, I'd be interested. If I come across any groups, or if I start trying to form my own from scratch, I'll be sure to post details in this thread.