Thunder gets it

#1

vol_in_ar

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#1
Big-time donor and former trustee John "Thunder" Thornton told The Chattanooga Times Free Press on Tuesday that the "bigger problem" was Hamilton.

"(Hamilton) cut the legs from (former UT football coach) Phillip (Fulmer), and he did the same thing to Bruce. I cushion that by saying Bruce made mistakes," Thornton told the paper. "If Hamilton is the athletics director, how will any great coach seriously be excited about coming and working under his direction? I believe the university is going to be handicapped as long as the new coach reports to Hamilton."


UT trustees weigh in on the Bruce Pearl firing GoVolsXtra
 
#4
#4
Fulmer needed to go his time was up, his passion dwindled season by season.

After the reports of pearl coming out now that he committed even more violations says he needs to go now and I am a huge pearl supporter.

Hamilton is incompetent to run as AD, his pitiful buyout and hire of kiffin is a joke. He should of fired pearl before season not hold his hand up until the alter and then run out on him.

Oh but Hamilton is a good fundraiser :p
 
#5
#5
Fulmer needed to go his time was up, his passion dwindled season by season.

After the reports of pearl coming out now that he committed even more violations says he needs to go now and I am a huge pearl supporter.

Hamilton is incompetent to run as AD, his pitiful buyout and hire of kiffin is a joke. He should of fired pearl before season not hold his hand up until the alter and then run out on him.

Oh but Hamilton is a good fundraiser :p

Eggg-zactly!:good!:
 
#6
#6
What a crock of cowardly crap! Thunder knows better than anyone that Fulmer was let go because Haslam said it was time. Thunder, to his disdain, has less pull than Haslam et al. Thunder wanted to keep Fulmer, this is a known fact. I think the reports that have come out make it clear that Hamilton would have kept Pearl, but the higher ups made the call. Thornton just lacks the stones to call out the governor, or maybe knows it would be a peeing contest that he couldn't win or afford. Hamilton made 3 good to great hires at the time, fact. As bitter as the Kiffin hire tastes now, the fact the he left here for one of the top 3 FB jobs in the country confirms that. Pearl made UT basketball relevant. Dooley, while a very unpopular hire, may end up being one of the best hires ever, considering the timing and the lack of interest in the job at the time. Hamilton has his faults for sure, but Thornton is one of the last people we need to be letting steer the course of this athletic department.
 
#9
#9
Are people worried about UT's bank account or do they actually believe that a higher buyout would have kept the University of Southern California, possibly one of the most resource rich schools in the world, from getting a coach( from S. Cali) who stated that USC was his dream job? If Kiffin had any kind of agent, every dollar of an increased buyout would have been met with an increase in salary.
So, let me get it straight. Kiffin was a bad higher because he was a nobody, and Hamilton was also an idiot for not anticipating that one of the top programs in the country (the only program I think Kiffin leaves for) that was a the time coached by one of the most successful coaches in the NCAA, would be looking to hire that nobody within 2 years. OK
 
#10
#10
What a crock of cowardly crap! Thunder knows better than anyone that Fulmer was let go because Haslam said it was time. Thunder, to his disdain, has less pull than Haslam et al. Thunder wanted to keep Fulmer, this is a known fact. I think the reports that have come out make it clear that Hamilton would have kept Pearl, but the higher ups made the call. Thornton just lacks the stones to call out the governor, or maybe knows it would be a peeing contest that he couldn't win or afford. Hamilton made 3 good to great hires at the time, fact. As bitter as the Kiffin hire tastes now, the fact the he left here for one of the top 3 FB jobs in the country confirms that. Pearl made UT basketball relevant. Dooley, while a very unpopular hire, may end up being one of the best hires ever, considering the timing and the lack of interest in the job at the time. Hamilton has his faults for sure, but Thornton is one of the last people we need to be letting steer the course of this athletic department.

dooley's got along way to go before he's even a good hire
 
#11
#11
Fulmer needed to go his time was up, his passion dwindled season by season.

After the reports of pearl coming out now that he committed even more violations says he needs to go now and I am a huge pearl supporter.

Hamilton is incompetent to run as AD, his pitiful buyout and hire of kiffin is a joke. He should of fired pearl before season not hold his hand up until the alter and then run out on him.

Oh but Hamilton is a good fundraiser :p

I think it is fairly clear now that Hamilton was willing to keep Pearl, but he "had his legs cut out from him" by the higher ups. And once again, does anyone think Pearl was fired without Haslam's approval?
 
#13
#13
Are people worried about UT's bank account or do they actually believe that a higher buyout would have kept the University of Southern California, possibly one of the most resource rich schools in the world, from getting a coach( from S. Cali) who stated that USC was his dream job? If Kiffin had any kind of agent, every dollar of an increased buyout would have been met with an increase in salary.
So, let me get it straight. Kiffin was a bad higher because he was a nobody, and Hamilton was also an idiot for not anticipating that one of the top programs in the country (the only program I think Kiffin leaves for) that was a the time coached by one of the most successful coaches in the NCAA, would be looking to hire that nobody within 2 years. OK

Good AD's have contracts which benefit schools like a decent buyout to either keep the coach or at least get some money in return. Kiffin's buyout showed incompetence. Yes Kiffin was a bad hire because he is the one who started getting the NCAA sniffing around our University which led to sanctions on Pearl and our football team. The only thing that the nobody has proven is that he can recruit and slick talk his way into a job using his fathers name. He hasn't proven anything yet. he did mediocre at UT and USC so far.
 
#14
#14
Oh, this is about the UT Athletic Director.

Based on the the thread title, Thorton Gets It, I thought it was about Thorton getting a bunch of river front land via a suspicious deal with TVA.

Again.
 
#15
#15
Good AD's have contracts which benefit schools like a decent buyout to either keep the coach or at least get some money in return. Kiffin's buyout showed incompetence. Yes Kiffin was a bad hire because he is the one who started getting the NCAA sniffing around our University which led to sanctions on Pearl and our football team. The only thing that the nobody has proven is that he can recruit and slick talk his way into a job using his fathers name. He hasn't proven anything yet. he did mediocre at UT and USC so far.

Well, no, he didn't. Someone turned in a photo of Aaron Craft at Pearl's house. You are not saying it was Kiffin are you? You are right, Kiffin has not proven anything yet, except that he can get one of the best jobs in the CFB world, and he can recruit great players, even to a program on NCAA suspension. But you saying he has not proven anything and then saying Hamilton should have paid him a higher salary (because a larger buyout would have included a higher salary) is contradictory.
Are you saying that you wish Kiffin was still here? Would you want him here knowing that the only reason he didn't leave was because of a buyout?
There is nobody in the CFB world that knows Kiffin that doesn't agree he has a great FB mind, and his recruiting is at the top of the heap. He would have made UT a winner, that Ia m sure of. At what cost? Who knows, but I am glad we won't find out now.
But what is apparent is that in 2 out of three hires, Hamilton hired someone that most people underestimated, and that may be the case with Dooley, yet to be determined.
 
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#16
#16
What a crock of cowardly crap! Thunder knows better than anyone that Fulmer was let go because Haslam said it was time. Thunder, to his disdain, has less pull than Haslam et al. Thunder wanted to keep Fulmer, this is a known fact. I think the reports that have come out make it clear that Hamilton would have kept Pearl, but the higher ups made the call. Thornton just lacks the stones to call out the governor, or maybe knows it would be a peeing contest that he couldn't win or afford. Hamilton made 3 good to great hires at the time, fact. As bitter as the Kiffin hire tastes now, the fact the he left here for one of the top 3 FB jobs in the country confirms that. Pearl made UT basketball relevant. Dooley, while a very unpopular hire, may end up being one of the best hires ever, considering the timing and the lack of interest in the job at the time. Hamilton has his faults for sure, but Thornton is one of the last people we need to be letting steer the course of this athletic department.

umm, what are you smoking? kiffin was an insanely terrible hire. there is literally NO arguing that. hamilton failed to keep him under control and he brought the NCAA to our doorstep. pearl was the one good hire hamilton made and it blew up as well. hamilton is incompetent. i understand that hamilton didn't make pearl or kiffin do the things they did, but he didn't stop them either. dooley has brought stability, but there is no way to call it a good, let alone great, hire at this point. with the money tn has backing it, we should have been able to throw the checkbook at a big name coach. beyond that, hamilton has ZERO clue as to how to run a coaching search. during the search that produced dooley, we were repeatedly turned down to the media by other coaches, which was embarrassing. look at how florida handled their search. muschamp was basically hired from out of nowhere and he's one that gave us a public no. mike hamilton is a total and utter failure as an athletic director.
 
#20
#20
umm, what are you smoking? kiffin was an insanely terrible hire. there is literally NO arguing that. hamilton failed to keep him under control and he brought the NCAA to our doorstep. pearl was the one good hire hamilton made and it blew up as well. hamilton is incompetent. i understand that hamilton didn't make pearl or kiffin do the things they did, but he didn't stop them either. dooley has brought stability, but there is no way to call it a good, let alone great, hire at this point. with the money tn has backing it, we should have been able to throw the checkbook at a big name coach. beyond that, hamilton has ZERO clue as to how to run a coaching search. during the search that produced dooley, we were repeatedly turned down to the media by other coaches, which was embarrassing. look at how florida handled their search. muschamp was basically hired from out of nowhere and he's one that gave us a public no. mike hamilton is a total and utter failure as an athletic director.
Bro what are you smoking? Yes, Muschamp turned down UT, and then he took the FLA job. And that is Hamilton's fault how? FLA is a better job, apparent to everyone not wearing orange. You can recruit on a bicycle. Also, the timing was horrible. To late in the process, and frankly before Muschamp realize that he was a long ways ff from ever actually becoming the HC at Texas. Thus, Dooley was about the best option we had, in hindisght better then most thought with potential to be a great hire.
As far as Kiffin being a bad hire, under what criteria? The fact that he drew NCAA attention and then left, absolutely. What if we hired a mid major, we ended up recruiting outside the top 30 for 2 years, loosing to Vandy and Kentucky, but he was still here and the NCAA sent us roses? Would you be happy then? At the time, Hamilton took a chance on someone who he thought had the potential to run a winning program. The university of southern california endorses that belief. After Fulmer was let go, we needed someone to make some noise and excite the fan base, which we got, agreeably with a cost. We are where we are now, but playing monday morning QB and ignoring what the situation was at the time is disingenuous.
 
#22
#22
Also, to say Hamilton did nothing to step in is a little ignorant on your part. It has been widely reported lately that the one thing that saved us from major violations in football was the action of Hamilton placing a compliance official directly in charge of Kiffin, which the NCAA has stated as being our saving grace. As far as Pearl, the only one who could have saved us there is Pearl. He lied. I love Pearl and wish he was still here. There is little to no chance that we will ever get a coach as enthusiastic about UT as him. That being said, nothing he did would make more that a one time Chris Low blog on ESPN if he had just told the truth. Hell, Jim Calhoun had a an aspiring NBA agent on his staff helping recruit, with documented thousands of dollars of tickets and other freebies given away, and that story is over. Pearl fed a kid a ballpark frank. Maybe Hamilton should have been the grillmaster that night.
 
#23
#23
Big-time donor and former trustee John "Thunder" Thornton told The Chattanooga Times Free Press on Tuesday that the "bigger problem" was Hamilton.

"(Hamilton) cut the legs from (former UT football coach) Phillip (Fulmer), and he did the same thing to Bruce. I cushion that by saying Bruce made mistakes," Thornton told the paper. "If Hamilton is the athletics director, how will any great coach seriously be excited about coming and working under his direction? I believe the university is going to be handicapped as long as the new coach reports to Hamilton."


UT trustees weigh in on the Bruce Pearl firing GoVolsXtra

It seems to me that there are much more appropriate and effective forums to voice this opinion than the Chattanooga media.
 
#24
#24
so along these lines... Thunder might be a "bigger problem" than Hamilton.

Yeah. He didn't help the coaching search by his statements about MH. He should have kept his mouth shut unless he had something positive to say. We've had enough bad press without him piling on.
 
#25
#25
Gee, I wonder who Thornton would like to see as AD?

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