Coach Kellie Harper fired

[UTtoDC]

Thanks! I’m not too worried about that group. I loved and supported Kellie and I will love and support the next LV coach…..unless it’s Jeff W!

Hey Lucy, appreciate your posts on this topic.

Would you mind explaining the anti- Jeff W sentiment? I’ve seen it a few times but don’t have the history as to why folks don’t want Jeff W other than him potentially using the job for a raise once and having come from Brenda Freeses “coaching tree”

 

[Volfan2012]

The tweet was made in 2021.

And it still can't be located today.

 

[Volfan2012]

 

[Lucy]

There were absolutely NIL issues because it was a source of concern for recruits and their parents. They felt that it was ignored here and not at other places they visited. When the people you're recruiting feel that way, it's an issue. It was something that KJH didn't embrace. I was told funds were there but she preferred old school recruiting and tried to sell the historical significance of the program while shying away from reality. I was also told that the recruits were realistic and not expecting a huge sum. But that they heard from other schools what was available but not from Tennessee. This was happening after the NIL restrictions about discussion were lifted.

So for parents to feel that way, there was at minimum, communication failures.

Care to share how you know all this insider information about all these recruits and their parents and how you know, when so few others do, that UT had plenty of NIL for WBB and Kellie decided to ruin her career rather than talk about it.

 

[glv98]

Care to share how you know all this insider information about all these recruits and their parents and how you know, when so few others do, that UT had plenty of NIL for WBB and Kellie decided to ruin her career rather than talk about it.

Yeah, I think we're firmly in never going to know territory on this one. Did stubborn Kellie have the $ and sit on it, did she never have the money except emergencies, did she have the money and pay the money but other reasons caused everyone to reject her after visiting multiple times. I guess we'll only know when KJH writes her book.

Important thing is it seems to be in place now and going forward.

 

[Rooster1]

I think you are incorrect here. Yes, with one or two outstanding players someone coughed up some money and a car lease. That is in no way equal to the money being passed out at at other leading programs. We got the kids on campus and couldn’t quite close the deal. Honestly, after several years of watching Kellie Harper interact with the media, fans and especially the players who are devoted to her, do you think recruits would be turned off by an on campus recruiting visit with Kellie?
None of us know how much and who to for sure but your assumption that UT was giving out tons of NIL and that Kellie Harper was such a horrible person to meet with kids did not come here seems far fetched.

I hate to repeat myself, where do you get this info and these numbers from? How much more were other programs spending than UT on HS recruits and can you show this or is it a feeling you have? Not piling on, I just see these blanket statements made often and I never see anything to back them up. No worries Lucy.

 

[VolFuture]

Care to share how you know all this insider information about all these recruits and their parents and how you know, when so few others do, that UT had plenty of NIL for WBB and Kellie decided to ruin her career rather than talk about it.

Well known NIL was an issue when compared to other schools. If it was good TN would boast about it. It wasnt

 

[Volfan2012]

Yeah, I think we're firmly in never going to know territory on this one. Did stubborn Kellie have the $ and sit on it, did she never have the money except emergencies, did she have the money and pay the money but other reasons caused everyone to reject her after visiting multiple times. I guess we'll only know when KJH writes her book.

Important thing is it seems to be in place now and going forward.

Doesn't really matter now I guess. I would like to think she didn't have the money not that she did and ignored it. Were going to find out in the next three weeks what we really have cause the new coach is assured to use it.

 

[CoryDallasLV]

I think you are incorrect here. Yes, with one or two outstanding players someone coughed up some money and a car lease. That is in no way equal to the money being passed out at at other leading programs. We got the kids on campus and couldn’t quite close the deal. Honestly, after several years of watching Kellie Harper interact with the media, fans and especially the players who are devoted to her, do you think recruits would be turned off by an on campus recruiting visit with Kellie?
None of us know how much and who to for sure but your assumption that UT was giving out tons of NIL and that Kellie Harper was such a horrible person to meet with kids did not come here seems far fetched.

Where did Rooster mention anything about Kellie being a horrible person? Geez, get over it and move on. She’s no longer the coach, and we’re never going to know all of the reasons why she’s not or why she failed. Hopefully we’ll have another one soon that we can talk about who will hopefully be more successful. Does no good to hash out whether there was NIL money or not, whether Kellie embraced it or not. Doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything. She is no longer the coach and it’s time to move on to the next. If there is NIL money to use, I hope the next coach embraces it. If there wasn’t before, then I hope that is rectified for the next coach to be able to utilize.

 

[Rooster1]

Well known NIL was an issue when compared to other schools. If it was good TN would boast about it. It wasnt

Well known as in internet fan forums or well known as in you know some facts? I'm open to facts, can someone show us this is true with any evidence?

 

[Lucy]

Lucy, Thank you for a well thought out and non-emotional response. This is the kind of discussion I come here for.

I actually agree with most all of what you said believe it or not.

My fear is we were in a continuous one more year phase with this staff. Last year people were saying just one more year I think I see the light up ahead. This year it is same thing, I am pretty sure we are moving in the right direction.

For me personally last year I was 65% that a change needed to be made but I also saw the injuries and what could have been. This year I got to more like 75-85%.

For me I do agree that lack of NIL was hurting CKJH but I don’t feel that is all of it. I had a kid playing a national travel sport and could have went to college to play and I am not sure I would advised them to play for CKJH if the sport was basketball and here are the reasons.

As someone who has watched basketball all of their life, I know it is sometimes about injuries and how the ball bounces so I do not look at just wins and loses. Here are a few of the reasons that I felt CKJH had a lot more growing to do then we were going to see in the next few years:

I did not see a consistent offensive set that could break down opposing defenses. I saw too much 1-1 with players standing around. This is not on players but coach.

I saw too many turnovers cost games for two many years now. This is on coach.

I saw too many breakdowns in defense.

I saw too many players playing out of control.

I do understand not using timeouts and saving them but if you save the timeouts until the game is out of reach what is the point of taking the timeouts home with you. You have to use them to stop runs and too many times this team fought to get back into a game and when the other team made their counterpunch CKJH waited until game was out of reach again to use that timeout.

I do not know if Jon was a help or a great coach or not but what I do know is that is one voice out of her coaching staff that could not get in her face in the heat of games like maybe an assistant would if they were not spouses. Maybe he did it but from the outside I didn’t really see the game plan change often enough.

The early season rotations for me just never made sense.

For me the 1.1 seconds was the straw that broke the camels back. I was sitting there yelling at the tv to cover Cardosa. You just cant leave anyone open. Period especially if you chose the not guard the inbounder and have 5 defenders on 4.

I said a few weeks ago that I thought the NIL funding wasn’t there because faith had been lost in CKJH by the big pockets and now we find out that maybe the case. If that is the case, she was unfortunately never going to get it and we were already in a death spiral.

In short, I do believe CKJH was growing but how much more time and would she ever get there? If I didn’t have her resume to go on then I would say there is a chance but with her resume it becomes less and less likely every year at this level that she gets to top of mountain.

I too want the best for the program but I believe that the longer it takes UT to get back to the top the harder it will be. You so eloquently pointed out how hard it will be for the Men’s FB to get back to the top and it is because of how far they had fallen and now how stout UGA is. I do not know if CJH will get the FB back there but the key with him was to stabilize the program and move it up from the dumps. He is doing that but may or may not be the guy to get the NC. Time will tell.

Thanks for your well thought out response. GBO

Thanks for your response. You made some very good points. I do believe that you and I and the majority of folks on here can also agree thatKellie is a class act and hopefully wish her future happiness.

 

[Lucy]

Where did Rooster mention anything about Kellie being a horrible person? Geez, get over it and move on. She’s no longer the coach, and we’re never going to know all of the reasons why she’s not or why she failed. Hopefully we’ll have another one soon that we can talk about who will hopefully be more successful. Does no good to hash out whether there was NIL money or not, whether Kellie embraced it or not. Doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything. She is no longer the coach and it’s time to move on to the next. If there is NIL money to use, I hope the next coach embraces it. If there wasn’t before, then I hope that is rectified for the next coach to be able to utilize.

I didn’t say Rooster said that! Rooster’s inference was that there was plenty of money and the problem was Kellie alone. My point was Kellie may not be for everyone one but she is certainly not a divisive or unpleasant person. Because of that I believe it more likely the money mattered to a lot of kids and it wasn’t there.
BTW I will discuss this every day and Sunday if I care to. Please block me.

 

[Golfteacher]

So you’re saying that South Carolina, LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Missouri, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, and Kentucky would have fired their coach for finishing 4th, winning 20 games, and going to the NCAA Tournament?

Condolences to the coaches at Missouri, Vandy, Mississippi state, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, and Kentucky…

KJH was not fired for her winning percentage, she was fired because of her inability to recruit top prospects at the high school level, her failure to maintain a high winning percentage against ranked teams, her failure to maintain pre season rankings, this year she barely survived Memphis State and later lost to MTSU. This year she failed to keep the team in the top 25. She was hired to take the program where Holly could not and sadly she failed.

 

[Rixxx]

I don't see any big time successful coaches coming to TN. I think fandom should accept the possibility of a successful coach coming from the lower ranks. I mean someone like Megan Duffy at Marquette. From the UConn tree, Carla Berube has to at least get a call. If DW is taking this approach he probably has a list. My examples are just that.

 

[Lucy]

Hey Lucy, appreciate your posts on this topic.

Would you mind explaining the anti- Jeff W sentiment? I’ve seen it a few times but don’t have the history as to why folks don’t want Jeff W other than him potentially using the job for a raise once and having come from Brenda Freeses “coaching tree”

Well, I think you hit on the big issues but to expand on the Brenda F. issue Pat felt pretty strongly BF and/or staff tampered with one of our players resulting in her transferring to Maryland. I believe a guard Sadie something gatewood maybe.
In addition to that I personally just hate his style. He uses vulgar language with his players( I know the players probably say the same things) but a coach should be better than that. He also screams and points right in their faces. Old fashioned on my part I know but I don’t like seeing a man be so angrily aggressive with a woman. It is to me a bad message to young women about what women should accept in their interactions with men. Lots of folks will disagree with me on those last two points. Oh well

 

[dapeak]

Terrible offense redux?

She just didn’t have the offensively skilled players. Look at what she brought in this year and has coming in next season.

Kara should be the choice. She ain’t Kellie. She got a poor offensive team to the Elite 8…if you don’t think she’s making the final 4 in the next couple years you’re out of your mind.

 

[ttharp]

She just didn’t have the offensively skilled players. Look at what she brought in this year and has coming in next season.

Kara should be the choice. She ain’t Kellie. She got a poor offensive team to the Elite 8…if you don’t think she’s making the final 4 in the next couple years you’re out of your mind.

Kara made the E8?

 

[Amb3096]

Well, I think you hit on the big issues but to expand on the Brenda F. issue Pat felt pretty strongly BF and/or staff tampered with one of our players resulting in her transferring to Maryland. I believe a guard Sadie something gatewood maybe.
In addition to that I personally just hate his style. He uses vulgar language with his players( I know the players probably say the same things) but a coach should be better than that. He also screams and points right in their faces. Old fashioned on my part I know but I don’t like seeing a man be so angrily aggressive with a woman. It is to me a bad message to young women about what women should accept in their interactions with men. Lots of folks will disagree with me on those last two points. Oh well

So it's ok for female coaches tp get in the female players faces, but not male coaches. Interesting take...

 

[UTtoDC]

Well, I think you hit on the big issues but to expand on the Brenda F. issue Pat felt pretty strongly BF and/or staff tampered with one of our players resulting in her transferring to Maryland. I believe a guard Sadie something gatewood maybe.
In addition to that I personally just hate his style. He uses vulgar language with his players( I know the players probably say the same things) but a coach should be better than that. He also screams and points right in their faces. Old fashioned on my part I know but I don’t like seeing a man be so angrily aggressive with a woman. It is to me a bad message to young women about what women should accept in their interactions with men. Lots of folks will disagree with me on those last two points. Oh well

Thank you for the context!

I have seen your sentiment shared on twitter and by others here. So, I wanted to have a better idea of why. I certainly understand your point.

As I’ve been thinking about it this, the potential for a “big name” hire with E8/FF experience is pretty slim-pickings. Jeff W is one of the few names being batted around with legit experience that is far beyond what we’ve reached in the last decade. I do worry that his time has passed as some have pointed out that he has been portal mining recently, similar to TN, to stay a float.

I have this pipe dream that Coach Sam would stay on under Jeff W. (please don’t come for me I know this is unrealistic, just like the stupid posts about Dawn or Kim)

 

[Lucy]

So it's ok for female coaches tp get in the female players faces, but not male coaches. Interesting take...

Totally understand it is a double standard. It is. I just can’t stomach how close that looks to the most prevalent domestic abuse.
I almost feel a male coach worth his salt would be aware of that too. Many of these kids don’t have dads to show them how a good guy interacts with women. Maybe that could be a great thing a male coach could show his players.

 

[madtownvol]

Care to share how you know all this insider information about all these recruits and their parents and how you know, when so few others do, that UT had plenty of NIL for WBB and Kellie decided to ruin her career rather than talk about it.

We have two explanations floating on the board.
1. the deep pocket donors were being stingy because they had doubts about Kellie.
2. Kellie had plenty of NIL $ at her disposal but for some inexplicable refused to use it.

Only one of those scenarios is remotely plausible but many posters are gleefully going with the option that implies Kellie was an idiot (or had a death wish).

I am more intrigued by the claim that Kellie put too much emphasis on Pat and the LV tradition when wooing recruits. I can see the inverse that Kellie maybe did not want players who were not wanting to be part of the tradition as a kind of culture building move. Her players all seem vested in the history (which is great) but that may have put Kellie a bit out of step with the current times (and you factor in a substandard NIL situation and her struggles with HS recruits starts to make more sense). Perhaps Kellie did better with transfers because players who are a bit more mature and immersed in the world of WCBB, gained more respect for the LV/Summitt legacy.

 

[VolFuture]

I will be stunned (and slightly disappointed) if it is Lawson. I get she has a lot going for her but doesn’t seem to be in a better place than Kellie…

Lawson
Gotlieb
Moore
Moren
Berube*** I don’t get this one

Then “the field”

Rueck Fortier Payne

 

[VolFuture]

Well known as in internet fan forums or well known as in you know some facts? I'm open to facts, can someone show us this is true with any evidence?

Well I can play the deduction game or I can go off what I love heard from Yo and other coaches.

Remember when Texas Tech gave all players 25k that seems to be standard now. I know for a fact TN doesn’t even do that

 

[madtownvol]

I will be stunned (and slightly disappointed) if it is Lawson. I get she has a lot going for her but doesn’t seem to be in a better place than Kellie…

Lawson
Gotlieb
Moore
Moren
Berube*** I don’t get this one

Then “the field”

Rueck Fortier Payne

We have now entered the big foot sighting stage of the coaching search

 

[VolFuture]

We have now entered the big foot sighting stage of the coaching search

Gotlieb at +600 was surprisingly good odds