Good article. Fulmer seemed a little delusional about what the real problem was. Most people in denial are usually delusional though. Looks like Hamilton handled the whole situation really well.
This part that I've quoted below is about as delusional as a person can possibly be.
Although, Fulmer is not surprised by Hamilton's decision, he does not take it sitting down. Later, Fulmer will describe how he argued to keep his job. "I said, 'Mike, this is when we hunker down and go to war and fight, you know, if you've lost ten percent of the people coming to the games, they'll come back if you win.' And I felt like I deserved, with the length of time I'd been there and all that I'd accomplished, that I needed a year to get it fixed and then make a decision if it didn't work."
On his drive home after meeting Mike Hamilton, Fulmer reflects upon the change in athletic directors at Tennessee, from his old coach Doug Dickey, who he trusted intimately, to the more business-minded Mike Hamilton, "I liked Coach Dickey being there because I knew what was expected and so on, what he expected of me," Fulmer will say later. "He didn't mind one bit coming over there and having a conversation about football or the team or anything. I don't know that I ever didn't trust Mike ... necessarily. He was just different. Much more corporate, much more. Having not played ever, it would be very difficult for him to understand our world, having been from the development world where you stroke the boosters rather than Coach Dickey being a coach. He (Coach Dickey) understood those problems and how to make a stand and how to be tough, if you needed to be tough."
