Heard Fulmer speak today.

#52
#52
Phil's priority list:
1 - Phil getting credit for UT being successful
2 - UT being successful

I think that Phil does genuinely love the University, but the best interest of the University isn't his #1 priority.

Wow! I honestly did not know that there was this kind of sediment out there for ol Phil. And to be clear, I am not a Phil sympathizer, as I was ready for him to be relieved of his coaching duties however, I have never once questioned Phil's allegiance to The Vols. I therefore, must assume that you and others have proof that his allegiance is to money first, not UT?
 
#54
#54
Wow! I honestly did not know that there was this kind of sediment out there for ol Phil. And to be clear, I am not a Phil sympathizer, as I was ready for him to be relieved of his coaching duties however, I have never once questioned Phil's allegiance to The Vols. I therefore, must assume that you and others have proof that his allegiance is to money first, not UT?

I didn't see him refuse his AD buyout after he destroyed the program with the hiring of Pruitt.
 
#55
#55
A lot of the long term losing could have been avoided if Hamilton would have just hired Gary Patterson after Fulmer was fired

There wouldn’t have been no Lane Kiffin, Dooley, Butch, Pruitt. Patterson was genuinely interested in coaching here long term and we completely botched that opportunity.

Agree. I have always heard that Fulmer had gotten crossways with the major boosters and Hammy was pressured to fire him, which I agree needed to be done as he was not going to step down voluntarily. However, the boosters apparently didn't realize how totally incompetent Hammy was in replacing him and the rest is history. Not sure if this is really true but several so called knowledgeable people have told me that story.

Such a set of true statements. Hamilton was a fundraiser, pure and simple. He even won a national AD's fundraising award in 1998, which must have been the determining factor in him getting the AD position in 2003. Then it took him eight years to destroy a strong, well-respected athletic department, beginning with baseball and ending with basketball, but highlighted in-between by all his football mismanagement.
 
#56
#56
I didn't see him refuse his AD buyout after he destroyed the program with the hiring of Pruitt.

That he really didn't deserve because he was really being fired along with Pruitt in the house cleaning being done to appease the NCAA, but they let him have a face saving way out. I have mixed emotions about that but agree he should have not accepted it or donated back the to University.
 
#59
#59
Wow! I honestly did not know that there was this kind of sediment out there for ol Phil. And to be clear, I am not a Phil sympathizer, as I was ready for him to be relieved of his coaching duties however, I have never once questioned Phil's allegiance to The Vols. I therefore, must assume that you and others have proof that his allegiance is to money first, not UT?
It played out multiple times in front of your very eyes.
 
#61
#61
2005 wasn't Fulmers 1st failure. It's a good argument that not winning it all in 1999 and 2001 were worse coaching jobs than the 2005 season considering the talent we had.
Disappointment and failure are not the same thing. Winning 9 games and 11 games are far from a failure. We should've beat LSU but there's no guarantee we beat a loaded Miami team.
 
#62
#62
Fulmer won most of his games by out recruiting everybody and his best hire as athletic director was Kellie Harper as he tried to keep Pat Summitt's legacy alive with the Harper hire.
That’s a complete fallacy. Fulmer was a great recruiter BUT he had elite coordinators as well. I have my issues with him but he was a good if not great coach in his era. The game passed him by eventually though. As an AD he was actually better than I thought he would be and a complete joke that the university ever hired him; no other major program in the country would’ve hired Fulmer.
 
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#63
#63
In April 2016 I took the family to the Orange and White game and stayed the weekend at the Crown Plaza downtown Knoxville.
We were sitting in the lobby just getting back from the evening and out the side door came Philip Fulmer. My wife said go see if he will take a pic with the kids, so I nonchalantly chased him down as he was walking out the front entrance and said coach you got time to take a pic with my kids, and he said no I don't I am running late. My instant response was I understand and no problem, he immediately looked at me and said are your kids close and I responded right here in the lobby and he said lets do it then. Later on that evening I realized he was running late for the Pat Summit Foundation Benefit where he was the guest speaker.

during the 90's I thought he walked on water, and although his accomplishments are a bit tarnished lately I will never speak ill of him because of this one interaction.
 
#64
#64
Phil's priority list:
1 - Phil getting credit for UT being successful
2 - UT being successful

I think that Phil does genuinely love the University, but the best interest of the University isn't his #1 priority.
Don’t credit malice when incompetence explains it just as easily. I genuinely believe Fulmer thought he could do a good job as AD.
 
#65
#65
I didn't see him refuse his AD buyout after he destroyed the program with the hiring of Pruitt.
Pruitt getting turned in was always about getting Fulmer sacked. There’s no way he wasn’t taking that cash on the way out after getting screwed. As soon as Fulmer took that job the way he did he was fired.
 
#66
#66
Wow! I honestly did not know that there was this kind of sediment out there for ol Phil. And to be clear, I am not a Phil sympathizer, as I was ready for him to be relieved of his coaching duties however, I have never once questioned Phil's allegiance to The Vols. I therefore, must assume that you and others have proof that his allegiance is to money first, not UT?
Well, I suppose anybody's allegiance is to money first. It's more a question of how big a gap is there between #1 and #2, because everybody is looking out for #1 first and foremost. Later in his career, I don't think Phil's primary motivator was money but rather having the University implement his set of ideas to turn the AD around, even if a competing idea was a better option. Remember when Phil was hired as AD he said in the presser "It's amazing what can be achieved when nobody cares who gets the credit?" That is 100% true, but 100% ironic to hear him make the quote because Phil is one of the people up there who never seemed to understand that. Phil, and a whole host of others, care(d) more about who gets to take credit for success than the success itself.

I think it would have been a nice gesture, especially given the elder statesman-type figure he was as AD (it isn't like these were first checks UT has given to him), to forgo his salary during COVID and/or forgo his buyout after he was fired as AD, given what a disaster his tenure as AD was.
 
#67
#67
Don’t credit malice when incompetence explains it just as easily. I genuinely believe Fulmer thought he could do a good job as AD.
I think that Phil thinking he was a great person to be AD is more an act of incompetence than malice, actually. Dunning-Kruger effect.
 
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#68
#68
You're lying to yourself and everyone on here if you say you would refuse the buyout if you had been in Fulmer's position.

I’m not lying at all, I bleed green before orange so hell yes I would have taken the money just like Fulmer.
 
#69
#69
Actually was talking to some other Vols fans and SEC football fans in general this weekend and this topic actually came up.
A stalwart fan of a rival team made a decent, conspirator theory-ish, observation.

He posited that Phil, being all UT, took the AD job because he saw the deep division within the department, program, and fan base and the state of utter chaos that was happening. He then proceeded to do the one thing that would unite everyone and everything Vols...take the long-time cash cow and burn it to the ground.
Hire an incompetent coach, let said coach have rope enough to do bad things, clean house across the board, fall on the sword as AD.

I objected the theory right away, but now that my head wraps around timing, motives, and such...could it be possible that Phil destroyed the house so it could be rebuilt better?
 
#70
#70
Actually was talking to some other Vols fans and SEC football fans in general this weekend and this topic actually came up.
A stalwart fan of a rival team made a decent, conspirator theory-ish, observation.

He posited that Phil, being all UT, took the AD job because he saw the deep division within the department, program, and fan base and the state of utter chaos that was happening. He then proceeded to do the one thing that would unite everyone and everything Vols...take the long-time cash cow and burn it to the ground.
Hire an incompetent coach, let said coach have rope enough to do bad things, clean house across the board, fall on the sword as AD.

I objected the theory right away, but now that my head wraps around timing, motives, and such...could it be possible that Phil destroyed the house so it could be rebuilt better?
Phil took that job because he was the only person who would take the job at that moment in time. Plain and simple.

Also, if there is a conspiracy theory angle to this, my money would be on Phil being involved in Currie's removal somehow rather than intentionally hiring a bad coach who would get the program in NCAA trouble.
 
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#71
#71
Phil took that job because he was the only person who would take the job at that moment in time. Plain and simple.

Also, if there is a conspiracy theory angle to this, my money would be on Phil being involved in Currie's removal somehow rather than intentionally hiring a bad coach who would get the program in NCAA trouble.

Yes. I think Phil saw his chance when Currie was floundering for him to jump in and be the savior of the FB program and go out a hero again. (he is experienced at pushing people out). His mistake was he hired a coach with no HC experience, on purpose, that he could control and manipulate to run the FB program like he wanted. His problem was that Pruitt was not going to be his puppet but didn't know how to be a HC. I agree with 05, he never wanted to sabotage the program but his plan for him to be the hero just failed miserably due to Pruitt's ignorance and arrogance.
 
#72
#72
Actually was talking to some other Vols fans and SEC football fans in general this weekend and this topic actually came up.
A stalwart fan of a rival team made a decent, conspirator theory-ish, observation.

He posited that Phil, being all UT, took the AD job because he saw the deep division within the department, program, and fan base and the state of utter chaos that was happening. He then proceeded to do the one thing that would unite everyone and everything Vols...take the long-time cash cow and burn it to the ground.
Hire an incompetent coach, let said coach have rope enough to do bad things, clean house across the board, fall on the sword as AD.

I objected the theory right away, but now that my head wraps around timing, motives, and such...could it be possible that Phil destroyed the house so it could be rebuilt better?

No, it's not possible.
 
#73
#73
You're lying to yourself and everyone on here if you say you would refuse the buyout if you had been in Fulmer's position.
IIRC, it was worded as he stepped down. I've never heard of anyone getting a severance package for leaving a job. You get a buyout when you are fired. I would probably agree with you if the coaching staff hadn't been asked to take salary reductions during the pandemic.
 
#74
#74
IIRC, it was worded as he stepped down. I've never heard of anyone getting a severance package for leaving a job. You get a buyout when you are fired. I would probably agree with you if the coaching staff hadn't been asked to take salary reductions during the pandemic.
It's always worded as "stepping down" when they're fired without cause. He also "stepped down" in 2008 from coaching.
 
#75
#75
As the title says, I got to hear Phil Fulmer speak at city current in Germantown TN today. A lot of it was typical business leadership talk. However, it opened up to a Q&A which I thought got a little interesting. On a series with Memphis football: ( paraphrasing ) Playing UT is like a super bowl for them. Tennessee players don’t really get up for it. Thinks Tennessee/Memphis basketball series is a good idea though.
On NIL/ transfer portal: “ NIL is the way of the future, get on board or get left behind. Not a fan of the transfer portal, doesn’t teach kids to persevere through hard times. Went on to mention he was a LB that got moved to O-line and was the the sixth string guard but ended up competing for playing time ( as a freshman I suppose ).
Pruitt: He wasn’t directly asked but when he was outlining his time with the university he mentioned him ( not by name ) by saying “ Until my coach acted an idiot.” Or something along those lines.
On first becoming a head coach: ( I thought this was kind of cool) “ One of the things I wanted to do was have Tennessee merch in all the major airports across the country.”

A few other things: favorite team I believe was the 94 team when cullquit got hurt and then they had to use Helton who was really supposed to just be there until one of the freshman got schooled up. Asked about how Involved Archie was when Petyon was there. He basically said if he attended a practice you’d never know it, wasn’t vocal or overly involved at all. He was even invited to sit in on some meetings and declined. Asked about the best leaders on the team and basically some of them were second string guys that you would never know about. Mentioned that we all knew about the obvious guys like Al, Peyton, Little etc….

Anyway. Just a few takeaways. I enjoyed hearing him talk and he has a much more interesting perspective now since he’s worn a lot of hats. I understand that some people have mixed feelings about him but I really thought he presented his career on a lot more human level than some coaches may have.
Thanks for sharing. He did a lot of good here and sometimes I forget that when going over all the “what if’s”
 

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