I wasn’t able to attend the Best of the Best Coaching Clinic at Long Island Lutheran High on Sunday, but Luke Winn of SI.com went out there and interviewed embattled Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl.
Pearl was supposed to speak on “Pressure Defense” and “Special Situations,” two topics that he’s now all too familiar with.
Despite an NCAA investigation into his program and mounting pressure on Pearl, he has yet to be fired and hopes his actions don’t justify such a penalty.
“I don’t know,” Pearl told SI.com in an interview following the clinic. “We did what we felt like we needed to do, to take steps proactively to penalize ourselves. I think the penalties were unprecedented in some scope. But we made mistakes. We provided false and misleading information to the NCAA.
“I should be made an example of, and I am — I’m embarrassed. But I hope that the things we did don’t rise to the level of termination, because we run a clean program. We got investigated in a lot of areas.”
Adonis Thomas, a Memphis native and a top Tennessee recruit, told ZAGSBLOG last week that he hadn’t ruled out the Vols, but that Tennessee faces a “problem” on the recruiting front.
BostonCat / September 20, 2010
“we run a clean program”. obviously not. and the penalties are a joke. the man makes 2 million a year, 300K reduction is a drop in the bucket. his bonus he just picks up later. his recruiting ban doesn’t go into effect until AFTER this contact period is over with. its a joke as is the UT athletic department for structure his contract the way it is. they probably want to fire him, but cant. then again….they are desperate right now and are such a mess across all sports they probably would look the other way
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UAWildcat / September 21, 2010
I can’t help but feel bad for Pearl, I have always enjoyed watching his teams at UW-Milwakee and Tennessee. All coaches bend and manipulate the rules when recruiting.
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