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Vol coach testifies to media on NCAA, Bama

by Tony Basilio

When word leaked out that Tennessee’s head football coach would be sitting out the SEC’s annual media meetings in Birmingham, all hell broke loose. UT was excoriated for a good 24 hours in the local and regional media, and even the national folks got involved: an MSNBC.com headline screamed “Tennessee Head Coach Ducks Subpoena.” Ouch!

Needless to say, it was ugly. Many fans questioned the leadership of a coach who would send his players to Birmingham to face the music alone. If you’ll pardon the pun, it seemed that a “Tide” of antipathy was overwhelming Coach Fulmer and the Tennessee administration.

The university’s response didn’t make things much better: UT officials called a hasty press conference and declared that the decision not to attend media day was theirs alone, not Fulmer’s. UT President John Peterson and Athletics Director Mike Hamilton maintained that it was the wisdom of UT’s attorneys to forbid Fulmer from attending, since the coach would be vulnerable to a subpoena once he crossed the Alabama border.

One longtime member of the local media said the whole scenario constituted “one of the weirdest moments ever” of his time working the UT sports beat. He couldn’t get over the fact that Fulmer wasn’t going to Birmingham, and that as a consequence UT was going to pay the $10,000 fine issued by the league as punishment for his absence. Needless to say, this didn’t play too well in Big Orange Country, either.

What Fulmer could still do was participate in media week by phone. And so there he sat, at mid-week, addressing SEC partisans in Birmingham from an office in Knoxville—a coach with a mostly clean program who now looked dirty simply because he played “good cop” for the NCAA.

By all accounts, cheating became such a part of Bama football that it became an institutionally organized activity. And Alabama football is so rooted in entitlement that no one has ever officially told them their rogue behavior was objectionable. Former Tide Head Coach Bill Curry once told me that it would be nearly impossible to eradicate those attitudes prevalent in the Bama fan base that have ultimately lead to such rampant cheating.

So it’s not hard to see why, when Fulmer called out Bama for buying or stealing yet one more top prospect from Tennessee, he was hailed as something less than a champion of truth and justice.

When word leaked out that Fulmer covertly turned it up on the Tide, he has become a subject of ridicule. Conference-wide, scribes, fans and chat board nuts chided him with cries of turncoat, and with pejorative nicknames such as “Phatlock.” One Birmingham columnist wrote a mocking piece wherein he urged angry Tide fans to show sympathy for the Vol Head Coach, who suffers from a condition known as “Gooberitis.” The level of vitriol and legal hassle directed Fulmer’s way will probably discourage other coaches from cooperating in future NCAA matters; he did the right thing, but deft public posturing by his foes nonetheless left him sitting behind the eight ball.

So, with his own fan base and media openly questioning his judgment, leadership and even manhood, Phillip Fulmer did what he does best. He fought back—through a speakerphone, no less! With a couple hundred media members gathered around the speaker, the coach made an impassioned, fire-and-brimstone accounting of himself, a speech that should be remembered years from now. Fulmer showed a fiery spirit that Vol fans have long yearned for from this cautious, word-mincing “players coach.” He became one of us! He took off the cloak of coach-speak and got down to business.

Among the highlights: Fulmer declared, “To blame me or any coach—any of the numerous coaches—that told the NCAA about what they knew or what they heard about cheating is wrong. If we hear a rumor, you report it, and it’s up to the NCAA to prove or disprove it. Now a small group of attorneys—radical attorneys, who are on their own—have undertaken their own agenda to smear the NCAA and anyone else who stands in their way.”

Fulmer then turned his attention to those in the media who were making hay at his expense. “A couple of you have called me a coward. I was really disappointed to see that,” he said. “You can talk about my coaching if we lose. You can talk about my play calling in games. You can talk about my physique if you choose to step that low, but coward is across the line.”

In a perfect world, Fulmer would’ve gone to Birmingham, accepted his subpoena and revealed Tide Country for the farce that it has become. Perhaps my buddy Dick Sterchi said it best, “I wish he would go down there and walk through the lobby with a UT helmet on and say, ‘Bring it on.’” But we got the next best thing.

Tune in and talk sports with Tony Basilio weekdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on ESPN Radio WVLZ 1140 AM.

August 5, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 32 © 2004 Metro Pulse