Tennessee fires Bruce Pearl

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

I'm not up on my Bruce Pearl history. What am I missing?

What I know:

• Pearl coached at UW-Milwaukee
• Ellis played at Notre Dame
• Deon Thomas played at Illinois

Before he became the coach at UW-Mil., Bruce Pearl was an asst. coach at Iowa under Dr. Tom Davis. Back in the day, both IA and IL were recruiting Deon Thomas. Supposedly he had a taped conversation of a phone call w/Deon where Deon supposedly admitted that IL had offered him cash and a Chevy Blazer to attend IL. Pearl and IA then turned in the info to the NCAA; they investigated, found no direct proof of any wrongdoing, but sanctioned IL anyway due to "lack of institutional control". Digger Phelps and ND were involved in the investigation somehow because ND and IL were also involved in the recruitment of Ellis at that time.

The main reason Pearl is hated around here is because the whole investigation was started under shady circumstances - it was a supposedly illegal wiretapped phone conversation, initiated by Pearl, that started the investigation, but that particular item was never publically addressed. Add to it the NCAA never found any direct wrongdoing, but the lead investigator at the time, and the NCAA, decided to punish IL for general violations after a year or two. Btw, the lead investigator was Mike Slive, who is now the commisioner of the SEC.