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CBSSports.com has a nice story on Bruce Pearl and what he's doing since he was banned from coaching by the NCAA for his cheating at Tennessee.-
Bruce Pearl still thinks about that afternoon all the time. The date wasSept. 20, 2008 when Tennessee hosted Florida at Neyland Stadium for a football game. Pearl hosted three recruits, most notably Aaron Craft, at his home for a cookout that was in violation of NCAA rules. By now, you know the details. Somebody snapped a picture of Pearl and Craft. The NCAA eventually got a copy of the picture that led to an investigation that led to the end of his otherwise overwhelmingly positive six years at UT.
Interesting that the CBS writer Gary Parrish seems to imply that Bruce Pearl's woes were caused because someone just happened to snap a picture of him violating NCAA recruiting rules (hosting 2 high school juniors at his home) and the picture fell into the wrong hands (the NCAA).
No, the problem was that Bruce Pearl felt he was above the rules, he broke the rules repeatedly (he and his staff were also guilty of illegal phone calls), and then he lied repeatedly about it even after he was caught (he claimed he did not know where the photo was taken). And he even tried to get one of the recruits and his father to lie. Plus, he directed his entire staff to keep lying about it and got all of his assistants fired and banned from coaching. Just how many other rules were broken, and how many other recruits he hosted illegally, we'll never know. But it is likely he will get another NCAA head coaching job as soon as his ban expires, because as Parrish writes, "most industry insiders expect Pearl to be presented with opportunities next March...because he's really good at coaching basketball.
That's sometimes easy to forget. What Pearl accomplished at Tennessee was unprecedented for that program."
A lot of people, will wonder how much of his success was from cheating.
Bruce Pearl still thinks about that afternoon all the time. The date wasSept. 20, 2008 when Tennessee hosted Florida at Neyland Stadium for a football game. Pearl hosted three recruits, most notably Aaron Craft, at his home for a cookout that was in violation of NCAA rules. By now, you know the details. Somebody snapped a picture of Pearl and Craft. The NCAA eventually got a copy of the picture that led to an investigation that led to the end of his otherwise overwhelmingly positive six years at UT.
Interesting that the CBS writer Gary Parrish seems to imply that Bruce Pearl's woes were caused because someone just happened to snap a picture of him violating NCAA recruiting rules (hosting 2 high school juniors at his home) and the picture fell into the wrong hands (the NCAA).
No, the problem was that Bruce Pearl felt he was above the rules, he broke the rules repeatedly (he and his staff were also guilty of illegal phone calls), and then he lied repeatedly about it even after he was caught (he claimed he did not know where the photo was taken). And he even tried to get one of the recruits and his father to lie. Plus, he directed his entire staff to keep lying about it and got all of his assistants fired and banned from coaching. Just how many other rules were broken, and how many other recruits he hosted illegally, we'll never know. But it is likely he will get another NCAA head coaching job as soon as his ban expires, because as Parrish writes, "most industry insiders expect Pearl to be presented with opportunities next March...because he's really good at coaching basketball.
That's sometimes easy to forget. What Pearl accomplished at Tennessee was unprecedented for that program."
A lot of people, will wonder how much of his success was from cheating.
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