On Monday, I wrote that Mike Hamilton was going to make Bruce Pearl the scapegoat for what could be severe sanctions levied against the Vols basketball program.
On Tuesday, Hamilton fired Pearl hoping that it would send a message to the NCAA in advance of the Vols appearance before the Infractions Committee in June.
After Hamilton went on a Knoxville radio station last week and said that the jury was still out regarding Pearl’s future, the handwriting was on the wall.
I’m not defending Pearl’s actions. He made his own bed when he lied to the NCAA about a photo taken of him and former recruits Josh Selby and Aaron Craft at Pearl’s home.
After Pearl admitted that he lied to NCAA investigators in September, Hamilton was apparently foolish enough to believe the NCAA wouldn’t hit the Vols with major sanctions.
For someone who’s worked in college athletics for a number of years, Hamilton should have known the NCAA wasn’t going to take Pearl’s lying with a grain of salt.
Instead of taking immediate action to send the NCAA a clear message about Tennessee’s intent to run a clean program, Hamilton allowed Pearl to remain as coach.
The only move Hamilton made to discipline Pearl was to void his contract and have the coach work under a letter of appointment, essentially costing Pearl $1.5 million in salary.
And it wasn’t Hamilton who suspended Pearl for eight conference games. That action was taken by SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who obviously didn’t approve of how the Vols were handling the situation.
Throughout the season Hamilton expressed support for Pearl, but as the season came to a close, there was a growing concern the basketball program would be hit with severe sanctions if Pearl were still the Vols’ coach when they appeared in front of the Infractions Committee.
Hamilton has got to be the dumbest guy on the planet if he thinks that firing Pearl is going to lessen the blow from the NCAA.
If anything, the NCAA is probably wondering what took him and the university so long to fire him.
There’s no arguing that Pearl got Hamilton into this mess, but the Vols’ AD compounded the problem when he didn’t take immediate and decisive action to resolve the problem.
And it was Hamilton who shirked his responsibility as an athletic director that should have had the university’s best interests in mind, regardless of how unpopular Pearl’s firing would have been.
Allowing this situation to linger falls squarely on the shoulders of Hamilton, but no one seems to be overly concerned with his failures in this affair.
It is Hamilton’s failures that will land Tennessee in hot water with the NCAA, and Pearl is being made to take the full brunt of punishment despite the fact his athletic director is just as guilty.
