Reports: Tennessee fires AD John Currie

[Old School]

Reports: Tennessee fires AD John Currie

Nick Bromberg
,Dr. Saturday?<time class="date Fz(11px) Mb(4px) Fz(13px) C(#9ea2af)" datetime="2017-12-01T15:33:31.000Z" itemprop="datePublished" style="color: rgb(158, 162, 175); font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 4px;">December 1, 201
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https://sports.yahoo.com/reports-tennessee-fires-ad-john-currie-153331806.html

 

[#cruncher]

Unreal!

 

[loophole]

phil fulmer gets what he wants- now the new a.d. @ rockytop. in other news, jimbo perry heading west to texas a&m.

 

[loophole]

jimbo = 10 yr/ $75 million deal. smoke that saban.

 

[Old School]

Tennessee names Fulmer AD, places Currie on paid leave

Steve Megargee, Ap Sports Writer
Updated 1:18 pm, Friday, December 1, 2017


http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/col...-news-conference-amid-tumultuous-12398234.php


KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? Tennessee has named Phillip Fulmer athletic director and placed former AD John Currie on paid leave amid what has been a tumultuous and embarrassing football coaching search.
Chancellor Beverly Davenport announced the move Friday. She says Fulmer will immediately take over the coaching search.


"Phillip Fulmer has been a great representative of the university. He has been a student-athlete, a head coach, and a father of UT student-athletes," Davenport said In a release. "He understands our history, our rich traditions, and the importance of supporting our student-athletes. I am confident that Phillip understands our commitment to excellence in all of our athletic programs and I appreciate his willingness to serve during this critical time."


Fulmer is a Tennessee alum and a Hall of Famer who coached the Volunteers to a 1998 national title.

Tennessee fired Butch Jones last month and was close to hiring Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano on Sunday as its next coach. That deal fell through amid a public backlash. Currie met Thursday with Washington State coach Mike Leach.

Reports linked Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy and Purdue's Jeff Brohm to Tennessee's vacancy, but both stayed with their respective teams. North Carolina State's Dave Doeren agreed to a new contract with the Wolfpack Thursday after speaking with Tennessee about its vacancy.
Tennessee is looking for a coach after possibly the most disappointing season in school history.

After being ranked in the Top 25 at the start of the year, Tennessee went 4-8 to set a school record for losses. The Vols were winless in Southeastern Conference competition for the first time since the league formed in 1933.

The public nature of Tennessee's inability to find a coach frustrated a fan base already angry about the Vols' poor 2017 season. People chanted "Fire Currie" on a handful of occasions Monday night during a wrestling show on campus and again Wednesday night during the Tennessee men's basketball team's victory over Mercer.


Currie just took over as Tennessee's athletic director in April after Dave Hart stepped down. Currie agreed to a five-year contract worth at least $900,000 annually. According to terms of Currie's contract, the school would owe him $5.5 million if he is fired now without cause.

At his introductory news conference, Currie boldly said that Tennessee "can and should be the very best athletics program in the country."
Currie's familiarity with Tennessee was seen as a selling point when he got hired. Before coming to Kansas State, he worked at Tennessee for about a decade in various capacities, most recently as a chief deputy and adviser to former athletic director Mike Hamilton.

Hamilton forced out Fulmer as football coach in 2008. This marks Tennessee's fourth coaching search since Fulmer's exit.

Fulmer had publicly expressed his interest in the athletic director position, but Currie was chosen as Hart's replacement instead.

Tennessee announced in June that Fulmer had been named a special adviser for community, athletics and university relations. The part-time position pays Fulmer $100,000 annually and was seen as a way to unite a fan base divided over whether Fulmer should have been chosen as athletic director.
___
AP College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo and AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker contributed to this report.

 

[Old School]

some coach's parlayed raises and contract extension out of this mess.

 

[loophole]

wolfpack's doeren was one of them, new five year deal worth $5 million a year*. not bad for a guy with a 15-25 acc record over the last five years.

*that should read $3 million a year. got carried away with the 5s. still not bad for a guy that, five years ago, was making a few hundred thousand a year coaching in the mac.

 

[53defense]

Probably first good decision coming out of Knoxville in a while.

Fullmer had much success as their coach 152-52...........8-7 in bowls

Thing was he was only 29-21 his last 4 years and thats what got him bounced.

Should bring some familiarity to program as well as calm, throwing out the anchor is stormy seas.

 

[53defense]

wolfpack's doeren was one of them, new five year deal worth $5 million a year. not bad for a guy with a 15-25 acc record over the last five years.

That dude hit the lottery......

 

[#cruncher]

With the exception of a Saban or something close I just can't see some of the contracts some of the guys have, especially the length. It gets to the point that if you think you need to let them go you can't because of the large buyout. It doesn't matter how good a coach may be at recruiting, running a practice, or whatever; the only thing that really matters is what you do on Saturday. There's just no need to extend some of these clowns for such a long period of time, there's always a good, young, up and coming new guy out there somewhere. Some of these AD's absolutely amaze me. My money would be on Fulmer to get things things straightened out, although it could take a few years.

 

[Old School]

<header id="SideTop-0-HeadComponentTitle" class="canvas-header" data-reactid="2">Tennessee fans got what they wanted, and now the school is the laughingstock of college football

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https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football/



Pat Forde
Yahoo Sports<time class="date Fz(11px) Mb(4px) D(ib)" datetime="2017-12-01T20:45:12.000Z" itemprop="datePublished" data-reactid="14" style="display: inline-block; zoom: 1; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 4px;">Dec 1, 2017, 3:45 PM</time>





Sunday afternoon, Tennessee had a football coach locked up and an athletic director in place. Wildly popular or not, a course was set for where the Volunteers hoped to go.

Friday morning, Tennessee got rid of one AD and hired another in former coach Phil Fulmer. It doesn?t seem to have any clue what to do next, but it did lock down status as the laughingstock of college football.

Good job, good effort by the Big Orange rabble. The mob?s self-congratulatory populist revolt has left the UT athletic program with less leadership, fewer coaching options and drastically reduced national and regional respect compared to five days ago. Amateur Hour turned into Amateur Week turned into a rudderless ghost ship drifting down the Tennessee River toward an uncertain future.

The situation is so bad in Knoxville, Auburn looks stable.

After lurching from Greg Schiano to David Cutcliffe to Mike Gundy to Jeff Brohm to Dave Doeren to Mike Leach ? a different day, a different top coaching candidate ? the school finally fired the guy ostensibly leading the search, AD John Currie. His base of support had eroded drastically as the week went along, with ?Fire Currie? chants at the Tennessee basketball game Wednesday, and constant broadsides aimed his way via social media. In the end, when he seemed close to locking up Leach after a meeting Thursday in Los Angeles, the UT administration called him home and ran him off before he could finish this tortured search.


All of which leaves you wondering: If meddling hadn?t happened and Currie had been allowed to hire Schiano on Sunday, how much better off would Tennessee be today?


It would have a coach. It would have most of a staff. It would have spent the last five days making recruiting calls and trying to firm up a December 20 signing class. It would have a vision. It would have leadership.


Instead, the deluded cabal that believes 1998 was last week and that Tennessee is still a Cadillac program got its way, publicly poisoning the well for Schiano and Doeren (and maybe others). Thus the seventh-best job in the SEC remains unfilled. (At least it was seventh-best before this fiasco; probably lower now.)

Often times, program tradition is a great thing. But sometimes it?s a toxic thing, and Tennessee appears to be finding that out now.

Because of past success, the Volunteer Nation has an unrealistic view of its present condition. And the one man in town who personifies much of that success, Fulmer, has not been a productive part of the situation. But he insinuated himself into the coaching search and apparently wound up getting Currie?s job.

Fulmer was fired (probably unwisely) in 2008, and he?s never really moved on. He?s still in Knoxville and still wants to throw his weight around, to the point that many people believe he actively undercut Currie during this search.

Sources familiar with aspects of the Tennessee search say Fulmer was communicating with prospective coaching candidates, and probably not in conjunction with Currie. Fulmer might have had his own coaching wish list and proceeded accordingly, with or without authorization. At least one coaching candidate contacted by Tennessee received very mixed signals about the school?s interest, in part because of Fulmer?s involvement.

If Currie believes he was undercut by Fulmer, he has company.

Johnny Majors was the head coach at Tennessee from 1977-92 and Fulmer was his top assistant at the end of that run; when Majors had heart surgery during the ?92 season, Fulmer stepped in as interim head coach. Fulmer went 3-0 during that time, and Majors was convinced Fulmer politicked Tennessee officials to make him the full-time head coach and force Majors out. That?s exactly what happened after the season, and Majors remained bitter for many years.


Then there is David Blackburn, who was widely considered the leading candidate to become Tennessee AD when the job went to Currie earlier this year. Blackburn was a longtime UT administrator before becoming the athletic director at Chattanooga, which positioned him to return to Knoxville with the requisite experience when that job came open.


But Fulmer threw his hat in the AD ring as well, competing against a guy he used to work with for many years. According to a source familiar with the situation, Fulmer?s suggestion was that Blackburn serve as deputy AD and manage the day-to-day operation while Fulmer took the big title and big desk and was the face of the program. Blackburn understandably wanted no part of that arrangement.


Fulmer?s belief in his own importance hasn?t perceptibly faded in the 19 years since he won a national championship. He has still inquired about various coaching jobs over the years, and one athletic director who had a phone conversation about a job came away singularly unimpressed. ?He didn?t know anything about our program,? the AD said. ?All he did was talk about himself and what he could do for us.?

If Tennessee gives control of this debacle of a coaching search to Fulmer, he will at last have back some of the power and influence he?s craved since 2008. What he will do with that power is unknown ? but if he wants to perpetuate his own mythology, then hiring Tee Martin would do the trick. The USC offensive coordinator was the starting quarterback on Tennessee?s ?98 title team.

The only thing certain is this: Tennessee fans wanted a revolution last Sunday and got it. Be careful what you wish for.

This entire episode is like the closing scene of the classic 1960s movie, ?The Graduate,? where Dustin Hoffman busts up a marriage and escapes with the would-be bride on a bus. They?re laughing at first, flush with the thrill of dramatic action. Then the realization sets in: Where are we going, and what do we do now?

Does anyone in Knoxville know where the football program is going, or what it should do now?

 

[ejthree]

PHillup Baby!!!!!

 

[Old School]

Tennessee, former AD John Currie agree to $2.5 million settlement


Adam RittenbergESPN Staff Writer

Tennessee and former athletic director John Currie reached a separation agreement Thursday that will pay Currie $2.5 million.


Currie, who was dismissed from his post Dec. 1 amid the school's controversial and lengthy search for a football coach, will receive a one-time payment of $2,220,454.60 by April 1. He has already been paid his salary from December through February. The athletics department will entirely fund the separation agreement, which has been approved by Tennessee's chancellor, system president and board of trustees.

"We wish John and his family well in their future endeavors," Tennessee chancellor Beverly Davenport said in a prepared statement. "We are grateful for his contributions to the University of Tennessee, which began more than two decades ago."

Currie was named Tennessee's athletic director on April 1, 2017, receiving a five-year contract, after he spent eight years in the same role at Kansas State. Tennessee fired football coach Butch Jones on Nov. 12, and two weeks later Currie had chosen Jones' successor in Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano. Although the two sides agreed to a memorandum of understanding Nov. 26, Tennessee backed out of the agreement hours later after a strong backlash from fans.

Currie continued to pursue candidates like Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, NC State coach Dave Doeren and Washington State coach Mike Leach, but ultimately was placed on administrative leave. Former Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer took over as athletic director and hired Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt as coach on Dec. 7.

In a reference letter written by Davenport on Currie's behalf and obtained by ESPN.com, Davenport praises Currie for restoring the Lady Vols name and logo, bringing Fulmer back to the university and creating positive relationships with campus organizations. She also noted his fundraising success in expanding the Neyland Stadium renovation project.

"John was my first hire at UTK," Davenport writes in the reference letter. "He met all of the qualities I was looking for: a sitting athletics director at a Power-5 institution; someone committed to student success; and someone who was committed to winning the right way. Other immediate impressions related to John's intensity, high energy and excellent interpersonal skills."

As part of the agreement, Currie will pursue no legal action against Tennessee. The agreement also states that Currie has disclosed any known NCAA or SEC rule violations to Tennessee during his time as athletic director. He also must cooperate fully with any university or NCAA investigations pertaining to his time as athletic director.

Currie is finishing a week of teaching as an executive in residence at Robert Morris University's business school. He's scheduled to speak at several conferences in the next few weeks.