Looks like everyone who has been going to the games was there to welcome him at the airport....All 30 of them.
That. That did it. All in. And yes, he's kind of chunky but in a lovable teddy bear kind of way. And the over the top personality is attractive as well. I can see where he'd score a hot wife - it may not all be the $$$. I'll bet he is fun to be around and be married to.
Do you know how to download videos to Facebook?
It just takes that one special coach.
Was Garman asleep back there?
Not sure if already discussed but...Pearl's been a HC 19 season. 17 of those, his team made the NCAA tourney.
and to the Naysayer Snaggle, it is about a lot of things, but most importantly it starts with the coach. Look at UF they were never a basketball school till Donovan got there. It just takes that one special coach.
In August, the cloud of NCAA shame will be officially lifted from his name, when the show-cause penalty he earned for lying during the course of a 2011 investigation at Tennessee is over. The investigation, the accusations and the penalties shamed Pearl, which maybe wasn’t a bad thing. No one needs public censure or ridicule, but Pearl, who tried to pretend he didn’t recognize a barbecue in his own backyard, was on the verge of becoming something plenty of successful people become: a tad too big for his own britches. Success comes easily, followed by adoration and admiration, and suddenly no one looks quite as pretty as that darned good-looking face staring back in the mirror. Because remember, before the NCAA mess, there were the pretty girls in bikinis on the boat and the messy divorce, complete with a hair salon called Alimony's owned by his ex-wife. If Pearl's response to his success wasn’t all wrong, it was at least a tad tacky -- a sign that the coach who had worked so hard, who had been almost publicly shunned by the coaching community after turning in Illinois to the NCAA while an Iowa assistant, had maybe lost some of his up-by-the-bootstraps ways.
It’s about the record, because it’s always about the record. Auburn didn’t hire Bruce Pearl because he did well in the interview or because he already has some orange in his wardrobe. Auburn hired Pearl because everywhere he’s gone, he’s won. From the smallest of the small (Division II Southern Indiana), to the middest of the majors (Milwaukee) to the biggest of the bigs (Tennessee), Pearl’s win-loss record is an unimpeachable 462-145. And no doubt Auburn also hired Pearl because he’s a huge get for a program that doesn’t get many huge gets. He has charm, charisma and a name that immediately legitimizes a program that has long been the illegitimate child of its behemoth football team. Auburn typically views basketball season as the stopgap between a BCS title game and spring practice. Adding Pearl could dramatically change that seasonal timeframe. In getting Pearl now, at this particular crossroads of his career, Auburn gets a man who is ideally suited to fix what ails the Tigers. Coaches love to break huddles with "stay humble, stay hungry."Bruce Pearl is both humbled and hungry. “I’m humbled," in fact, is how he began his statement included with the news of his hiring. For Tony Barbee, Auburn was a step up the coaching ladder, a reward for winning at even-harder-to-win UTEP. Maybe things weren’t great on The Plains, but the money, the budget, the recruiting potential -- all of it was better than at El Paso. In 2010, here came a wide-eyed, new big-league coach, ready to conquer the world. Pearl isn’t wide-eyed. He is clear-eyed. He comes to the Tigers hat in hand, happy to have the chance to coach again. In August, the cloud of NCAA shame will be officially lifted from his name, when the show-cause penalty he earned for lying during the course of a 2011 investigation at Tennessee is over. The investigation, the accusations and the penalties shamed Pearl, which maybe wasn’t a bad thing. No one needs public censure or ridicule, but Pearl, who tried to pretend he didn’t recognize a barbecue in his own backyard, was on the verge of becoming something plenty of successful people become: a tad too big for his own britches. Success comes easily, followed by adoration and admiration, and suddenly no one looks quite as pretty as that darned good-looking face staring back in the mirror. Because remember, before the NCAA mess, there were the pretty girls in bikinis on the boat and the messy divorce, complete with a hair salon called Alimony's owned by his ex-wife. If Pearl's response to his success wasn’t all wrong, it was at least a tad tacky -- a sign that the coach who had worked so hard, who had been almost publicly shunned by the coaching community after turning in Illinois to the NCAA while an Iowa assistant, had maybe lost some of his up-by-the-bootstraps ways. To his credit -- really to his immense credit, because no one takes the blame for anything these days -- Pearl has spent his time in NCAA exile talking about what he did. He’s cautioned kids, coaches and anyone who will listen not to make the same mistakes he’s made, to always tell the truth and to own up to your mistakes. Now Pearl re-enters the profession after a come-to-earth free fall, duly chastened, thoroughly reinvigorated and truly repentant. And most of all, hungry to get back to work. Auburn needs a hungry coach -- starving, actually -- because this job isn’t easy. The Tigers have eight NCAA Tournament berths in their history, five in the Sonny Smith era. The last successful run came in 2003 under Cliff Ellis. A year later, he was fired. Pearl isn’t a magician and Auburn fans would be wise to remember that, but he is no stranger to rebuilding jobs. Southern Indiana won 10 games before he arrived. Before he left, he had the team in the Division II national title game. Milwaukee never had won a Division I league title before Pearl. By the time he left, the Panthers had been to the Sweet 16. And Tennessee had missed the NCAA tournament four straight years before Pearl arrived. Then, suddenly the Vols were 6-for-6 in tourney berths and, at one point, were ranked No. 1 in the nation. That, of course, is why Auburn hired him -- the track record of success. But the Tigers really are getting so much more. They’re getting exactly what they need -- a coach who knows how to win, yes, but a coach who is hungry to win and humbled to have the chance to try again.
Ok, so apparently that is not the first Mrs. Pearl. And he ain't no choirboy either. I did not recall all of this, but it sounds Petrino-esque. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin... I'm a forgive-and-forgettin' Christian, and I say, if his rambunctiousness, and misdemeanoring is behind him...
From ESPN.
Auburn Now Has the Best Coaching Tandem in the CountryPublished on: March 18, 2014 | Written by: Clay TravisSixteen months ago Auburn's football coach was Gene Chizik and its basketball coach was Tony Barbee.This was the worst combo of head coaches in the SEC, and one of the worst tandems in the entire nation.Fast forward 16 months and everything has changed -- Auburn now has Gus Malzahn installed in football and today they added Bruce Pearl in basketball. In just sixteen months Auburn has gone from having two of the worst head coaches in college athletics to having the best. Think about what a wild transition this is for an athletic program. Jay Jacobs has gone from being booed after hiring Gene Chizik to putting together the best coaching tandem in college athletics.If athletic directors could win the Heisman trophy for a year's performance, Jay Jacobs would be the unanimous selection this year.What a total whirlwind, from one of the worst coaching combos in the country to the best in just sixteen months. Pearl will win big at Auburn because the SEC is so awful at basketball. He immediately becomes, at worst, the third best coach in the conference. (And you can argue, as I would, that Pearl is second only to Billy Donovan). Given that Auburn employs the lead investigator who gave Bruce Pearl a three-year show cause, expect for Pearl and Auburn to appear before the NCAA and seek a lifting of his penalties that run until August. Expect the NCAA to acquiesce and expect uniformly positive national media reaction to this hire for two reasons: 1. Pearl was vastly overpenalized for a minor transgression and 2. the media, like most college basketball fans, love Bruce Pearl. The SEC badly needs Pearl back in the conference too. You think Pearl's attempt to resuscitate a dead Auburn program might play well on the new SEC Network? Mike Slive and company desperately need for SEC basketball to be relevant national programming. Love him or hate him, Pearl makes great television.Meanwhile pity poor Tennessee, the most snakebit program in major college athletics ever since Phil Fulmer was fired. Basically, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong with Tennessee athletics. I halfway expect for Butch Jones to get electrocuted using his microphone during spring practice. If General Neyland came back to life tomorrow, Mississippi State would find a way to hire him as football coach while Tennessee somehow found a way to rehire Derek Dooley. Here's Tennessee in the six years with Bruce Pearl:145-61, with six NCAA tournament appearances.Here's Tennessee in the seven years without Bruce Pearl coaching -- the four before he was hired and the three after he left.121-99, with one play-in game as an 11 seed against Iowa.If Tennessee loses to Iowa tomorrow, the day after Auburn hires Bruce Pearl, be glad you don't have to check athletic director Dave Hart's email. It will be nasty, not as nasty as when Bruce Pearl comes to Knoxville coaching Auburn and gets a standing ovation from Vol fans, but close. But this isn't really a story about Tennessee's collapse, it's about Auburn's miraculous rise over the past 16 months, from the depths of Gene Chizik and Tony Barbee despair, to a new athletics dawn.Now that Pearl and Malzahn are both at Auburn, who else can even compete with Auburn for the best football and basketball coaches in the country?Ohio State has a great duo with Urban Meyer and Thad Matta. You can make a strong argument for the Buckeye duo. Michigan State is rolling with Mark Dantonio and Tom Izzo. You could also consider Coach K and David Cutcliffe at Duke as well as Rick Pitino and Bobby Petrino at Louisville. But all of these tandems came together over a decade or more. None of them were put together in 16 months. Other than these five tandems? There isn't anyone even close to the Malzahn and Pearl combination in college athletics. This doesn't even consider the incredibly exciting brand of football and basketball both bring to the table. Who doesn't love watching Malzahn with his sweater-vest and turtle neck fist pumping after touchdowns and Pearl sweating like a mad man as he gesticulates like a crazy sideline maestro. Plus, considering what both Malzahn and Pearl have already accomplished -- and are likely to accomplish in the future -- I'd take Malzahn and Pearl as the best coaching duo in college athletics over the other four combinations I laid out here. Sixteen months ago what odds would you have given me on Auburn pulling off this seismic change in coach ranking, from one of the worst combinations in the country to one of the best? Hell, this makes the kick six against Alabama seem downright likely. How good is to be an Auburn Tiger fan right now?One of my buddies just texted me and said, "You should just become an Auburn fan for the next 5-10 years."It's good advice.Everyone in college athletics is looking up to the Auburn Tigers. War damn eagle, indeed.
Happy about the hire. Even though his name had been thrown around the last few days, I never even seriously considered Pearl coming here. Why would a guy with his credentials come to a basketball shit hole like Auburn? There are several jobs opening up around the country with much more potential and recent success than ours, including Virginia Tech in the ACC.As many have said, name one coach that has gone on to greater success after a stint at AU. Here's the thing. Tony Barbee didn't become a shitty coach overnight. Lebo proved he could win somewhere else. Just about any coach around the country can handle the X's and O's...but it's about the Jimmy's and Joe's. No one has been able to recruit to this program for over 15 years. Why? They invested the money in a badly needed new arena and made the game experience 10X what it was. And the program is in worse shape than it's ever been. WT and I were going back and forth on this and he mentioned what some have talked about. Is it the shoe/apparel contract? Some feel we're black balled ($1 to WT) because of it and we're never going to get the players as long as we're with Under Armour. If that's the case, how does Pearl overcome that? How does Pearl finally get legit D1 players to come to Auburn? If he can't, he'll just be added to the list of failed AU Corches.I'm not trying to be negative but 15+ years of being a laughing stock in an overall shitty league has just jaded me. Love the fact that JJ or whoever is responsible for this hire went after the splash hire...the biggest name available. Great job!!! But, how does Bruce Pearl do what few before him have been able to do...get top notch players to sign with Auburn.
96 Replies
26900 Views