Randy Smith
Former Tennessee head football coach Phillip Fulmer was hired this week to an official position at his alma mater, accepting a job as an advisor to current U.T. President Dr. Joe DiPietro. Since being fired in 2008 as the Vols' head coach, this is the first position that Fulmer has taken other than as a volunteer. His name was tossed around at least a couple of times, most recently as a candidate as Tennessee's new athletic director replacing the retired Dave Hart. Fulmer was never even granted an interview for the job which eventually went to John Currie, a former Vol assistant AD who held the AD job at Kansas State.
What makes all this so interesting is the fact that Fulmer and Currie have a less than amicable relationship after Currie reportedly played a big part in Fulmer's firing.
There were also rumors that Fulmer put his name in the hat as Tennessee's AD just to keep Currie from being hired. It now remains to be seen just how Fulmer and Currie will get along now that they will both answer to Dr. DiPietro.
Don't get me wrong, I am and always have been a Phillip Fulmer fan. I stand by the idea that had Fulmer been allowed to keep his job back in 2008, the Tennessee football program would be in much better shape right now. But that is all pure speculation. It happened and, while a lot of us didn't like it, we've had to accept it and move on. In the last eight years since Fulmer left, the Vols have had three head coaches and the one who has the job right now is said to have one of the hottest seats in all of college football. There are no official numbers as to how many games that Butch Jones must win to remain on the job, but a 6-6 season or possibly a 7-5 record could lead to his ouster.
I do believe that if the Vols finish 7-5 that Jones will stay on for at least one more year. When Dr. DiPietro hired Coach Fulmer as an advisor that's exactly what he will be. He has already stated publicly that Butch has the Vols' program turned around and headed in the right direction and he will very likely have Jones' back if Currie and a few others try to get him fired.
Former Vol and billionaire Jim Haslam was also behind Fulmer's ouster back in 2008, make no mistake about it. So, how Fulmer gets along with Currie isn't the only relationship that could be strained in Knoxville. Everyone will also be keeping an eye on how Fulmer and Haslam get along.
The timing of this whole thing is hard to figure out. Fulmer's annual salary is $100,000 a year, which in the great scheme of things isn't a drop in the hat compared with other salaries and Fulmer's old salary when he was head football coach. If administration in Knoxville feels that Coach Fulmer is nothing more than a puppet and this job is also just a move to appease many of the folks in the Big Orange nation, it could be a big mistake. If he is really an advisor, let him advise and listen to him. He ,means too much to the University of Tennessee to do otherwise.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for 30 years. He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga television for more than a quarter-century. In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith. They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.