For years, the tunnel to retirement for middle-aged men with whistles and playbooks usually detoured to the athletic director’s chair. The Vince Dooleys and Doug Dickeys and Frank Broyleses of the game, men who could use their life experiences to manage an athletic department. Football is a reflection of life, isn’t it?
College football is mostly corporate now, and Tennessee is the latest to witness the change. Athletic director Mike Hamilton may not know the best way attack a 4-4 front, but he does own a B.S. in accounting and the M.B.A. His past isn’t shaped by helping an 18-year-old with a rough family life become a man, telling him to keep fighting whether he’s been knocked back on the football field or in life.
But he does know business, and he does know money. Earlier this year, he asked coach Phillip Fulmer to name a starting quarterback a day before the Volunteers played Northern Illinois — to boost ticket sales. He’s starting his third coaching search in five years at a school unaccustomed to headhunters and search firms.
The phrase “family atmosphere” never seemed like a cliché at Tennessee in my time covering the team. The reaction from current and former players last Monday confirmed my belief.
But Tennessee is just like everyone else now, business first and family second. History will tell us if this current business model works. There was no time for Fulmer to fix this year’s problems, especially without a recent SEC championship trophy to display. Get out of the way, old man.
This change in philosophy is especially difficult for the former players who became men under a different style of administration. National championship-winning quarterback Tee Martin speaks passionately about the Vols. He maintains close relationships with the coaches, even the new ones. It’s still a family to him. He admits being “emotional” during last Monday’s news conference and is angry about the timing.
And he sounds unhappy, based on a Friday phone conversation, with the current regime at Tennessee.
“It’s different. And there’s been one clear change,” Martin said, speaking about Hamilton but not referring to him by name. “I’m not the one to place the blame on anyone. But those changes you speak about, I mean, they can’t get rid of Pat Summitt, but everyone else that they’ve been able to release has been. That kind of speaks for itself.”
And, earlier in the week on 680 The Fan in Atlanta, Martin said: “Organizationally, it’s changed in the last five years at Tennessee. When we went back and were honored for our 10-year anniversary, it felt like a different place. We all talked about how different it felt.
“I’m talking about the place has changed, and there’s only one difference at Tennessee over the last five years. And we all know what that difference is.”
Hamilton, for those unaware of Martin’s reference, took over five years ago.
In those five years, Hamilton fired Rod Delmonico, the winningest coach in UT baseball history, just two seasons after an appearance in the College World Series. He fired Buzz Peterson. He fired Fulmer 11 months after the football Vols played in the SEC championship game, before the season was even over.
“I thought that a person with Coach Fulmer’s stature and history and the bar he raised there,” Martin said, “he would be treated better than that.”
Hamilton certainly nailed the Bruce Pearl hire after dismissing Peterson, who, unlike Fulmer and Delmonico, never enjoyed much success.
But Hamilton can’t fire a Tennessee legend like Fulmer and then whiff on his replacement. He better be right. He already flubbed the firing, giving an interview several weeks ago outlining a hypothetical plan to replace Fulmer when the head man was still in charge.
We’ll know in a few years whether Hamilton made the right decision. Right now, he needs to make sure the suites are filled and the donations continue. College football, more than ever, is a business. And that, Josh Briscoe, who asked Hamilton last Monday why it’s more important to make a dollar than to maintain the Tennessee family, is your answer.
