The Three Stooges

I assumed at first that most of you would realize who the three men at the top of the blog were, but just in case you are not sure. I will take you through each man. The man on the far left is Bruce Pearl, the previous basketball coach before Cuonzo Martin. Coach Pearl was great for the University of Tennessee. He took us to six NCAA championships, one of those years making our first Elite Eight appearance, which I attended; he brought energy that made the home crowds in Thompson-Bowling Arena the fourth largest in the country. He served the community well by helping with many charities and non-profit organizations. It is very sad that he failed UT in the way he did. Coach Pearl was caught violating NCAA rules, and even worse when he was asked about the violations by the NCAA, he lied about it. These mistakes ruined the great basketball legacy that he had worked so hard to build in the six years before hand.

The man on the far left is Lane Kiffin, the previous football coach before Derek Dooley. Lane Kiffin is viewed by many as the greatest mistake that the University of Tennessee has ever made. He was at UT for only fourteen months, but he was trouble the whole time. He constantly was cocky and rude, which caused him to become hated by every other coach in the SEC. He committed small NCAA infractions over and over again. And recently it has been found that he committed two major infractions, and UT is waiting to hear what the NCAA decides on that matter. Kiffin left UT after only one season, and people were so furious that they actually rioted in the street.

The man in the middle is Mike Hamilton. Hamilton served as the Athletic Director of UT for the last eight years. Hamilton is not a bad man, and I do not believe that he necessarily supported the behavior of Kiffin or Pearl, but the issue still is that he hired both of them, and he could not control their behavior. So these men are at the top of the page because they are the men that dug the hole that UT is working to get out of right now.

The Point of the Turning Point

What is the Tennessee Turning Point? The Tennessee Turning Point is where the University of Tennessee's Athletic Department finds itself at this very moment. The UT's athletic department has been struggling for three years now in some way or another. The football team went through three coaches in three years. The baseball team just fired the last coach. The basketball team just did the same and is facing NCAA infractions. And the Athletic Director just resigned. The football and basketball teams both committed NCAA violations over the last several years and are currently awaiting the verdict from the NCAA. The department is in utter disarray, and if something is not done at this turning point then University of Tennessee athletics will continue its downward spiral. The point of this blog is to look into what has happened to the athletics department and what they are going to do as they move forward. I hope you enjoy it.