Out with the Old, Who is the New

On June 7, Mike Hamilton resigned as Athletic Director at the University of Tennessee. This has been a long time coming in my opinion. While I do not think that Hamilton is a bad man, I do think that he made several bad decisions. He fired Phil Fulmer, our most second most successful football coach. He hired both Kiffin and Pearl who both turned out to not have the principles that a University of Tennessee coach should posses. And worst of all after hiring those two men, he allowed them to commit twelve NCAA violations. Mike Hamilton is not a bad man, but he does not possess the power to make strong hires and keep the people that he hires in line.

So now that he is gone, UT is stuck looking for a new Athletic Director. Most fans believe that a current AD from another university is who will take over the job, because UT would want a person with experience. But every UT fan hopes deep down that Phil Fulmer will come back to UT as the AD. Fulmer knows the university, the fans and supporters, sports, and he bleeds orange. His only flaw is that he has no actual AD experience or any type of business experience for that matter, and finance is such a large part of what Athletic Directors do today. Nonetheless, I believe that Fulmer could surround himself to help him with the areas in which he is not quite as proficient. So, I am certainly a proponent for hiring Phil Fulmer as our new Athletic Director.