Phillip Fulmer thinks being a former coach is 'an advantage' in role as UT Vols AD

Phillip Fulmer is one of three athletic directors in the SEC who are former coaches. He figures that distinction gives him a leg up on ADs who don’t have coaching experience.

“I know what a practice is supposed to look like,” Fulmer said Thursday. “I know how a team can be affected by injuries, or whatever it might be. I know what an excuse is and a reason is. I don’t have to just look at a win-loss record to know whether we’re making progress or not. And that’s not just in football.”

Fulmer received a four-year contract worth more than $1 million annually to be Tennessee’s athletic director, the university announced Thursday. He’d been serving as AD since Dec. 1, when he replaced John Currie, under an at-will agreement.

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Fulmer is joined by Mississippi State’s John Cohen and South Carolina’s Ray Tanner as SEC ADs who used to be coaches. Cohen and Tanner coached baseball.

“I think I’ve got an advantage,” Fulmer said.

Fulmer, who played football at Tennessee, served as the Vols’ coach from 1992-2008 and led UT to a national championship during the 1998 season.

He started his coaching career as an assistant at Wichita State before becoming an assistant at Vanderbilt and then at Tennessee in 1980.

“I lined the fields at Wichita State. I painted the weight room,” Fulmer said. “You work yourself up. There’s an attitude that you have about how you go about being successful. There’s a few ways to do that, but I know a grinder is one way.”

Contract talks

Fulmer’s first 4½ months as AD were eventful. He hired a pair of coaches – Jeremy Pruitt for football and Eve Rackham for volleyball – and extended the contracts for soccer coach Brian Pensky and track and field coach Beth Alford-Sullivan.

Now eyes turn to women’s basketball coach Holly Warlick, who has one year remaining on her contract. The Lady Vols were eliminated in the second round of the NCAA tournament, marking the first time in program history that they didn’t advance past the second round of the national tournament in consecutive seasons.

Asked about a possible contract extension for Warlick or a potential new deal for men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes, who led UT to an SEC regular-season co-championship, Fulmer demurred.

“I’m not one of those that’s going to play that out in the newspaper,” Fulmer said. “We’ll let you know when it’s finalized. We’ll get that done.”

Football evaluation

Fulmer figured he was making the right choice by hiring Pruitt, but he admits it’s hard to know for sure. He feels even better about his hire after watching Pruitt this spring.

“Four months into it, I’m more sure now that we got the right guy than I was in the interview, and I was really happy then,” Fulmer said. “We’re headed in a good direction.”

Fulmer said job candidates sometimes say one thing in an interview and wind up doing another after they get the job, but that’s not the case with Pruitt.

“He’s done exactly what he said he’s going to do in the interview,” Fulmer said. “He’s exactly what I thought.”