Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart said after Rick Barnes’ introductory press conference last Tuesday that UT was due a break in timing.
Forget timing. The athletic department was simply due a break of any sort.
It got one in Barnes, a proven a coach who happened to be available at the exact time that UT’s latest sports-related calamity culminated with the firing of Donnie Tyndall.
Detractors point to Barnes’ age and relative lack of success over his final few seasons at Texas as reasons for skepticism.
Let them.
Barnes will be 61 when the 2015-16 season tips, and his last four teams have lost 10 or more games.
Three of those four found their way to the NCAA Tournament, though, and when you consider who the Vols turned to the last two times they were searching for a coach, Barnes seems like a rock star in comparison.
Cuonzo Martin and Tyndall both came from mid-major schools and had made a combined total of one NCAA Tournament as head coaches before landing the Tennessee job.
On the contrary, Barnes has been to 16 of the last 17 Big Dances and is capable of recruiting players Martin and Tyndall could only dream of.
It’s remarkable that such a proven coach was willing to inherit this mess at UT.
In a lot of ways, the ending to Barnes’ tenure with the Longhorns was like the ending of Phillip Fulmer’s time as Tennessee’s football coach in 2008.
Both coaches fell victim to their own success when fans and university brass accustomed to perennial excellence became dissatisfied with occasional lapses into mediocrity.
In both cases, respected, successful men, who had been the head coach at the same school for 17 seasons, departed with teary-eyed press conferences.
Fulmer was 58 when Tennessee let him go, and he could have coached elsewhere if he wanted to.
Barnes knew almost immediately that he would coach again and stressed his unquenched desire to win a national championship during his introductory press conference.
Perhaps Fulmer was okay with staying out of the coaching world because he had a national championship ring and no desire to coach somewhere other than his alma mater.
Would it have made sense for Iowa State football fans to complain about having Fulmer as their coach, though?
Of course not.
The Cyclones – a middle of the road football program – were looking for a new coach after the 2008 season and would have been lucky to land Fulmer, who led UT to bowl games in 15 of his 17 seasons and a national championship in 1998.
Tennessee’s basketball program could be equated to the Iowa State football program in terms of national relevance.
If you take off your Big Orange goggles for a moment, it’s clear that UT scored a coach who really should have been out of its league with Barnes.
All it took was a fortuitous collision of fate (and the help of a search firm) for a negative situation to turn positive for the Vols.
For once, UT caught a break.
David Cobb is a senior in journalism and electronic media. He may be reached at [email protected].
