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Bruce Pearl might have retired because he got tired of cheating.
Of all the controversial college basketball coaches, Pearl might have the most checkered story. The Massachusetts native who never played a game of high school basketball went from winning two national championships as a Division II coach to D1 infamy.
He was an assistant at Stanford and Iowa, where he got into his first serious trouble by recording a phone call with a recruit he had lost and turning the tape into the NCAA, which blamed Pearl after the recruit passed a polygraph test.
As a mid-major head coach he won championships in the Great Lakes Valley Conference and the Horizon League. He was a big hit at Tennessee, where he won the 2008 SEC East and made national news when he and three players showed up for a women’s game without shirts and VOLS painted in orange on their chests.
He was recruiting and building a good team in Knoxville but then invited a prospect and his family to a cookout at his home during a dead period in recruiting. He lied to the NCAA and asked the recruit’s father to do the same. After further violations, he was fired and received a three year show-cause suspension from coaching.
Good old ESPN hired him as a studio commentator because he was funny and knew a lot of basketball. That notoriety helped him land at Auburn, where he signed a six-year contract for $2.2 million and his program was ruled ineligible for postseason play in 2021 after his assistant coach Chuck Person was involved in a 2017-18 corruption scandal. Of course, Pearl claimed he had no knowledge of what happened with Person, a former Auburn star.
His Tigers eventually went to the NCAA Tournament every year they were eligible and twice made the Final Four, losing to eventual champions Virginia in 2019 and Florida last season.
Pearl announced his retirement this week, walking away from a $50 million contract that went through 2030. His son Steven is taking over, having just signed a five-year deal with the Tigers.
Pearl became ultra-popular at every school he coached until he got some of them and himself in trouble along the way. He was the first president of the Jewish Coaches Association, publicly supported Israel in its war in Gaza and blamed Hamas for the ongoing humanitarian crisis crippling the area.
Wealthy and remarried in Auburn, he has become a celebrity there and avoided the NCAA his last few years. His career coaching record is 706 wins, 268 losses. He was among the fastest to reach 300 and 700 victories, right behind Roy Williams in both.
Pearl is one of the greatest survivors in the history of college sports, recruiting and coaching great teams, moving up in the industry and able to bounce back from every rule he broke and penalty he served.
Featured image via Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
