You want to know the very latest on Walker Kessler?
I received a private message the other day, claiming Kessler had agreed to return to UNC after Hubert Davis’ visit last Sunday, only to change his mind and commit to Auburn the next day.
The messenger said that Auburn coach Bruce Pearl agreed to hire the personal trainer Chad Kessler wanted for his son that Roy Williams refused to hire. I don’t discard such a wild claim for two reasons. One, Kessler is a 7-foot-1 beanpole who needs considerable bulking up. And, second, Pearl has a rap sheet equal to Jesse James.
With a flamboyant personality and ability to coach, both of those traits have led Pearl to success in almost every stop. He also has been in some kind of trouble wherever he’s been, which means you can never discount anything you hear about Bruce Pearl.
Perhaps coincidentally, Pearl was a student aide for Boston College in 1978-79, the season the Eagles were at the center of the most famous point-shaving scandal in college hoops history.
As an assistant at Iowa, Pearl went against Illinois assistant coach Jimmy Collins in the recruitment of 5-star Deon Thomas, which led to sanctions for Illinois and Dick Vitale saying Pearl faced “career suicide” by exposing what Collins allegedly offered Thomas.
After Pearl was exiled to a head coaching job at Division II Southern Indiana, the NCAA found the school guilty of violations and the associate head coach was fired. Pearl eventually succeed Bo Ryan at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where that school self-reported violations admitted by Pearl, who somehow escaped to get his first SEC job.
Five years into his coaching tenure at Tennessee, during which the basketball Vols rose to their first No. 1 ranking, Pearl lied about having prospects to his home for a barbecue during a recruiting dead period. After Pearl’s pay was docked $1.5 million, he continued cheating and got a three-year ban from coaching by the NCAA. He spent the time making six figures as a funnyman-analyst for ESPN.
Four months before that coaching ban was lifted, Pearl signed a 6-year contract with Auburn worth $14.7 million. During the FBI’s 2017 probe into the sport, Pearl refused to cooperate with Auburn’s internal investigation and again survived when the Tigers made it to the 2019 Final Four.
Considering all that, this cat with 9 lives hiring a personal trainer for the Kessler family seems like small potatoes. Don’t ya think?
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