Bruce Pearl Coaches Crackheads. Yeah! Take That!
As longtime readers know, we never miss an opportunity to knock around Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl. We know this isnt fair hes a great coaching story, hes done a great job and the man is a world champion sweater but Bruce Pearls fate was sealed with us back in the early 90s when he was an assistant coach at Iowa. Its not fair, we know, and we dont really care. Bruce Pearl could cure cancer, find Osama bin Laden and write a script that would erase the words Skip and Bayless from the vocabulary, and wed still hate him. Sorry. Its how we feel.
Anyway, Pearls having all kinds of trouble with his Volunteer charges these days. Two of his players were arrested for possessing 15.2 grams of crack cocaine. Thats a lot of crack, enough that police could charge them with intent to distribute.
Despite jokes that the crack cocaine could explain Pearls sweating problem, this isnt inherently Pearls fault, though its hard to imagine, say, Dean Smith coaching guys busted for crack. But were going to enjoy watching him squirm anyway. We wont lie to you: If we could choose an Official Deadspin Villain, it would be Bruce Pearl. And again: We know its not fair, and we dont care. Hating Bruce Pearl was a notion we understood long before we understood fairness.
Pearls High Standards Put Players Futures In Doubt [Nashville City Paper]
Putting The Rock Back In Rocky Top [Taylor Bunts]
More:Bruce Pearlcollege basketballpolice blotterTennessee Volunteers
How deep is my hatred for Bruce Pearl? Before I was an Illini, I was a UC Riverside Highlander. In 1995, we lost the D2 national championship, blowing an 18 point halftime lead in the process. The loss came against Southern Indiana, coached by none other than that bastard Bruce Pearl.
by Seitz on 03/07/06 01:03 PM
I didn't know who Bruce Pearl was until right now but i hate him with every fiber of my being. To check out another loathsome character go to cnn.com and look at giant mug of a certain espn reality tv star.
by ron mexico in 2008 on 03/07/06 01:24 PM
The guy is worries about nothing other than himself. Every time he takes a new job, his previous employer seems happy to have him go. He may win games, but he acts like a spoiled child when someone out-recruits him.
by Nick Kramer on 03/07/06 01:39 PM
Bruce Pearl is what the french call a "duschbag." Maybe if he'd slip his players the occasional Chevy Blazer they wouldn't need to slang the occassional rock to make ends meet.
by colinsmith on 03/07/06 01:59 PM
Aw, crap Mexico, I was going to write about Bruce Pearl and now I'm reading CNN. You suck.
by CliffX on 03/07/06 02:11 PM
I dislike Pearl as much as the next guy, but all of these players getting busted are players that he inherited less than a year ago. He didnt pick them- he was stuck with them.
by Wesdaddy24 on 03/07/06 02:13 PM
It's been almost 15 years, man. Let it go.
by Q. Compson on 03/07/06 02:17 PM
Wouldn't you know...crack-head coach and crack-head players!!!!!!!!!
by sheriff gonna getcha on 03/07/06 02:17 PM
Pearl is your worst nightmare---he's like a guy who attacks a girl you like and then somehow not only gets away with accusing you of the attack, but becomes the star witness against you for the prosecutor, and then winds up going out with the girl. Of course, the girl is treated horribly by Pearl, and he's soon on to someone else.
I saw in SI recently they had a blurb on Pearl, and they shorthanded an incident involving Pearl and a U of I recruit into "Pearl reported Thomas' assertion that he'd been offered $80,000." What they didn't mention is that the actual transcript of the converstaion was more like "So what'd they offer you? I heard it was $80,000." and then the recruit saying "Yeah, that's what it was." What gets left out in all this is the damage Pearl did to a program and the fact that the recruit---who'd already committed elsewhere, and was never found to be inolved in any hanky panky---reported that he was being hounded by Pearl 24 hrs a day and stated that he was just trying to get off the phone with Pearl, and that it was Pearl who had in fact offered illegal inducements. Pearl's cozy relationship with NCAA enforcement had, I'm sure, no influence on his not being investigated and the other program being run through the wringer.
It was sickening last spring during Pearl's NCAA run hearing commentators, who were too lazy to actually check the record of the story, talking up Pearl's "courage" and his "principled stand" that resulted in his being persona non grata for a while.
The dude's a Grade A slimebag.
by salvomania on 03/07/06 02:43 PM
Nothing satisfies me more than hearing of problems for Bruce Pearl. His page on the Tennessee site has some good quotes - one says "He is a relentless recruiter." My favorite, though, is "He's a basketball junkie." Looks like he passed the "junkie" trait down to his team. Good job Bruce.
by KD on 03/07/06 04:09 PM
Pearl comments can be separated into two categories: 1) those from Illinois fans (obviously everyone who commented before me in this thread) and 2) those from the rest of the world. Rational comments about him generally fall into the latter category.
by Barry Lutz on 03/07/06 04:18 PM
wonder if the players were running a drug ring with pearl the top dog. kinda like in the movie "the substitue." except pearl's the coach opposed to the principal.
by Fred Smoot on 03/07/06 05:29 PM
Was Pearl really stuck with these players? I believe one of them is a transfer from UWM
by Sarcastro on 03/08/06 07:56 AM
Hey Lutz, I hear what you're saying. To the casual observer, Illini fans' anti-Pearl bias obviously comes off as irrational defensiveness in the face of being caught with hand in cookie jar, and blaming the whistleblower.
But the actual FACTS---available on-line, and summed up excellently in a series of Sun-Times articles from about a dozen (or more) years ago---really do show a gigantic pile of indisputable evidence of Pearl's sleazy and unethical behavior while at Iowa, and especially in the Deon Thomas case.
The reason why Illini fans get so worked up is that Illinois suffered major penalties because of this guy, yet Pearl's main allegations were never substantiated by the NCAA. Far-better-documented allegations were brought aginst Pearl and Iowa by Illinois, and the NCAA never vigorously pursued them. There was a well-known relationship between Pearl and the NCAA's chief enforcement officer---they were good friends and the EO was an Iowa man---and one of the most damning bits of evidence against Pearl was the log of phone calls by Pearl to the EO in the weeks leading up to infamous phone call--including several calls the day of. Add to this Pearl's hiring of one of Deon Thomas's high school buddies to watch him and report back to Iowa...I mean it's all there, for those who are interested in the facts.
