Funny, Self admits in his autobiography he probably would have taken the Tennessee job if he had been offered. Stallings didn't take the job because Dickey took a phone call from Tim Floyd sitting in Kevin's house. Stallings had already agreed in principle and started assembling a staff to come to Knoxville. Of course, you've never been one to let facts get in the way of making an inaccurate point.
Stallings would have done very well here, especially out of the gate. Hell, Green went to the NCAA Tournament four straight years with the talent he inherited. I'm confident Stallings would have done the same and taken those teams deeper into the tournament. It's ironic Stallings was the coach that knocked UT out of the Big Dance Green's first year.
If you think Self wouldn't have taken a ten fold raise to leave Oral Roberts and come to Knoxville, you need help. The coaching searches were embarrassments because they were conducted by idiots. Gregg Marshall would have walked to Knoxville and Ernie Grunfeld was certain Jay Wright would have taken the job. What does Dickey do? He offers the job to neither and hires a guy whose greatest accomplishment was being Michael Jordan's butler.
You should have been embarrassed that UT was employing an athletic director so removed from reality that he was stunned Stallings took offense at being offered the job, tentatively accepting, then being told he needed to hold off while UT had further conversations with a coach everyone in college basketball knew was just working Iowa State for a raise.
Yes. Dickey's handling of the negotiations with Stallings, plus the fact that KO and his rather large circle of friends in the coaching community were telling anyone that asked that UT would be a crappy job as long as Dipstick Doug was the athletic director, is the reason Tennessee ended up relegated to Jerry Green.
I'm serious in what I say. If you and your cronies want to wait another ten years and throw up trial baloons to find another coach,fine, but I'm not willing to wait when we have a perfectly fine coach that made a terrible mistake. Unlike you, you hateful,sarcastic little ogre, I'm willing to forgive. If he makes another one while he's still here, then he needs to go.:finger3:
