On March 28, 2005, Bruce Pearl was named the UT men’s basketball head coach, replacing Buzz Peterson, whose contract UT had bought out after two losing seasons in his four-year stint as head men’s basketball coach.
A native of Boston, Pearl earned the bachelor’s in business administration degree from Boston College in 1982, graduating cum laude. He got his coaching start at BC in 1978, when Tom Davis offered him a student assistant post. When Davis moved to Stanford in 1982, Pearl went with him as an assistant coach and then became associate head coach. Pearl followed Davis to Iowa in 1986. He became head coach at Southern Indiana in 1992, then at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2001, and from there came to Tennessee.
In his first season at Tennessee, he was named National Coach of the Year by the Sporting News, Basketball Times, and CBS Sportsline. He was also a finalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year and the Phelan Coach of the Year. He was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2006 by the Associated Press and CBS Sportsline and was the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Coach of the Year.
His enthusiasm for the game, for the university, and for community good causes quickly turned the public “ho hum” perception of Tennessee men’s basketball into a fan support. In 2006 six home crowds of at least twenty thousand watched his team, and average attendance was 17,954—the fifth highest average in the nation in SEC games. Average UT attendance at SEC games was 20,796.
Before the Lady Vols game against number 1-ranked Duke on January 22, 2007, Pearl appeared in the student section, shirtless and with his chest painted orange, in support of the Lady Vols. (Duke won 74-70.) Pat Summitt then dressed as a cheerleader and sang “Rocky Top” at a time-out in the February 27 men’s game against number 5-ranked Florida—a game won by Tennessee 86-76.
In 2010 UT imposed stiff financial penalties and a one-year ban on off-campus recruiting upon Pearl for NCAA violations and lying to investigators. In November 2010 SEC Commissioner Mike Slive suspended Pearl from coaching for the first half of the SEC game schedule—eight games. The NCAA issued a notice of allegations of wrongdoing by Pearl and his staff, which UT received on February 22, 2011. Athletic Director Mike Hamilton announced the firing of Pearl on March 21, 2011, following an allegation of an additional NCAA violation.
The NCAA Committee on Infractions issued its final report in August 2011 and imposed upon Pearl a three-year show-cause penalty for unethical conduct and failure to monitor the program. That penalty effectively prevented him from coaching in the NCAA during the duration of the penalty. As the penalty time drew to a close, Pearl became the head coach at Auburn.