Phil Fulmer played offensive guard on the Tennessee football team from 1968 to 1971. The team was SEC champs in 1969 and went 11-1 in 1970 and won the Sugar Bowl. Fulmer served as an assistant at Tennessee 1972–73, then went to Wichita State for five years, where he coached the offensive line (1974 and 1977-78) and served as linebacker coach in 1975–76. In 1979 he went to Vanderbilt for a year as an aide to the Vanderbilt head coach.
In 1980 he came to Tennessee as an assistant coach, became offensive line coach, assistant head coach, and then offensive coordinator. He became head coach during the 1992 season when Johnny Majors had heart surgery. Fulmer was named interim head coach, and even though Majors indicated that he would soon be ready to return, Fulmer was elevated to the permanent position, causing considerable speculation that Fulmer had worked to have Majors removed in order to step into the position—a speculation fueled by such indications from members of Majors’s family.
Fulmer was the unanimous selection as SEC and National Coach of the Year in 1998, the year the Vols won the national championship. He was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, and he was the second winner of the State Farm Eddie Robinson Coach of Distinction Award. He was the first recipient of the Grant Teaff Breaking the Silence Award presented jointly by the AFCA and the Jason Foundation, for which he served as national spokesperson. In 2007 UT announced that Fulmer and his wife had committed $1 million to the Campaign for Tennessee and that the funds would be used both for athletics and academics.
A decline in the success of the program from 2001 to 2008 under Fulmer’s leadership led to mounting fan unrest. From 2001 to November 2008, the Vols were just 12-21 against top tier Southeastern Conference rivals Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, and LSU. Fulmer had lost 20 games since 2005.
The Vols were 3-6 on November 3, 2008, when Fulmer delivered a teary-eyed resignation speech at the packed Wolf-Kaplan Media Center, following Athletic Director Mike Hamilton’s decision that a change was required. UT announced that November 29, the date of the last home game for which Fulmer would be head coach, would be Phillip Fulmer Appreciation Day.
Fulmer’s buyout package included payment of $6 million in equal monthly payments over a 48-month period, a dealer-provided car comparable to that provided while he was head coach for the buyout period, eight football tickets in a luxury suite for all home football games and parking passes for those tickets, and the option to purchase up to 12 tickets to away games. UT also announced that for a three-month period, Fulmer would serve as a special assistant to UT President John Petersen at a salary of $12,500 a month, during which time he would be asked “to help Tennessee build and maintain relationships with key donors.”
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2012 as a coach. In 2013, Fulmer served as a special assistant to the athletic director and advisor to football at East Tennessee State University as the university sought to restart its 10-year dormant football program. The Buccaneers football team was reinstated for the 2015 season. This experience led to Fulmer’s appointment as the University of Tennessee’s Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics on December 1, 2017, after serving as the UT system president’s special advisor for community, athletics, and university relations since June 20, 2017.