Jerry Green replaced Kevin O’Neill as basketball coach in 1997 and accepted a $1.7 million buyout on March 17, 2001, the day after UT lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Charlotte. The buyout ended a lengthy public, often acrid, debate among students and fans about him. As Travis Haney, Daily Beacon sportswriter summed it up in the March 27 edition, “In Green’s time at UT, particularly last season, Green created two factions within the fans: You either liked him or you didn’t. . . . There was a great rift, which we’ll call henceforth the Green Schism. For members of the Green Party, the numbers speak for themselves. In four years at Tennessee, Green was 89-36 for a .712 winning percentage. . . . Green had four 20-win seasons, four consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament, two SEC Division titles and a 1999–2000 Sweet 16 appearance. Oh yeah, tack on CBS.Sportsline.com National Coach of the Year and NABC District VII Coach of the Year honors in last season’s 26-7 run. Green was also a finalist for the Naismith coaching award in 2000. For his naysayers, the case is also plain to see. The center of the criticism comes from a fall comparable to that of the Roman Empire—the second-half meltdown by the 2000–2001
Vols. . . . The Vols dropped 10 of their last 16, ripping apart at the seams. The team became the SEC’s great soap opera. A national audience tuned in nightly to see the next episode: Would Tony Harris play? Would Ron Slay win SEC comedian of the year? Could the team win one SEC tournament game? Green was a nice guy, a class act as far as coaches and people for that matter go. . . . Perhaps he shouldn’t have provoked the fans in postgame interviews and on radio shows. . . . What Green lacked, and what his team needed, was discipline and a pep talk here and there. . . . Green wasn’t a motivator. Loads and loads of talent will only take you so far. His teams always won lots of games, but they never won when it really counted.”