Bruce Pearla
Bruce Pearl

For a few brief moments Tuesday night, the guy at the Chattanooga Theatre Center podium looked remarkably like Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl.

He flashed the same wide, warm, confident smile. He displayed the same perpetually tan skin. He wore the same Tennessee orange checked shirt. And despite leading some early "Go Big Orange" cheers, he kept the shirt on.

But then this "loud and proud" guy introduced himself to the packed house.

"Hi, I'm Mordechi Ben Schmuael," he said to loud applause.

"Or as some people know me, the second best basketball coach at UT behind Pat Summitt."

More applause.

"Or as others know me, the second best Jewish coach in the state behind Tennessee-Chattanooga's John Shulman."

Louder applause.

"So let me ask you this," Pearl continued. "How far have we come when a Jewish man can be a head basketball coach in the SEC?"

The place roared, which might have been expected, given that Pearl was speaking to the Chattanooga Chapter of the Jewish Federation annual fundraising event.

We all have a public side and a private side: athletes, coaches, actors, businessmen. Even presidents, given that President Oabama preaches and practices physical fitness, yet struggles daily to overcome his smoking habit.

As Pearl told his audience, "I fail God every day, but I ask that when you see things that are wrong, stand up. Don't go along with the mob."

And suddenly it all made sense. Everything about Pearl -- the good, the bad, the bizarre. This was why he turned in Illinois for cheating when he was an assistant at Iowa. This is why he took his Tennessee team two years ago to the Terezin concentration camp in the Czech Republic. Perhaps this is also why he famously (or infamously) painted his chest for a Lady Vols game.

After all, this was a nice Jewish boy who chose heavily Catholic Boston College because "I wanted to convert the masses."

Say what you want of Pearl, of his goal to "become the most hated coach in the SEC" long before the world had ever heard of Lane Kiffin, but he's his own man with his own plan to save the world.

"Why can't we all just live in peace?" he asked. "Why? I don't understand that."

The night wasn't only about Pearl's Hebrew heritage. When asked the chances of him bringing UT back to the Roundhouse for another game against Shulman's Mocs, he smiled and said, "Slim ... and none."

Later, he added, "We'll come back here again. But we also need a few home games to help pay this ridiculous salary I'm making. I'm 49 and I was poor for 45 years. I've been rich for the last four. This rich stuff is great."

He also said his current Vols team "could be third or fourth in the SEC but in the top 15 nationally. I think our league is going to be that good."

But then it was back to Pearl's roots, to his religion, to his blood, sweat and tears. He told of coaching a USA basketball team that included his son Steven to a gold medal in the 18th Maccabiah Games this summer in Israel.

"It had been a dream of mine since college to coach a team representing my country, wearing the Red, White and Blue," he said. "I would send tapes and letters when I was coaching at Southern Indiana, but I never got a lot of response back. Once I got to Tennessee they were interested."

Of course, proving that the private Pearl and public Pearl are sometimes still the same, he added, "Our best player was Danny Grunfeld, Ernie's son. In 1976, Ernie won an Olympic gold medal, but in the Maccabiah Games he won silver. I remind Ernie of that every chance I get."

Eventually, however, he returned to the private Pearl, to the young boy who would cross himself with the Star of David when his Catholic friends crossed themselves with the Trinity during public prayers, to the devout Jew who grew up wanting to join the Israeli army.

"After I took my players to that concentration camp, we would sit around at night and talk about what they'd seen and learned. My wife Brandy, who was then my fiancée, said to them one night, 'All of you have all these gifts and talents. You're going to get an opportunity to live a full life. Yet all those little children didn't, only because they were Jewish? How can that be?'"

Sometimes a man's private side can be more inspiring than his public one.