KNOXVILLE — Bruce Pearl will be back roaming the sideline at Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Of course, he’ll be doing so as the coach of the Auburn Tigers.
The popular former Tennessee coach, who took the Volunteers to six consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, an SEC regular-season championship and an Elite Eight trip, makes his long-anticipated return to Knoxville after his successful tenure ended in an NCAA mess nearly four years ago.
The moment he’s introduced Saturday as the coach of the team in navy blue and a different shade of orange figures to be an interesting one.
“I know this, with all he’s accomplished, I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t get a great ovation,” first-year Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall said before his team’s practice Thursday afternoon.
“He certainly deserves one, in my humble opinion.”
Tyndall found himself in a similar situation in December 2012, when he returned to Morehead State after taking the Eagles to two NCAA tournaments and a first-round upset of Louisville in 2011 in his first season at Southern Mississippi.
Tennessee assistant coach Chris Shumate was part of a more high-profile return while on the staff at Cincinnati in 2009, when longtime Bearcats coach Bob Huggins returned as the coach of West Virginia in a game the Bearcats won 65-61.
“When I went back to Morehead, I know it was really cool that they gave me a great ovation, and we won the game by 36,” Tyndall recalled. “I hope they don’t come in here and win the game by 36. That wouldn’t be good.”
Pearl’s history at Tennessee, the success and his ultimate demise, is well-documented.
He was fired by Tennessee after the 2010-11 season amid an NCAA investigation during which he and members of his coaching staff lied to investigators regarding minor recruiting violations committed in September 2008. He was suspended for the first eight SEC games of his final season by league commissioner Mike Slive and had his salary docked by Tennessee.
The NCAA investigation ended in a three-year show-cause penalty for Pearl and one-year show-cause penalties for his assistant coaches, and Pearl spent the last three years in coaching purgatory working at H.T. Hackney, a Knoxville-based grocery distribution company, and doing some studio and in-game analysis for ESPN.
Tennessee men’s basketball head coach Donnie Tyndall Many Tennessee fans longed for the Vols to re-hire him throughout the three-year tenure of Cuonzo Martin, Pearl’s successor, and there was an online fan petition signed more than 30,000 times as Martin’s last team struggled into February last season before making the NCAA tournament and reaching the Sweet 16.
The day before the Vols played Iowa in Dayton to open that run, Auburn hired Pearl, who was prohibited from doing any recruiting until August of last summer.
“I don’t mean this egotistically at all, but if you went to Morehead, Kentucky, or Hattiesburg, Mississippi, those people and those fans would say the same things about me they say about Coach Pearl here,” Tyndall said.
“When you first and foremost win, and you treat people the right way in the community, and your team gives back, people are going to gravitate toward you. They love that. That never bothered me. I understand that. Hopefully, some day, my staff and I will be thought of in the same way he is.”
When he was hired to replace Martin, who took the California job, Tyndall was open about the petition and the situation he inherited, saying at his introduction in April that Tennessee’s divided fan base needed to “rally and get on the same bus.”
He was asked Thursday about those comments.
“There’s Coach Martin fans, and there should be. There’s Coach Pearl fans, and there should be,” he said. “But at the end of the day, there’s Tennessee fans, and I think that they’re pulling for our team. I think they’re pulling for me as the coach, and that’s all I wanted to when I took over was unite everybody, get us all on the same page, if you will, and move forward.
“That’s no disrespect to Coach Pearl and all he accomplished, or Coach Martin and all he accomplished, but to grow your program, to continue to recruit well like we’re doing and all those things, everyone’s got to be on board, and I think that’s happening.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.