Mark Wharton assigns a high value to relationships in his role as athletic director for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He’s also very big on consistency, loyalty and stability.
So while everything hasn’t always been great with the school’s football team during Rusty Wright’s five seasons leading the Mocs, Wharton has been cognizant of the challenges presented to a first-time head coach whose effort to build up the program came amid some circumstances beyond his control, chiefly the coronavirus pandemic.
Wright, who played for UTC from 1992-95 and had two stints as an assistant with the Mocs before taking over at his alma mater in late December 2018, has also guided the program’s return to a measure of national relevance. This past season, the Mocs not only made their first appearance in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs in seven years, they advanced to the second round.
So with Wright entering the next-to-last season of his contract, Wharton wanted to ensure those values of consistency, loyalty and stability were reflected. That happened in the form of a three-year extension for Wright through the 2028 season, with UTC announcing the coach’s new deal Thursday.
Financial details of the extension were not released, but the University of Tennessee System’s online employee salaries dashboard listed Wright’s annual base pay at $210,000 as of Nov. 1, 2023.
First an assistant at UTC in the seven seasons after his playing career, Wright’s second stint came from 2013-16 under coach Russ Huesman, another former UTC player. After eight years leading the Mocs — with 59 wins, three Southern Conference titles and three playoff appearances along the way — Huesman left for Richmond in December 2016.
UTC might have handed the program over to Wright then, but the administration at the time instead hired Tom Arth, who had experience as a head coach but came from the NCAA Division III ranks. The Mocs’ playoff drought began with a 3-8 record in Arth’s first season, and their 6-5 mark in 2018 left them short again before he left for Akron.
Wright spent those two years in Atlanta as an assistant at Georgia State, a Football Bowl Subdivision program, but things changed in Chattanooga in the meantime, with Wharton leaving Penn State to become UTC’s athletic director in August 2017.
Even as Wright focused on his job in Atlanta, there was always going to be a part of him that wouldn’t have minded the opportunity to come back to his alma mater.
“I don’t know if there was a drive, but there was a purpose,” Wright said. “There was a purpose behind things, of wanting to get back. One, to see if you can do it; and two, if you can get it, to see how good you can get it; and three, figuring out what kind of head coach you were going to be.”
In the end, it was a newcomer who brought a familiar name back to town. More than five years later, the bond between Wharton and Wright has only strengthened.
“I think it took a while for him to believe in the culture we built, as well as me buying into what he was trying to do,” Wharton said. “Obviously I hired him, so there was a trust factor immediately, but I think to see over time — which has been very rewarding — that he saw that we were going to be there and fight for him resource-wise, I think that has brought us closer together.
“I’d never come in and talk to him, tell him we need to run the ball or whatever, it’s not my role. But I think through all of this, we have a sweet spot about how we’re around each other, how we trust each other.”
Wright’s attempt to build on a 6-6 debut season hit an immediate roadblock when the outbreak of the coronavirus shut down sports in mid-March 2020. That was before spring practices took place for the Mocs — and a year after flooding at Scrappy Moore Field disrupted offseason work — and most of that 2020 season was played the following spring.
Despite the obstacles, Wright’s teams have finished no worse than third in the SoCon since he arrived, with an overall record of 30-21 in five seasons. The Mocs’ 24-12 record in conference games is the best five-year start for a coach in program history.
Looking around the country, talk of disconnects between athletic directors and coaches is pretty commonplace.
Looking around the SoCon, Wright is now the third-longest tenured football coach in the league, and a lot of that stems from the combination of the facts he is happy in Chattanooga and at UTC, he has been successful with the Mocs and he has a good relationship with the people who employ him.
Why leave?
“I think the biggest thing is we have kind of the same vision of what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it,” Wright said of his relationship with Wharton. “He’s been very supportive, and I couldn’t ask for a better president (Steve Angle) and AD, and I couldn’t ask for two better when it comes to how to help us and how to try and make things right.
“But our relationship has grown. No question, it’s grown. He’s my boss, but I think he’s a friend, too. We’ve had hard conversations — he’s had hard conversations with me, and I’ve had hard ones with him — but I think we’ve got enough respect for one another of how we’re trying to go about doing things that we appreciate each other.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.