Robservations: Pearl’s second chance in Tennessee pays off

He beat the Gators, jumping into first place in his team’s division and finding a spot in the national top 25 in the process.

Looks like moving to Tennessee agrees with new Vols coach Bruce Pearl.

But it was a move that the first-year UT hoops coach came very close to making a decade ago, as you’ll see in this story that has remained, for the most part, in the inner circle of sports journalists through the years.

It was the spring of 1996, and as a young sports editor of the Middle Tennessee State University campus newspaper, I was one of the multitude of sports writers covering the Blue Raiders’ search for a new mens basketball coach.

The ever-surly David Farrar, whose demeanor was made up for by one of the best vocabularies I’ve ever seen come from a head coach (“retard the progress of the ball?” “principle of verticality?”) was out, and the list of candidates had been narrowed down to Randy Wiel, a North Carolina product and native of the Dutch Antilles, and one Bruce Pearl.

After back-to-back days where each candidate was interviewed one-on-one by the media, it seemed to everyone involved that Wiel was the man who would get the job.

The day of the scheduled announcement, however, one of the two major Nashville dailies which existed at the time reported that Pearl had gotten the nod.

Those of us who hadn’t gotten that “scoop” were tickled to learn later that afternoon that it was Wiel who we were about to meet at a press conference, and we giggled among ourselves about how the big paper had botched its information.

A few days later, however, we all learned how wrong we were.

As we later were told ? off the record, of course ? from those in the know in the MTSU athletic department, Wiel’s hiring had come literally in the 11th hour.

Pearl had been the candidate of choice among university administrators, winning a tight race after his final interview. He had more head coaching experience, and to be honest a little more of the down-to-earth attitude the school was looking for.

But after meeting with what were to be his players, Pearl’s impression on those he would be coaching led to a last-minute switch.

Specifically, the rumor mill reported, a couple of Middle’s big-name starters, who were about to begin training for their senior seasons, were more comfortable around Wiel for several reasons. One prevailing sentiment was that Wiel ? who spoke seven different languages ? was literally able to communicate with some members of the Raiders’ multi-cultural lineup.

Five years later, Wiel got the ax, and Kermit Davis took the reins.

Pearl, meanwhile, built himself a winner at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and his stock went through the roof with a Cinderella run at last year’s NCAA tourney. So when Buzz Peterson buzzed off up in Knoxville, there was Pearl ? with a much bigger name than he’d had in ’96 ? ready to make the big jump to the SEC.

And what a jump it’s been.

But looking back to Pearl’s earlier coaching career, and my own early newspaper career, I can’t help but wonder, “what if?”

I’ll bet there are some athletic administrators in Murfreesboro who wonder the same thing.