Reactions to Bruce Pearl from around the web

As we all know by now, Bruce Pearl came clean on the recruiting violations and his subsequent cover-up during the NCAA's investigation. Below, we give you snippets of what the best in the business think about the Pearl's admissions. For our take, go here. And, as always, if you have a link you want us to share, hit us up on twitter or send an email to contactbiah AT gmail DOT com.


Dana O'Neil, ESPN.com: "He did the right thing, that was Bruce Pearl's mantra. When his peers labeled him a rat and a snitch and ostracized him within his profession for nearly 15 years because he turned in Illinois, Pearl held fast to his strongest defense -- that he did the right thing. And so to hear a teary-eyed Pearl admit that he did the wrong thing, that he misled NCAA investigators, it was both deliciously ironic and depressingly eye-opening. This is what we've come to, apparently. Even the one who suffered for his principles has been sucked into the vortex of anything for survival."

Michael Rosenberg, SI.com: "Pearl was once the NCAA's most famous whistle-blower; now he is one of its most infamous liars. What happened to Pearl between 1990 and now? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Pearl helped the NCAA bust Illinois 20 years ago for the same reason he lied to the NCAA this time around: self-interest. It is the same reason some coaches break rules every day of the week and twice on their day off. Two decades ago, Pearl saw an opening, a chance to bring down a rival, and he took it. This year, he saw a chance to get a recruiting edge (and cover his own butt), and he took that, too."

Joel Hollingsworth, Rocky Top Talk: "This is truly awful, and I'm not even considering the sanctions at this point. I'm talking about watching Pearl fight back tears of embarrassment and shame, which he himself will tell you he deserves, as he took full responsibility for his actions and apologized, saying he let down himself, the University, the fans, and his players. Yeah, as much talk of rules violations as circulate on message boards, blogs, and other internet comment threads, there is no getting around this: We cheated. We lied. And it wasn't Lane Kiffin or Ed Oregeron who did it. It was Bruce Pearl. All that said, I think Pearl deserves a great deal of credit for the way he's handling himself now, and I'm betting that's a huge reason why he's still the coach. No one but Pat Summitt has more good will in the bank at Tennessee than Pearl, and while he may have spent every last penny, he still has a job here, and I, for one, am glad. But if there had been any hint of defensiveness or arrogance about, well, that could very well have been a different story. He says he wants to coach the rest of his career at Tennessee and that he'll never let us down like this again. Call me naive if you like, but I believe him."

Eamonn Brennan, ESPN.com: "Going back and correcting the record is an important step toward a more lenient approach from the NCAA. So is the punishment Tennessee handed down. A ban on off-campus recruiting and a serious pay cut for Pearl and his staff are the sorts of this-hits-home things the NCAA committee on infractions will have to take into positive consideration. That said, there's no going back. Pearl lied to investigators. Tennessee's neck now rests directly under the NCAA's impersonal, unfeeling scythe. And while the self-imposed penalties and contrition are nice, they only go so far. Judging by the NCAA's recent behavior -- specifically in the case of Oklahoma State football player Dez Bryant, who failed to fully disclose his relationship with former NFL player Deion Sanders and was suspended for an entire season as a result -- things could get much worse before they get better."

John Clay, Lexington Herald: "If a college football player can be suspended (ruled ineligible) for lying to the NCAA, why isn’t a coach fired for lying to the NCAA? Or at the very least be suspended? One is a student, after all. The other is an adult. Or is this just another NCAA example of one set of rules for a so-called student-athlete, and another set of rules for the coaches and administrators?"

Gary Parrish, CBSSports.com: "3. So why don't coaches get a second (i.e., secret) cell phone that isn't university issued?
Most of them do; that's among the other problems at Tennessee. Seems some of the coaches (if not all) had second cell phones that might've been used to make excessive contact with recruits, which, by the way, is a fairly common practice. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I tell you most high-major coaches and assistants have multiple cell phones -- one cell phone that's university issued, another that's in somebody else's name. Legal calls are made from the university cell phone, illegal calls from the other. Mistakes only happen when somebody gets reckless or confused. And it's a system that works perfectly ... right up until the NCAA finds the other cell phone, gets a number on it, pins it on you, and pours through the records. When that happens, well, here we are. "

Jeff Goodman, FOXSports.com: "The significant hit for the program will come in the fact that Pearl will not be permitted to engage in any off-campus recruiting for one year — from Sept. 24, 2010 until Sept. 23, 2011. Not only that, but all three assistant coaches — Tony Jones, Steve Forbes and Jason Shay — will also have their salaries cut by 25 percent for the next year and will have recruiting limitations."

Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger: "It's difficult to overstate the significance of these penalties to a long-dormant Vols program that had come alive in the past five years thanks to the charisma and leadership of Pearl. The Vols advanced to their first-ever Elite Eight last March and are expected to contend for an NCAA tournament berth again next season, but severe recruiting restrictions and the threat of further sanctions will make it difficult to continue that upward trend. Since arriving at Tennessee, Pearl has charmed fans, recruits and reporters with his boisterous personality and chest-painting antics. Even in his news conference Friday afternoon, Pearl joked that one of his players must be trying to save him after a fire alarm unexpectedly interrupted. The comment drew a chuckle from those in the room. Unfortunately for him, he'll likely find that NCAA investigators aren't so easily won over.

Andy Katz, ESPN.com: "The NCAA's enforcement staff has been charged to clean up the game as much as possible. The reason there appears to be more schools in power-six conferences under scrutiny of late is that the enforcement staff is looking closely at all elite recruits. The NCAA investigators have let it be known to college coaches that they are looking at everything and using all information they receive. But the enforcement staff is also receiving more cooperation than it has in the past from coaches. The agent/runner issue has pushed more coaches to speak out and provide information, especially in the major conferences, where information is flowing freely in a more open media age. Tennessee sent a strong message -- the right message -- that lying to investigators won't be tolerated and a severe punishment can follow. And if it's truly "all about money," then perhaps pay cuts will be another wake-up call to get coaches' attention. If Friday's news out of Knoxville doesn’t make coaches sweat, I'm not sure what will."

John Adams, Go Vols Xtra: "Here's another stunner: multi-million-dollar mistakes aside, UT basketball is still better off with Pearl than without him, which speaks more to the pre-Pearl status of the program. You didn't catch NCAA investigators sniffing around Peterson's UT program. Who's to say they even realized UT had a basketball program back then? Pearl has buried memories of that program with a fast-break rebuilding job that hasn't slowed down for five years. He has taken the Vols to five consecutive NCAA tournaments and to within a few agonizing seconds of the Final Four. He has beaten No. 1-ranked teams and been ranked No. 1. He has painted himself orange and endeared himself to UT men's basketball fans like no coach since Ray Mears. Now, one incredible turnaround has been followed by another. When you woke up Friday morning, you thought UT's football program was the one in the NCAA crosshairs. You also thought Lane Kiffin was the UT-connected coach on the NCAA hit list."

Rush The Court: "While this doesn’t mean that the NCAA won’t take additional action against Tennessee the move is somewhat refreshing in that a major university has finally went after a coach’s salary for his egregious errors instead of nebulous concepts like 1-2 recruiting visits per year although Pearl won’t be on a street corner begging for money any time soon as he is still scheduled to collect $1.4 million from coaching in 2011 (plus whatever else he gets from endorsements and speaking engagements)."