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Bruce Pearl is the most popular Jewish man in Tennessee who doesn't appear on a crucifix. And he's actually giving Jesus a pretty good run. What both men have in common is they're pretty well-versed in resurrection.
On Saturday, Pearl and the No. 2 Vols will play the most important basketball game in the history of the state of Tennessee. At No. 1 -- and undefeated -- Memphis. People have been talking about this game for months. The cheapest tickets listed on stubhub.com are $300. One enterprising scalper has a pair of tickets listed at $17,000. That's almost more than Elvis paid for Graceland. And to most Tennessee basketball fans, the mere idea that Pearl has the Vols to the point where seats to a basketball game can cost more than a year's college tuition is reason for celebration.
Indeed, putting into words how much Bruce Pearl means to the University of Tennessee men's basketball team is virtually impossible. That's because most people have no clue how woeful University of Tennessee men's basketball has been in the past 20 years. While UT has a fairly solid basketball history (the third-most wins in the SEC), for most of my life as a fan UT basketball's most sterling attribute has been a cavalcade of disappointing and inventive losses. So I know what this game means to Tennessee basketball fans.
I do. Trust me, I do. This timeframe of UT basketball futility almost perfectly coincides with my life as a Tennessee basketball fan. I attended the first game at Thompson-Boling arena, a UT win over Memphis in 1987. I have the commemorative keychain from that game on my desk to this day. Unfortunately, this was one of far too few wins. From 1984 to 1998, the formative years of my fandom (ages 5 to 19), UT played in just two NCAA Tournaments and did not win an NCAA Tournament game. Even still, I never stopped rooting. Or watching loss after loss, hoping against hope that good things were coming.
Many of these disappointing losses I witnessed in person. As a kid I traveled to Lexington, Ky., with my dad to watch the 1993 SEC Tournament. I'd been looking forward to the games for months, not only for the basketball but because I was getting to miss school on both Thursday and Friday. Little did I know what a changed adolescent I'd be before I returned to Nashville after one of those games nearly ruined my teenage life. On March 12, 1993, I was a happy-go-lucky 13-year-old when the Kentucky-Tennessee game tipped off. I was still spiking my hair only in the part, may or may not have still been wearing a gold necklace, and occasionally sang along to Color Me Badd's I Adore Mi Amour. So I was not without flaws. But in general I believed only good things happened in life, that the world was primarily composed of sunshine and rainbows.
Then I saw into the pit of all that was evil. And it was colored blue. By the end of the night it was 101-40 and Kentucky had won by 61 points. Everything had changed. Soon after I broke my Color Me Badd cassette tape, stopped spiking my hair in the part, and lost my gold chain. How bad did it get? My dad was cheering for UT to hold the basketball on the final Vols possession so that Kentucky couldn't get more than 100 points. Not for us to score, mind you, because that was inconceivable, but just to end the game. To put us out of our misery.
You can imagine my relief when we opened up the newspapers the next day and saw that one of Tennessee's players stated a loss like this would never happen again so long as he was a Vols player. Welcome to Tennessee basketball, where players felt compelled to offer personal guarantees that they would never lose by 61 again. Here's a box score from the game that will live in infamy for any UT basketball fan.
That's still the worst beating of my team I've ever witnessed in person. And I watched every minute. Unfortunately for me, it was not the end of my suffering.
The roster of bad UT coaches specializes in unfulfilled promise, bad luck and horrible decision-making. Wade Houston? His talent was never as bad as his records indicated. He was the kind of coach that other coaches looked at and said, "At least his son is good at basketball." Once I remember him admitting that UT didn't have an inbounds play yet. In February. Awesome.
Kevin O'Neill? Crazy. But a good recruiter. Often these descriptions are not mutually exclusive. Once described playing other SEC teams as the equivalent of getting into a sword fight while armed with a fork.
Jerry Green? Stumbled into an outrageously talented team that had been recruited by O'Neill and managed to helm the ship for four consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament and two shared SEC titles in 1999 and 2000. But you always got the feeling that at any moment an epic collapse was near. These UT teams were like the rich girl who hasn't been diagnosed as bipolar yet. They were fun until the depression set in, but after a long walk in the basketball wilderness I was willing to accept this success even if I knew it was fleeting. The highlight of the Green era was when his starting point guard, Tony Harris, was allegedly too injured to play in a game but wasn't too injured to get involved in a scuffle on the floor. Green might have also been the most insecure man on the face of the Earth. He had the charisma of a brain-damaged snail.
Buzz Peterson? Lost more close games in three seasons than any good coach ever should. Was fond of saying three things: "We're just a young team," "Gosh, we're snakebit, "and, "I was Michael Jordan's roommate."
So you can imagine my skepticism when Bruce Pearl strode to the microphone in Knoxville as the newest great orange hope. Even though I wanted Buzz Peterson gone, no hire in my lifetime had done anything to change UT fortunes.
Pearl hit all the right notes to start. He said he wanted to be the most-hated coach in the SEC, he told my friend Junaid in the summer of 2005 that we were going to make UT-UK a rivalry. Junaid returned to me with eyes aglow, a true Pearl believer before the ball had even been tipped.
Then came the game at Texas, the seventh of the 2006 season. I'd kept my expectations low. But when Pearl's team came out and absolutely destroyed an infinitely more talented team on the road, I dared to believe anew in Tennessee basketball. I called my friend Weatherholt and uttered those words that every true fan knows is dangerous to say: "This time it's different." He laughed at me. The next day I uncovered my old Color Me Badd tape and didn't throw it out. This was not a coincidence.
Six weeks later, my friend Tardio accused Bruce Pearl of lacking class after he went into Rupp Arena and won. At that exact moment, I knew I'd take a bullet for Bruce Pearl and I knew most of the SEC wanted to shoot him. At long last, Tennessee had a coach the rest of the conference hated, and I couldn't be happier. Not happy enough to sing along to I Wanna Sex You Up, but close. Now I know this -- Memphis better be ready.
