Bruce Pearl explains why he’s upset to see so many SEC coaches lose their jobs
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It wasn’t that long ago Bruce Pearl’s seat at Auburn was beginning to get warm but the powers that be on The Plains didn’t pull the trigger on the school’s basketball coach too quickly and now the Tigers are the 2019 SEC Tournament Champions and have advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
Sometimes it pays to be patient.
That’s a lesson Pearl tried to convey during his Sweet 16 press conference on Thursday when asked to share his thoughts on all the firings around the SEC following the conclusion of the regular season. The way Pearl sees it, the people in power need to grasp everything a coach is asked to do in today’s college basketball landscape.
“I’m upset about all the coaching changes,” Pearl said. “I understand that it’s a high risk, high reward profession but I can tell you, almost all of us coaches got into this business because we love the game. We love to teach. We all got in as teachers. We could all just as easily be high school teachers as college coaches we just are good at what we do and advanced in our profession.
“I know we are judged based on our winning but there is so much more that we have to do on a daily basis, it’s a ministry of graduating our kids and serving the community and doing all those things. So I just wish there could be — can we just slow down? Can board of trustees and presidents and athletic directors in leadership positions somehow get a handle on this?”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
