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RememberWhen writes:

in response to DukeDeLuca2:

Mike Hamilton consolidated his power when he was named AD. He swept out most people with UT backgrounds. He fired or forced the retirement of almost everyone with a longer tenure at UT than himself.

With Phil Fulmer's retirement in the not too distant future, and the Fulmer's next stop appearing to be as the next UT athletic director, he gave Phil a nice raise just before a humiliating dismissal in the middle of the season. I suppose that softened the blow for Coach Fulmer, but it's evident that the wrong man left the UT athletic department.

I was told by a lifetime staffer (since forced into retirement) about six years ago that Hamilton was running UT down a shaky financial road. He said we would pay the piper about now. It turned out to be true.

Regardless of where our debt load might be in relation to other SEC schools, the athletic department was run with quiet recklessness during the Hamilton administration. The proof is in the bottom line.

Mike Hamilton is in Africa and is hopefully doing good things there.

I don't know how far that is from Knoxville, but I like the idea that he's in Africa and not on the UT campus.

Your next piece of factual knowledge will be your first. The ONLY problem with the UTAD is the lack of winning! Blame Hamilton for the football coaching situation if you want, that's fine, but the bottom line is that if Fulmer hadn't gotten fat(ter), dumb and lazy the football program would still be elite, fans would still be flocking to Neyland, and boosters would still be dumping millions in. Hamilton made a decision to make a change. That's his call and his job. Kiffen was a quality hire and got better results right off the bat - on the field and moreso in recruiting - don't tell me about how many left because they came to play for Kiffin not Opie. The fact that Pearl got stupid about the same time and brought the NCAA to the doorstep with guns blazing forced Hamilton to hire Mr. I Can't Coach but I'm Squeeky Clean when Kiffin chose to take a better job. Those are the facts. The man made bad hires and of course chose to grossly overpay the WOMENS bball coach. All of the "cleaning house" in the UTAD has been initiated by Hart not Hamilton and was long overdue besides being the right thing to do so as to eliminate redundency and waste after the merger of the mens and womens depts. The solution is equally simple...WIN FOOTBALL GAMES AND GET BACK TO BEING ELITE. The combination of more ticket sales and larger donations that winning provides coupled with the efficiency gains administratively and added to the completion of payouts to bad coaches will be more than enough to get things back on track. It's not panic time - except for getting rid of Martin before he totally does to basketball what Fulmer/Dooley did to football - and it can turn quickly. All you little fools making your $9 an hour get excited about big numbers like $200 million but as the article points out...the experts find it more than acceptable so just S_T_F_U!!!

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