Morning Show Blog

TN Employees Face Job Cuts, but Fulmer Gets a Pay Raise

Jul 16, 2008 - 05:07 am

I know this story broke a few weeks ago, but some viewer email prompted me to bring it to the blog.

University of Tennessee coaches Phil Fulmer and Bruce Pearl just got pay raises.  Vols fans may or may not agree they deserve it based on the records of their teams.  But a viewer was really cranked up about this because of Tennessee’s money trouble and the pending cuts and state employee layoffs

Here’s the Associated Press story from July 2nd.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee signed football coach Phillip Fulmer and basketball coach Bruce Pearl to new deals Wednesday that will keep them with the Volunteers through 2014.
Fulmer’s deal is worth an average of nearly $3 million over the next seven seasons, and the nearly $1 million raise makes him the fourth-highest paid coach in the Southeastern Conference.
He will get $2.4 million for the upcoming season and his salary escalates to $3.3 million in 2014 with automatic raises of $150,000 annually. Fulmer will also receive raises for achieving certain goals, such as an additional $350,000 for winning an SEC championship or an additional $850,000 raise for winning a national championship.
(end of AP story)

I’m surprised Fulmer is just the fourth hightest paid SEC coach.  With his record and his years of experience with the Vols, I would have guessed that he’d rank first or second.

What do you think?  A slap in the face for state employees… or a well-deserved pay raise for two hard-working coaches?



Posted by Josh Smith


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