John Adams

USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee

Although former Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer has emerged as the leading candidate for the athletic director’s job, detractors might wonder: “How can you hire someone with no administrative experience?”

Good question. However, not all experience fits neatly into a resume.

Fulmer is a career football coach. He was Tennessee’s head coach from the end of the 1992 season until he was fired in 2008.

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But if you’re running a football program as prominent as UT’s, you aren’t just clapping on the sideline while your coordinators are plotting strategy. In fact, running a football program is akin to running an athletic department.

You evaluate players and coaches just as an athletic director evaluates coaches and other employees. You have to be well-versed in NCAA rules. You have to hire and fire.

You also have to deal with crises. And Fulmer had to deal with more crises than most coaches.

There was a phone fraud scandal, an academic scandal, sexual assault cases and the usual assortment of criminal activities involving Fulmer's players.

In the summer of 1995, 27 players were involved in a phone fraud scandal that included 17,000 long-distance calls made on the stolen charge account of a university employee. Two players were suspended for the entire season and others received lesser punishment.

Then-athletic director Doug Dickey and school President Joe Johnson both defended Fulmer at a news conference.

There was more trouble the week of the Florida game. A player was suspended before the game for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. Another player was suspended after the game for allegedly raping a teenage girl. A few months later, he was exonerated but never played for the Vols again.

Despite the “distractions,” the Vols finished the season 11-1 and ranked third in the final Associated Press poll. How’s that for crisis management?

In 1999, the year after Tennessee won a national championship in football, ESPN.com broke a story alleging widespread academic fraud involving football players. The alleged abuses included numerous grade changes for athletes who were in danger of losing their eligibility. There also were accusations of plagiarism involving athletes and tutors.

UT English professor Linda Bensel-Meyers, who was outspoken about the academic abuses and the football program's undue influence over academics, said one tutor wrote a paper for a player who “basically couldn’t read or write.”

Four players were held out of a game while UT investigated plagiarism charges, but the program wasn’t penalized by the NCAA. However, following the investigation, UT took away the athletic department’s authority over academic-support services for athletes and put it under the university provost.

In 2003, long before sexual assault became a hot-button issue on campus, Fulmer had to deal with such a case involving one of his players. A 16-year-old girl alleged she was raped in Gibbs Hall.

A 17-year-old girl who accompanied the alleged victim to the dormitory alerted football players that they could face charges. After the players told Fulmer, he arranged a meeting with the 17-year-old girl. Fulmer and his attorney then met with the 17-year-old girl, her mother and an adult relative at Shoney’s.

Randy Nichols, who was then Knox County district attorney general, called the meeting “disruptive.”

“Police authorities are trained to conduct investigations and I don’t think (Fulmer) is,” Nichols said at the time. “I would prefer to have a cleaner investigation.”

I don’t know how such history would affect Fulmer's candidacy for athletic director, but new Chancellor Beverly Davenport said in her first week on the job that the sexual assault issue “probably keeps me up at night more so than any other issue that I deal with.”

She probably would prefer that athletic department employees not get involved in police investigations. But at least she would know that, despite Fulmer’s resume, his experience isn’t limited to coaching football.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnAdamsKNS.

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