With Texas in rear-view mirror, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes poised for fresh start Fired coach grateful for chance to lead Tennessee, keep staff

Nicole Auerbach | USA TODAY Sports

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Rick Barnes is a known prankster, but this is no joke. He's really wearing that Tennessee logo — and that shade of orange.

After 17 seasons and 16 NCAA tournament appearances with the Texas Longhorns, Barnes was unceremoniously fired in March. Two days later, he was announced as Tennessee's new head coach, trading in the burnt orange for the Power T.

The challenge here is quite different from the one there. In Texas, Barnes' program was well-established. Recruits, coaches, families, everyone knew what they were getting. Barnes fought complacency — and Kansas' seemingly endless Big 12 Conference championship streak.

At Tennessee, Barnes' goal (and challenge) is simple: Build his program the way he'd like once more. But consistency is key. Barnes is the fourth head coach in six years; two of his predecessors were forced out amid NCAA violations.

He is one of a string of high-profile coaching hires made across the Southeastern Conference in the offseason, and he brings quite a few enviable credentials to Knoxville. He has taken a team to the Final Four (2003) and had Wooden Award winners (T.J. Ford, Kevin Durant) in addition to his NCAA tournament regularity. Barnes, 61, won 402 games at Texas, the most in program history, and three Big 12 regular-season titles. This past season, he became the 13th active coach to reach 600 career wins.

Considering all of this, two questions stick out — and the first one is a bit of a head-scratcher: How did it end so sourly at Texas? And what does Barnes mean for Tennessee's future?

Different culture

Barnes had been hired by every athletics director he worked for, from George Mason to Providence and even to Clemson.

"Then I went to Texas and (athletics director) DeLoss Dodds," Barnes says. "He was extremely loyal, understood athletics from being an athlete himself. He realizes the ups and downs that you go through. ... The majority of my time there, he really ran the athletic department in a way that I think would be the envy of anyone. Because when he hired me, he said, 'We want to win but never at the cost of jeopardizing the integrity of this university.' Nothing was more precious than protecting this university's integrity.

"He said, 'If we win it, we don't want anything in the closet.'"

Barnes watched the slow march toward the end of Dodds' career as the football program went through one of the most unproductive and disappointing stretches in school history; Dodds announced his retirement in the fall of 2013 and finished out the 2013-14 school year. Barnes watched Texas hire Steve Patterson, who then was Arizona State's athletics director best known for his pro sports background. Barnes watched the relationships sour throughout the athletics department and between Patterson and key donors.

Barnes then witnessed the prolonged and very public departure of longtime football coach Mack Brown, who technically resigned. Months later, it was Barnes, another longtime coach, fighting for his job before ultimately being fired.

"So, was I surprised?" Barnes says. "Not really, because when you have a changeover of athletic directors, everything's changed. That program today is nothing like it was when I was there. The university has changed, too. But the fact is, I was there and I watched the great job that Mack Brown did and what he did there. (Dodds) understands the flows of athletics, but he stuck with Mac because he believed in him."

Every time Barnes ran into Dodds, in meetings or even just in the hallway, Dodds would ask Barnes what he could do to help. Barnes never once was told he had to fire his staff in order to keep his job.

"In terms of going through a period of uncertainty, there was a cloud there for a while," says Rob Lanier, Barnes' associate head coach at Texas and now at Tennessee. "One day they're going to talk about the glory days of Texas basketball, and it's going to be the time that Coach (Barnes) was there. He got to a point to where he was being compared to a standard set by him.

"Sometimes change is inevitable, and when that period of time comes where change is going to take place, there's a way for it to be him. That's where this (comes down to) is whether or not things are done in such a way that are consistent with what the individual has meant to the institution. Some people get it right; some people don't."

The ending was ugly; few would argue that. But it doesn't mar the nearly two decades before it — at least not to the man at the epicenter of it all.

"I love Texas," Barnes says. "No one is going to get me to criticize it because a new athletic director came in. He wanted to do it his way, and I wasn't part of his way, and that's the way it is. You've got to let it go, because, if you believe what I believe, God's in control of all of it. I'm here, and I know one thing: I'm blessed. There's a lot of guys who would like to have this job that I have here at the University of Tennessee, and I'm thankful that (athletics director) Dave Hart allowed my staff to come here in place.

"We know we've got to build it, but I've got a group of guys with me that will do that."

Smooth transition

The group is key, maybe more important than ever. Barnes brought pretty much his entire staff with him from Austin.

"One of the things I've learned from Coach is that the two most important things are the people you're going to work for in our profession and the people you're going to work with," Lanier says. "He knew right away that he had an opportunity to go and spend the remainder of his career working under someone that he's got the most respect for, and he knows that that respect's going to be mutual.

"It really was a quick turnaround, and it was a smooth transition. It really was a fit."

There was one significant obstacle, however. Some of the players on the Vols roster are playing for their third head coach. That's not easy.

"They're probably more sensitive and a little insecure in the fact because it's happened three different times," Barnes says. "I think probably there's a little apprehension, wondering what's going to happen here and the uncertainty, because they think they're getting into somewhat of a groove with the coach they had, then the next thing you know it's, 'Here comes another guy.'"

Every coaching staff does the same thing a little bit differently. And every program is built on a slightly different framework. For Barnes, the most important early piece to the Tennessee puzzle was communicating exactly what his program would look and run like. Barnes spent time with players individually in meeting settings but also in informal settings, such as the practice gym.

"Coach loves being in the gym himself," Lanier says. "He's very hands-on, and I think what helps in the transition is the amount of time that he was there with them, the time spent actually on the floor with those guys ... Normally, the time spent in the gym, with the players, on a day-to-day basis, and delegate it to everyone else's time. In Coach's case, he's in there as much as anyone, so I think that helps a lot with the trust factor.

"He certainly did make a conscious effort, as anybody would, I would think, to spend as much personal time with those guys as possible. They're kids. They're great kids."

Tennessee won't be expected to contend for an SEC title right off the bat; the Vols lost last season's leading scorer, Josh Richardson, to graduation and return more question marks than proven scorers. They'll be smaller than in years past, but they'll still face the same kind of scrutiny that pushed former coach Cuonzo Martin (who took Tennessee to the Sweet 16 in 2014) out to California.

No matter. Barnes is confident he's in the exact right place at the exact right time. His wife, Candy, graduated from Tennessee. He was born and raised about three hours away in Hickory, N.C.

"It reminds me very much of being back home," Barnes says. He smiled.

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