Mike Hamilton Has To Go

If you have been following me on twitter the last few days you know I have had some not so nice words to say about our athletic director at Tennessee, Mike Hamilton. The way he totally bungled not just this coaching search but Lane Kiffin's contract itself is a testament to the fact that he has no idea what the hell he is doing. I don't know who thought he was qualified to lead one of the best athletic department in the nation but its fairly obvious that they were wrong. It is my sincere hope that after this "experiment" with Derek Dooley fails that the powers at be at UT push Hamilton out on his ass and bring back former head coach Phil Fulmer to be the AD. It has to actually mean something to you for you to be able to do that job well and I don't think Hamilton would even know what I mean by that.

Today in Sporting News, Matt Hays tore Hamilton a new one and I think most Tennessee will want to read it. There is one part that resonates a lot to me though so I wanted to excerpt.

As bizarre as this sounds, Hamilton was willing to further damage Tennessee's reputation for a few stragglers Kiffin left behind. A few guys that, more than likely, didn't give a flip about Tennessee a year ago before Kiffin hired them.

Meanwhile, the coach who spent a majority of his coaching career in Knoxville as an assistant, who likely would've crawled back to save the school, who is one of the true, loyal men in the business, chose Duke over Tennessee.

That's like choosing Roseanne over Beyonce.

So what did Hamilton do? He hired the coach who would keep the assistants who likely won't be around this time next year—either by Dooley's hand, or their own desire to get out of town.

This isn't rocket science, everyone. Yet there is Hamilton, rolling the dice and crapping out over and over and over.

How hard can this be? It's not like he's selling a used Yugo. He's got a sleek, hip Maserati that needs a full tank of fuel.

Probably the most infuriating thing about this whole situation is that because Hamilton was so shitty at his job you now have the perception out there that top notch coaches don't want to come to Tennessee and that's a bunch of BULLSHIT! Tennessee is one of the top jobs in this country, but none of these folks wanted to come and work for Hamilton. Especially when he put conditions in like keeping assistant coaches that the incoming coach didn't hire. Remember when Bill Parcells talked about buying the groceries? Well that extends to coaches too and no head coach wants to have to keep a guy on their staff that they don't know and they didn't hire. Coaching is a lot about trust and Hamilton, just to save some money, pushed away the best guy for the job in Coach Cutcliffe.

I know folks will want to rally around the new coach Derek Dooley and that's their prerogative, but I am not buying in. He can say all the right things and be the anti Kiffin all he wants, but the ONLY way he will impress me is wins. And if they don't come both he and Hamilton should be tossed out on their ass next year so we can get some true Tennessee folks back in there.

It is what it is.