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For Phillip Fulmer, continuity and unity is what the Tennessee Vols need

By Caleb Calhoun

Oct 15, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers former quarterback Peyton Manning stands with Tennessee Volunteers vice chancellor/director of athletics Dave Hart (left) and former Volunteers head coach Phillip Fulmer (right) before the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 15, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers former quarterback Peyton Manning stands with Tennessee Volunteers vice chancellor/director of athletics Dave Hart (left) and former Volunteers head coach Phillip Fulmer (right) before the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports /
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Former Tennessee football head coach Phillip Fulmer talked about his new role Tuesday. It’s clear he wants to bring continuity and unity to the Volunteers.

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It’s now been a week since the Tennessee Vols hired Phillip Fulmer back, this time as special adviser to university president Joe DiPietro.

And with new athletic director John Currie and the former coach appearing to mend whatever fences were there, the university showing excitement behind it, and stories that lift the spirits such as Chris Hannon saying he’ll finally return to Knoxville, the effects of the hire are clear.

Fulmer is bringing the university together again.

He stressed the importance of that on Tuesday in an interview with The Swain Event that you can see by clicking here.

And the message in that interview is clear: continuity and unity are crucial to athletic success at the university.

Fulmer noted that his years as head coach of the Vols from 1992 to 2008 were Tennessee Vols athletics at their best, and his reasoning was the continuity.

He, Pat Summitt, and Bruce Pearl even for a period showed that, but the smooth transition in leadership with Dr. Joe Johnson as president demonstrated that.

But his stress on continuity shows with his reasoning for why the athletics program collapsed at the turn of this decade.

"“We kind of melted from the inside for a while there, to be honest with you,” Fulmer said. “All of a sudden there was no direct line of communication from the president to the AD to the coaches. Everyone had their own agendas.”“We had four presidents in six years. There’s no leadership and a lot of infighting and things that happened.”"

The Hall of Fame coach noted that the university began to turn those issues around under Dave Hart and praised Butch Jones’s job in Knoxville. He said the next step is continuing to pull out close games and recruit at a high level consistency.

And in his new role, he said it’s time for the university to come back together.

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All this shows exactly why Fulmer was hired: continuity and unity. The tension with hiring Currie as athletic director could have broken apart the university again.

But Fulmer’s acceptance of his new role and Currie’s embracement of it is already doing wonders for the university.

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