Davenport’s demotion proves Haslams, failed businessmen, still run Tennessee Vols

By firing Chancellor Berverly Davenport, UT just proved that the Tennessee Vols are still run by the Haslams, who have failed at everything in business.

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After doing the bidding of the Haslams for months as UT’s chancellor, including bringing in John Currie as Tennessee Vols athletic director, Beverly Davenport finally took a stance once the Greg Schiano debacle hit. She fired Currie, brought in Fulmer and allowed him to hire Jeremy Pruitt.

Davenpot paid for doing the right thing with her job. That’s how the University of Tennessee works now.

Make no mistake about it. Her refusal to listen to two failed businessmen who own the university is why she lost her position as chancellor. Just check out the university’s termination letter here.

It cites multiple vague issues like her relationship with people, not acclimating herself to the university, lack of organization, and communication. However, there are no clear examples of these vague things. They’re just platitudes and cliches.

But the bombshell was communication. It was cited twice. And then she was told she’d be given a position as a professor with tenure in the communications department.

What?

This is all you need to know to realize the firing was political. But proof of its politics goes deeper.

Davenport’s firing happened just one month after Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam dismantled the university’s board of trustees, reduced its size, and gave himself the right to appoint its members. Then, Saturday Down South reporter Dan Harralson tweeted here that a source told him that President Joe DiPietro will probably step away sometime this Fall and that Haslam covets the position.

Meanwhile, Cleveland Browns Jimmy Haslam is still one of the top boosters for the university. So all of this makes one thing clear: The Haslams are engaging in a hostile takeover of the school. And they want to run Tennessee Vols athletics. They are going to make sure nothing like what happens in December happens again.

So now, the future of the Tennessee Vols is in the hands of two of the greatest business failures the world has ever seen. You can read here about all our coverage of Jimmy Haslam’s incompetence.

This was before the Schiano debacle. I detailed his track record as a failure at everything he does. This guy was given Pilot Flying J by his daddy, ran it into billions of dollars of debt, and then got it in trouble for a rebate scam.

Do you know how bad you have to be at business to mismanage an oil company? Well, Haslam is that bad. His incompetence shows with the failure of the Cleveland Browns as well. He just loses at everything.

What about Bill Haslam? Well, In 1999, he was the CEO of the e-commerce and Catalog Division at Saks Fifth Avenue fro 1999 to 2001.

This SEC report in 2002 details how bad that division of the company was failing and all the restructuring it had to do. Five years later, this NY Times report detailed that the company had to settle for improperly collecting payments from luxury suppliers to inflate its earnings. The scandal went back seven years, when Haslam was still there.

So if you’re keeping score at home, both Haslams inherited success and connections from their daddy, Big Jim Haslam, the guy who founded Pilot Corporation. Both of them were given positions with companies, both of them ran those companies into the ground, and both of them were at the companies as they were involved in illegal fraud activities.

Oh, and then there’s this report that the Pilot director overseeing their fraud scheme was also at Saks during its fraud scheme. Simply out, the Haslams fail at business.

But if you’re a Tennessee Vols fan, you’re going to have to deal with them for the next decade. These utter and complete failures are about to completely run the show in Knoxville. Given what Jimmy Haslam has done with the Cleveland Browns, Haslam University might just tank.

To be fair, why have Fulmer and Pruitt been silent? They would not have their positions if not for the fact that Davenport took a bold stance. And now they’re about to let these failed businessmen throw her under the bus?

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It’s all a disgrace, and it’s disastrous. The Tennessee Vols may have stumbled into having the right coaches in different departments. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re run by incompetent people who have never succeeded at anything they did. Simply put, the athletic department is in trouble.