From Gridiron to Talk Circuit: Phillip Fulmer Spends Fall in Unusual Setting

It's an unfamiliar feeling for Phillip Fulmer.

For the first time in his adult life, the seven o'clock hour of an October evening doesn't find him concluding football practice, reviewing film or preparing for an upcoming opponent.

Instead, the former Tennessee coach is preparing to speak to a few hundred East Tennesseans at a Boys & Girls Club fundraiser.

"I haven't had a fall off since the sixth grade," Fulmer says.

That was the fall before he began his playing career in middle school; a career that would ultimately lead the Winchester, TN native to his home state's flagship university on scholarship as an offensive lineman. Fulmer dedicated a lifetime to Tennessee, including 16 years as head coach.

During that time, he amassed a record of 152-52 and won a national championship. But after two losing seasons in four years and failing to receive a BCS bowl berth for a decade, Fulmer was forced out last season.

So why was the 59-year-old former head coach in such a hurry to finish his speaking engagement in Oneida, TN and hit the beaten path back to Knoxville? You might say that he's taking advantage of being unemployed during the fall season.

"I wish I could say I have a good reason (for the hurried exit)," Fulmer said. "The truth is, I'm going to go out in the morning bright and early and go goose hunting."

That's the new life for one of college football's all-time winningest coaches. Instead of trying to dissect the X' and O's of defensive schemes employed by Alabama and Florida, he's attempting to decipher the spawning habits of rainbow trout and the migration patterns of waterfowl.

"I fished the Clinch (River, just outside of Knoxville) just the other day," he said.

But Fulmer isn't ready to retire to his oft-mentioned home along a Montana trout stream. Not just yet. His perusal of East Tennessee's hunting and fishing sports is merely a reprieve; a sabbatical of sorts. The two-time SEC champion has made it clear: He wants to coach again.

Fulmer's name has been mentioned in connection with anticipated football vacancies at Memphis and Louisville. But wherever he winds up, he already has his eye on his right-hand man.

"When I get my next job, I'm going to go after (ESPN analyst) Dr. Jerry Punch as my offensive coordinator," he joked. Punch makes his home in Knoxville and coaches his son's youth league team. He was among the 400 or so in attendance at Fulmer's speaking gig, along with former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.).

With his future coaching gig as of yet uncertain and the goose hunt still a few hours away, Fulmer settled in for some war stories from his time spent at the University of Tennessee. He purposely avoided any mention of his final season in Knoxville, though the subject was one that was bound to be breached at some point.

"Coach Fulmer," someone called as Fulmer arrived, "We wish you were still coaching instead of Lane Kiffin." Fulmer laughed. "I wish I was, too."

This wasn't a night for wistful wouldas or shouldas, however. Fulmer reflected back on some of the lighter moments of his long tenure at Tennessee—when he made like a fiery Baptist minister with famed locker room pep talks and the Vols were a perennial challenger for the SEC trophy.

His favorite team, Fulmer said, was his second at Tennessee: The 1994 team that started the season with a 1-3 record.

"The 1998 team was obviously special," Fulmer said. "And 2001, when we would've gone back to the national championship game if we had beaten LSU in the conference championship.

"But that 1994 team laid the foundation for what we were able to accomplish over the next four or five years, which turned out to be the winningest era in Tennessee football history."

In early October 1994, it looked doubtful that Fulmer would even be around for the next four or five years. Quarterback Jerry Colquitt went down with a season-ending injury at UCLA, a game the Vols lost 26-24. There was a 31-0 disaster when Florida visited Neyland Stadium. UT had managed an upset win over Georgia, but had also lost second-string quarterback Todd Helton to injury.

"You can imagine what the Knoxville talk shows were like," Fulmer said. "There were a lot of people doubting us. A lot of people weren't happy.

"I went to Coach Dickey (Doug Dickey, then Tennessee athletics director), and I said, 'Coach, I don't know if we can win any more games this year. You're still gonna love me, aren't you?'

"He said, 'Phillip, we're gonna love you, but we're sure gonna miss you.'"

The most troubling game of his career, Fulmer said, was the 1993 Alabama game. With an opportunity to end Tennessee's long losing streak against the Tide, the Vols found themselves leading by eight late in the fourth quarter.

But Jay Barker and David Palmer led No. 2 Alabama back, and the game ended in a 17-17 tie. For Tennessee, it might as well have been a loss.

"I was usually very good with the media, with our coaches and with our players before watching the film," Fulmer said. "[But] I let my emotions get the best of me that day. And I had forgotten that I had promised Vickie to stay in Birmingham that night with some friends of hers.

"The next morning, she wanted to go out and eat breakfast with her friends, and I said, 'no. I'm not staying in this town to eat breakfast. We'll stop on the road and get a sausage biscuit.'

"I made the mistake of stopping and getting a Birmingham paper and reading about the game," he said. "That made me mad all over again. I guess I snapped at Vickie a time or two. She finally stopped the car on the side of the interstate and said, 'Phillip, everybody in the state of Tennessee hates you today. Except me. And you're about to lose me.'"

Fulmer even gets a chuckle out of the beginning of the end, Tennessee's loss to LSU in the 2007 SEC Championship Game.

"After the game, as we were leaving the stadium, I bump into this lady dressed in orange from head to toe," he said. "I said, 'Pardon me; no offense.' And she said, 'Yeah. Not much defense, either.'"

It isn't that Fulmer has taken his firing at Tennessee completely in stride. Some bitterness has been evident. It was recently revealed that he has not taken Kiffin up on an invitation for a face-to-face meeting, for example.

But Fulmer adheres to the old lemons-to-lemonade philosophy.

"It's not what happens," he said. "It's what you do with what happens. It's what you do with your God-given opportunities."

Given the right opportunity, Fulmer expects his hiatus from the sidelines to be a short one.