Phillip Fulmer

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**Phillip Fulmer**
School as a player

Date of birth	September 1, 1950
Place of birth	Winchester, Tennessee
Sport	Football
College	Tennessee
Title	Head Coach
Record with Team	137-40
Overall Record	137-40
Awards	1998 Eddie Robinson Award 1998 The Home Depot Coach of the Year Award
Championships won	1997-98 Southeastern Conference 1998 National Championship
Coaching Stats	College Football DataWarehouse
1968-71	Tennessee
Position	Offensive lineman
Schools as a coach
1992-Present	Tennessee

Phillip Fulmer (born September 1, 1950 in Winchester, Tennessee), is the head football coach at the University of Tennessee, where he has been since 1992. Fulmer is the 20th head football coach in the history of the school.

1 Before Coaching
2 Early coaching career
3 University of Tennessee
4 Head Coaching Record
5 Family
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Before Coaching

Fulmer grew up in Winchester, Tennessee where he attended Franklin County High School. Fulmer enrolled at the University of Tennessee as a student in 1968. He promptly joined the football team as an offensive guard. Fulmer helped Tennessee to a 30-5 record from 1969-71, where he played for coaches Doug Dickey (who returned to UT as athletic director and hired Fulmer as the Volunteers' coach) and Bill Battle. The Volunteers captured the SEC championship with a 9-2 record in 1969, went 11-1 and won the Sugar Bowl in 1970, and finished as Liberty Bowl champions with a 10-2 record in 1971, a season that ended Fulmer's playing career.

[edit] Early coaching career

Fulmer served as linebacker coach and defensive coordinator for the Vols freshman team in 1973 before moving to Wichita State University the following season. He spent five years at Wichita State, where he coached the offensive line in 1974 and 1977-78 and served as linebacker coach in 1975-76. He followed those years with a one-season stint at Vanderbilt, serving as an aide to Commodores head coach George MacIntyre.

[edit] University of Tennessee

Fulmer served 13 years as a Vols assistant coach beginning in 1980 before becoming the 20th head football coach at Tennessee. Fulmer became the head coach in 1993 after filling in for four games in 1992 for the ailing Johnny Majors. During the 1992 season, Majors missed the first three games of the regular season. Then assistant head coach Fulmer took over in the interim, scoring victories over rivals Georgia and Florida. Majors returned and the Vols lost three consecutive games to Arkansas, Alabama and South Carolina, knocking them out of the first ever SEC Championship Game. After the last regular season game against Vanderbilt, Majors resigned under pressure from the administration. Fulmer took over on a full time basis and recorded a victory over Boston College and Tom Coughlin in the Hall of Fame Bowl.

Under Fulmer, Tennessee has won two Southeastern Conference championships, in 1997 and 1998, and a national championship in 1998. The Vols also had two other SEC Championship game appearances in 2001 and 2004. Coach Fulmer's record over the last ten years of 101-25 is the best in the SEC and his over 70 percent winning percentage is among the top in the country.

Fulmer turned Tennessee into a national power from 1993 to 1998, when he won the first ever BCS National Championship Game. The Vols appeared in three consecutive Bowl Alliance or BCS games from 1997 to 1999, and posted 10 or more wins from 1995 to 1998. In fact, the graduating class of the 1998 team complied a record of 45-5, losing only to Florida (3 times), Nebraska and Memphis.

See also: 1998 Tennessee Volunteers football team

Fulmer's transformation of Tennessee's program has come despite a sparse in-state recruiting base, leading many analysts to praise him as one of the game's top recruiters.[1]

Fulmer has dominated Alabama to an extent never seen before in the Southeastern Conference, losing the Tide only twice and tying them once. Off the field, Fulmer was one of several coaches to report Alabama's illegal recruiting practices to the NCAA, particularly the recruitment of Memphian Albert Means, which ultimately led to probation for the Alabam program, the firing of Tide Coach Mike DuBose and a felony conviction for Tide booster Logan Young. Rogue Tide boosters and their attorneys responded with a raft of lawsuits against Fulmer personally -- none of which were successful. [Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 30, 2004]

Alabama columnists and talk show hosts attempted to fame the flames of the "controversy" while Fulmer gamely defended his, and the NCAA's, actions to preserve college football's system of self-governance: "When you get behind all the smoke and the big pile of lawsuits, the truth still stands: rules were broken, an investigation proved it, those who broke the rules admitted their guilt, and a university paid the price. There are a few people who cannot accept the truth, so they file lawsuits hoping the truth will go away." [2]

Fulmer has only had one losing season at Tennessee: in 2005, Fulmer's Volunteers went 5-6, losing to in-state SEC rival Vanderbilt for the first time in his 14-year tenure. The losing season also kept Tennessee out of a bowl game for the first time since 1988, a streak of 16 years which was the third-longest in the NCAA. Tennessee had begun the 2005 season ranked third in the country. Things turned around a year later. The Vols reverted to Fulmer's historical form in 2006, going 9-3 in the regular season with all three losses to team in the AP Top 10 and key victories against highly-regarded Cal and Georgia and traditional rival Alabama.

Only six coaches have won more Southeastern Conference games in history than has Fulmer. Half of that group - Ralph "Shug" Jordan, Johnny Vaught, and Paul "Bear" Bryant -- have league stadiums bearing their names. [Tennessean.com, Dec. 11, 2006]

See also: 2006 Tennessee Volunteers football team

Notable coaches to work under Fulmer include: Lovie Smith, David Cutcliffe (who has since returned to Tennessee as offensive coordinator), Kippy Brown, John Chavis and Tommy West.

[edit] Head Coaching Record

TEAM	YEAR	WINS	LOSSES
Tennessee	1992 (Hall of Fame Bowl)	4	0
Tennessee	1993 (CompUSA Citrus Bowl)	10	2
Tennessee	1994 (Outback Gator Bowl)	8	4
Tennessee	1995 (CompUSA Citrus Bowl)	11	1
Tennessee	1996 (CompUSA Citrus Bowl)	10	2
Tennessee	1997 (SEC Champions) (FedEx Orange Bowl)	11	2
Tennessee	1998 (SEC Champions) (National Champions) (Tostitos Fiesta Bowl)	13	0
Tennessee	1999 (Tostitos Fiesta Bowl)	9	3
Tennessee	2000 (SW Bell Cotton Bowl)	8	4
Tennessee	2001 (Capital One Citrus Bowl)	11	2
Tennessee	2002 (Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl)	8	5
Tennessee	2003 (Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl)	10	3
Tennessee	2004 (SBC Cotton Bowl)	10	3
Tennessee	2005	5	6
Tennessee	2006 (Outback Bowl)	9	3
Career Total	15 years	137	40

[edit] Family

Fulmer has a wife, Vicky, and 4 children: Phillip Jr., Courtney, Brittany, and Allison.

[edit] See also

List of presidents of the American Football Coaches Association

[edit] External links

PhillipFulmer.com Phillip Fulmer's homepage for University of Tennessee football
UT Sports Coaching Records

Preceded by Johnny Majors	University of Tennessee Head Football Coach 1993–	Succeeded by Current

Tennessee Volunteers Head Football Coaches
Pierce • Kelley • Fisher • Crawford • Depree • Levene • Stone • Clevenger • Bender • Banks • Neyland • Britton • Neyland(Post Panama) • Barnhill • Neyland(Post WWII) • Robinson • Wyatt • McDonald • Dickey • Battle • Majors • Fulmer

Current Head Football Coaches of the Southeastern Conference

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Phillip Fulmer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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