Word on the street is that UTAD is flat broke, with millions in unfunded improvements and renovations to their facilities waiting in the wings, such that they had to commandeer the other funding sources (academic gifts) to utilize for player scholarships or other quasi academic needs as they arise. The VASF fund does not allow donors an option of designating where their contributions go and much of that money is used for debt service on these improvements and building projects and yes, coaches salaries, which have escalated through the roof with no apparent end in sight. With more and more of the VASF fund being utilized for operating expenses, the athletic department needed another source of revenue, thus their seizure of academic contributions which were receiving athletic ticket benefits, which can then be used for the scholarship functions to offset the athletic department's costs to get their players in school.

Hell of a time to change the policies as the depths of the recession won't be fully lifted come summer of 2010 when they start looking for funds for the "Tennessee Fund".

I had better hope for Jan Simek in his new role, but continuing to cower to the athletic department further erodes what little is left of the University of Tennessee as a premier academic institution. Shoemaker, Gilley, and to a certain extent drunk wife knucklehead, all failed miserably to drive UT to becoming a research institution and in the process sullied the overall academic reputation of the University, with plenty of help from the State legislature. The university's mission is to teach, not research and while any ongoing research is a good thing, the primary mission of UT is to provide a solid college education and learning environment for the citizenry of the state of Tennessee.

Joan Cronan will retire within the next 2 - 5 years and the apparatus for a seperate women's athletic department will fold into the UTAD, which will be operated by Mike Hamilton and will report directly to the University of Tennessee President. The donor program designed solely to support women's athletics, will be rolled into a fund operated and managed by UTAD and could eventually be the subject of a number of lawsuits regarding the disbursement of funds, given the Title IX equity requirements in the distribution of funds appropriated by the state and from private sources.

Hamilton's much balleyhooed stadium club seating on the East and West side of Neyland Stadium have been a total disaster, with more seats empty on the West side than have actually been sold. People will not pay $10,000 a seat per year for the "privilege" of sitting in an upper deck at a college football game and the costs of building the silly stadium clubs are nowhere near being covered by the meager donations people have paid to have these seats. Had Hamilton listened to anybody knowledgable in the business community, he would have realized people will not pay that and we are in fact in the midst of a historical recession, in which a number of the UTAD's "sponsors" are struggling or have already been shut down like Goody's, ImagePoint, Jewelry TV, Ruby's, Lowe's Ferry, and the list goes on and on. Mike Hamilton continually fails to realize we have the largest athletic budget in the SEC, but the most meager results for what we've spent, and we've made a lot of people very wealthy by getting fired from their job at UT or being the primary contractor on a stadium expansion, construction, or renovation.

The UTAD has missed each of their performance and fundraising goals for the past 3 seasons, particularly in football, again sitting at home this season during bowl time and not having participated in the BCS since a courtesy appearance was granted in 1999 with our friend Roy Kramer at the BCS helm.

In short, the UTAD doesn't have the product to sell that people will pay a premium for and the revenues they generate do not approach the money that they spend, simple math, simple problem, but big enough numbers that the legislature and now the University President simply turn a blind eye and want no part of it. In my opinion, the UTAD is operating very similarly to Lehman Brothers, AIG, Bear Stearns, Countrywide, and other failed financial services organizations and why the State Comptroller would allow them to continue this runaway spending without sufficient funds or reserves in place is beyond my imagination.

I wonder if they ever collected/identified the cat who was going to give them $1 million, but failed to follow through with the pledge.

"I wonder if they ever collected/identified the cat who was going to give them $1 million, but failed to follow through with the pledge."

It was my impression that Bruce Pearl donated $1 million to establish the Dane Bradshaw Scholarship a couple of years ago and I thought that was announced a Senior Night when Bradshaw finished up against Florida in March, 2008. However, other written reports have said that Pearl only donated $100,000. Apparently, the Bradshaw scholarship has not yet been awarded to anybody and I wonder if the $1 million unfunded donation was actually from Bruce Pearl himself? My hunch is that the gift was from somebody very close to the program and to avoid the ongoing backlash from the fan in the street, they have quietly tried to sweep that one under the rug.

Mike Hamilton needs to be shown the door sooner rather than later, he's nothing but a marketing person and the financial condition of the athletic department is a direction reflection of his wholesale absence of any business accumen. John Curry saw the writing on the wall and left for Kansas State, in Manhattan, Kansas of all places, at the first realistic opportunity.