Currie sees need for some fence-mending on Rocky Top
KNOXVILLE — John Currie’s history at Tennessee should make his transition into the athletic director role a little easier.
He acknowledges his past could make it a little more difficult in some aspects, too.
Though the Volunteers have undergone many changes since Currie left the department for Kansas State in 2009, there certainly are administrators, donors and others who remember him from his prior decade working in various roles in Tennessee’s athletic department, and some have more favorable memories than others.
“I’ve been at three places, and so many college ADs or presidents or chancellors or assistant coaches have to go so many times,” Currie said at his introduction Thursday. “I’ve really been at three, and I get to come back to one of the ones I’ve already been at. That’s an advantage and a disadvantage.
“One of the disadvantages is when you’re at a place for a while and you’re part of decisions or stuff like that, you do hurt some feelings or whatever. There’s also the advantage that you know a lot of folks, too. My two good buddies, Greg ( Byrne) and Scott ( Stricklin), that took the Alabama and Florida jobs, they’ve never been at those places. They’ve got a learning curve.
“I’ve got a learning curve, and I’ve also got a reacquaintance curve, and I’m going to get after it.”
Multiple times Thursday Currie sounded like a person who knew there are going to be some fences he’ll have to mend as he takes over at Tennessee.
Perhaps the most important fence is Phillip Fulmer, the national-championship-winning former football coach who reportedly pushed for the athletic director job because he didn’t want Currie to get it.
After interviewing with members of Tennessee’s search committee last weekend, Fulmer felt at some point he was getting the job that ultimately went to Currie, who was part of the regime under Mike Hamilton that fired Fulmer midseason in 2008, when the Vols were on their way to a second losing season in four years.
Fulmer declined previously scheduled media interviews before a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event in Chattanooga on Tuesday hours after Currie’s hiring was announced, and he was not present at Thursday’s festivities.
Currie said in an interview with Knoxville television station WBIR later Thursday that he wanted Fulmer involved “in whatever way possible” with Tennessee athletics.
“I have tremendous respect for Phillip Fulmer,” he told WBIR. “He led Tennessee to the greatest era of football success in really the modern era of Tennessee football. The national championship, those things are hard to win. They are hard, hard, hard to win, and that certainly was a pinnacle moment for the university.
“But more than anything, that era, that decade of dominance represents a time in Tennessee’s history where all the arrows were going in the same direction and people had kind of locked arms and were marching forward. When we do that at the University of Tennessee together, there’s nothing we can’t do.
“I would not be here if I didn’t believe that this was a place that can be the very best athletics program in the country. It takes a lot to get there, but the first part of that is getting together.”
Currie acknowledged Thursday he’ll work to unite a fan base that includes many factions who wanted a “Tennessee guy” other than him, whether it was Fulmer or UT- Chattanooga athletic director David Blackburn, who also spent years as an administrator in Knoxville.
“We’d always rather have passion, regardless of whether it’s up or down that day,” he said, “than apathy and people that don’t care.”
Within 90 seconds of his introduction, Currie certainly sounded like a “Tennessee guy” when he cited a game maxim from Gen. Robert Neyland, the legendary football coach whose name is on the Vols’ 102,455-seat stadium, and he name-dropped many iconic figures in Tennessee sports lore such as Pat Summitt, Monica Abbott, Chris Lofton and Bud Ford.
Now Currie will try to restore the Vols to all- around greatness in his return.
“When Dave Hart announced he was going to retire last summer,” he said, “of course I thought about, boy, that would be really, really, really special to go back to Rocky Top. But in our business, and our coaches know this, if you’re not completely focused on where you are every single day, you’ll fail real fast. I’ve always been really focused on that.”