Bruce Pearl announced his retirement from Auburn last month after 11 seasons and two Final Four runs with the program.
While he may have had an inkling in recent years, not even Steven Pearl knew that his dad was going to officially step down at Auburn until the day before their first practice this fall.
But now, several weeks after Bruce Pearl officially retired from the Tigers, the younger Pearl is settling into his new role leading the program.
[Yahoo Sports TV is here! Watch live shows and highlights 24/7]
“It didn’t hit me until I showed up at the gym and [my dad] was filming his goodbye video and [athletic director John Cohen] pulled me aside and he was like, ‘Hey, you’re the guy,’” Steven said Wednesday from the SEC’s media days, via ESPN. “So then I was like, ‘All right, here we go. Let’s go.’
“It all happened really fast, but I’m glad I spent 38 years watching [my dad] do this.”
Bruce spent 11 seasons at Auburn, and he undoubtedly helped turn the longtime football school into a basketball powerhouse in the SEC. He led the team to a pair of Final Four runs, including last season, six NCAA tournament appearances and three regular season conference titles. He went 246-125 there in what was his third coaching stop, following runs at Tennessee and Milwaukee.
There had been speculation in recent months that Bruce was going to retire. Some thought he was going to run for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, too, though he shut that down. Almost immediately after Bruce made his retirement official last month, Auburn announced its succession plan and hired Steven on a five-year deal. Steven has been on Bruce’s staff for years now as an assistant, and he played for his dad at Tennessee, too.
“The DNA of this program, it won’t be changing,” Bruce said last month. “I am incredibly confident in the future of this basketball program."
While Steven wasn’t aware ahead of time, he said that Bruce and Cohen had been having conversations about this for years.
"Three years ago, [my dad] told him, like, 'Listen, I don't know how much longer I'm going to do this,'" Steven said. "So [Cohen] has been actively, in his mind, being prepared for this for three years now and going through all the different options of, 'Do I bring in an outside coaching staff? Do I bring in a big-name guy or watch this grow? Does the staff grow as a unit and stay together and not go chasing other assistant jobs, not go chasing other coaching jobs?'
"And he ultimately felt like the staff had earned the right and the opportunity to continue to move this thing forward."
The Tigers, who will start the season out at No. 20 in the Associated Press’ preseason poll, will officially open their season on Nov. 3 against Bethune-Cookman. Their first true test will come against No. 2 Houston on Nov. 16.
Category: General Sports
