New Auburn HC Steven Pearl's Emotional Tribute to Father Bruce Pearl

Auburn Tigers On SI

New Auburn Tigers head coach Steven Pearl gets emotional as he thanks his dad for helping him get to where he is.

Transcript

00:00They told me I got to smile more and I'm over here crying.

00:06BP, we have literally been together since day one.

00:13Literally.

00:15You and my beautiful mother, Kim, who made the trip down here from Knoxville,

00:19I love you very much, Mom. Thank you for being here.

00:22Welcome me into the world in Iowa City, Iowa, and I've been a coach's kid ever since.

00:26But growing up, I was so lucky and fortunate.

00:32And coach's kids get to do something that not a lot of people get to do.

00:35They get to go to work with their dads and do something really fun and really cool.

00:39I got to grow up watching him be in his element.

00:43I got to grow up in Evansville, Indiana, when he was at the University of Southern Indiana.

00:48And I would go to Pack Arena with him and I would watch him with his shirt off,

00:52which I should have known that this was going to be a trend moving forward.

00:56Lifting with the players in the weight room, out bench pressing a lot of his guys.

01:02You know, I watched his daily interactions with fans and treating them as if they were family.

01:08I watched him take and make phone calls almost daily to just complete strangers, cancer patients,

01:17just offering them encouragement and trying to give them another reason to fight.

01:25Or people just going through any sort of hardship just to love on him a little bit.

01:31I watched him be involved in every aspect of his program, no matter how small the detail or how small the impact.

01:37I remember when we were at Milwaukee, very early in his tenure there, we left the Klotchi Center.

01:46We went over to the student cafeteria and I had no idea what we were doing.

01:53I'm like, all right, maybe we're going to have lunch.

01:54We walk in the building and this lunatic gets up on a lunch table and starts screaming at the students,

02:03encouraging them to come to the Klotchi Center to watch a basketball game.

02:09And obviously famously at Tennessee when, you know, he showed up with his shirt off

02:14and his chest painted for Coach Summit and the Lady Balls.

02:18I saw Coach Vickers here.

02:19Don't get any ideas, brother.

02:21That ain't happening.

02:22At the time, I thought this was normal.

02:27I thought this is what every head coach did.

02:30I thought it was the norm.

02:31I thought it was the standard.

02:33But quickly after getting into this profession, I realized something really quickly.

02:37It's what has made him special.

02:52It's what's made him unique.

02:54And like John said, it's what's made him a Hall of Famer.

02:58It's made you one of the best basketball coaches in the history of this game.

03:03The five years I played for you, the 11 years I've been under your wing have been some of the best years of my life.

03:08We've won 367 games together, 18 of those being in the NCAA tournament.

03:15We've won seven SEC championships, and we've been to two Final Fours together.

03:20I can put a number on those accomplishments, but I can't begin to quantify what I've learned from you to prepare me for this moment.

03:26I love you and thank you.

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