On Tuesday, former Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl touched on his decision to step down from coaching at 65, coming off his second Final Four appearance with the Tigers.
Pearl, whose announcement to move into an ambassador's role in the athletic department as special assistant to the athletic director rather than coach came as Auburn opened up practice for the upcoming 2025-2026 season, said in an appearance on Outkick's "Don't @" that his son, Steven, could handle the "pain" that comes with the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and transfer portal era. He questioned the effect on student athletes of being empowered to the point where they could ask for more money or hop in the portal to find a new home.
"This whole thing with a whole new roster every year — the great Pat Dye said you coach them as hard as you love them — like you, I coach them hard ... but I can't love them in a year," Pearl told host Dan Dakich. "I barely know them. We need to go through some stuff. We need to go through some thrill of victory and some agony of defeat. We need to go through some stuff. We need to show loyalty to each other, and then we begin to love each other. Oh, that's when we start winning championships. And so when it's changed with the combination of NIL and the transfer portal all at the same time ... Now, when a coach tells a player to do something, I guess it's negotiable. If they don't like what they hear, they can just leave. No contract, no non-compete, nothing."
"These 18-year-olds have got more freedom now than they've ever had in any other industry," he continued. "And I worry this: When they get done, and their eligibility is up, and they can no longer play and get this, how are they going to handle authority? Because we've empowered the student athletes too much. And it's not for their own good. We're not graduating kids anymore, so those are all the reasons that kind of came in as far as timing is concerned."
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