When thinking back on his 17-year run as head football coach at the University of Tennessee, Phillip Fulmer prefers to think of himself somewhat like the patriarch of a very large family that included more than just players and coaches. It was a family that included wives, children, fans, support staff and anyone else associated with an interest in the Volunteers' success on the football field.
That approach helped Fulmer and his Volunteers win a lot of football games, and it's advice he says translates to a winning formula at any operation, including a golf course, he told attendees recently during his keynote address at this year's Tennessee Turfgrass Association Conference and Show in Murfreesboro.
Fulmer recalled a game against Alabama in 1993, his first full season as head coach in Knoxville. With the Volunteers ahead by 8 points with less than a minute-and-a-half remaining, Alabama went 83 yards and converted a 2-point conversion with just seconds left, and Fulmer and the Vols left Legion Field in Birmingham with a bitter 17-17 tie. In the car, he snapped at wife Vicky, who stopped the car and told him: "Right now, everyone in Tennessee hates you except me, and you're really close to losing me."
"She was right," he said. "We have to surround ourselves with people who will support us in the toughest of times.
"Maximize your successes and minimize your failures."
No one, apparently not even former All-Americans who went on to NFL stardom, played a bigger role in the Vols' success on the gridiron than Bobby Campbell, then the university's sports turf manager.
"We were a family. We all had a job to do, and we were expected to do it and be part of the family, enjoy the wins and suffer though the losses," Campbell said while introducing Fulmer at TTA.
"Whether you were Peyton Manning or a groundskeeper, we all were part of the family," added Campbell, who retired after the 2010 season. "And we all had our part to do."Today, the 65-year-old Fulmer is a partner in BPV Capital Management in Knoxville. When he headed UT's football team, he had what he called a close and unique relationship with Campbell, but one that often was focused on the condition of Tennessee's practice fields.
"The condition of the grass was something you had to pay attention to," Fulmer said. "I thanked the Good Lord every day for Bobby Campbell and the good job he did for us. We fought like cats and dogs. He was always right, and I just always wanted more practice space.
"I don't think Bobby ever told me 'no', but as I remember I think he always got his way. We made it work, and along the way had a great, great friendship.
"And thanks to Tom Samples, who we called on to help us when we tried something new. And I did pay attention, because we had a limited number of fields we could practice on."
That open-door relationship between Fulmer and Campbell was, in the latter's view, an anomaly among Division I football coaches and sports turf managers. Campbell recalled how his colleagues at the annual Sports Turf Managers Association meetings would complain about coaches and their treatment of playing surfaces.
"I was very fortunate," Campbell said. "I was the envy of everyone (at STMA) because I could say I have a fella at my place I can talk to.
"It was a special feeling to be at a place where I had a head coach who I could talk to any time I wanted to. And he made a deal with me early on, he told me 'don't come in here and tell me I can't use the fields, but if you can tell me a reason why I shouldn't, the decision will be mine, and I'll suffer the consequences if there are any consequences to be had.' "
Right now, everyone in Tennessee hates you except me, and you're really close to losing me."
As an assistant coach under Johnny Majors, Fulmer came to dislike the artificial turf at Neyland Stadium, which had acquired the nickname "Doug's Rug" for former UT head coach and then-athletic director Doug Dickey who had it installed. So when he succeeded Majors midway through the 1992 season, Fulmer made it a priority to replace the artificial turf with natural grass for the 1994 season.
Fulmer learned a lot about 419 Bermudagrass during his time as head coach. About a 13-handicap on the golf course, Fulmer knew enough to understand that Tennessee's location in the transition zone made it hard to grow Bermuda, or anything else, with any degree of certainty.
"We have some challenges growing Bermuda in upper, east Tennessee, because we're on the edge of a good growing area," Fulmer said. "Winter can be touch, spring can be tough."
During his introduction of Fulmer to TTA, Campbell recalled how some members of the UT family were better listeners than others.
"I was thinking last night about all the times I went to Phillip and was able to talk him out of not doing something," he said. "And I hate to say this after laying in bed and thinking abou it, I haven't thought of one yet."
Despite the success of his teams on the field, which included winning the inaugural BCS National Championship in the 1998-99 season, a 152-52 record and an 8-7 mark in postseason bowl games, two Southeastern Conference titles and coaching 90 players that went on to compete in the NFL, Fulmer says his fondest memories of his time at UT are the relationships he formed with his extended family. That list includes former players and coaches and support staff like Campbell.
"It was wonderful to coach players like Jason Whitten, Peyton Manning and Eric Berry, Cosey Coleman and Jamal Lewis, and there were so many others," Fulmer said. "We were a family, and we had a family atmosphere here. Seeing all of your players grow into men is special. Of course, when they get here they think they're men, but really they're still children. To see them grow into adults and have very special relationships with them has been great, and now I have time to enjoy that.
"Not a day that goes by where I don't have a couple of conversations or texts or emails about a baby announcement, a new job or looking for a new job, or one of those kinds of things, because they're always your kids."