I don't get Bruce Pearl.  On the surface, he's a infectiously charismatic basketball coach whose enthusiasm knows no bounds.  And while that may be a strength, it may also be his weakness.

To know the road Pearl has traveled, you have to go back a few years to when he was an assistant at Iowa.  Pearl turned in rival Illinois for recruiting violations when both teams were hot after Deon Thomas.  Pearl secretly recorded phone conversations with Thomas that Pearl supplied to the NCAA.  While the NCAA didn't find anything there, they did find other violations at Illinois, which resulted in one-year a post season ban.  The fall out was Pearl was blackballed from D-1. 

Pearl was relegated to coaching at the D-2 level for nine years at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville.  Kids, I've lived in Evansville and if that isn't a punishment, nothing is.  Pearl did an outstanding job, winning a D-2 national championship and making the playoffs all nine years while amassing a record of 231-46.

Pearl was given the opportunity to return to division one at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Horizon League.  The Horizon League is probably a slight step above D-2 and it's the kind of league that if you don't win the automatic bid, you don't go to the big dance.  Pearl's teams went to the dance twice, making the Sweet 16 in 2005.  That season was Pearl's greatest glory and his chance at vindication and he got it soon thereafter.

Pearl was hired at Tennessee to take over a moribund Tennessee program.  Now, at this point, considering everything he had gone through, you would think Pearl would be a humble and changed man.  You would think that after having been forced to toil at the D-2 level for nine years and at the bottom of the D-1 level for an additional four, that Pearl would take this opportunity and spin it into gold. 

In the beginning, he did.  In his first season, his Vol team lead the SEC East and even beat Kentucky.  He signed a stellar recruiting class and his energy lit a fire under a school that had more passion for football and women's basketball than it did the men's game.  Pearl was like a mad pied piper, getting people involved every step of the way.  His support of the women's program won him the support of the most powerful person in the Tennessee Athletic Department, Women's coach Pat Summitt.  It appeared at this point Pearl was a superstar and that his Tennessee career was going to go the way of legend.

Over the course of the next three seasons, his teams set a record for most games won by a Tennessee team and made it to the elite eight.  But the time bomb was ticking.  Recruiting violations and inappropriate contact charges were filed.  Pearl was accused and eventually proven to have recruits over to his house for parties.  Pearl then lied to NCAA investigators, which is the biggest mistake any coach could ever make.  He was suspended by the SEC and had his salary reduced by UT.  And days after to tearfully admitting his sins, he and several assistants made a slew of illegal phone calls.

Not everyone gets a second chance in life.  Most get a chance once.  Bruce Pearl got a second opportunity to step out of the shadow of his earlier sins.  And now, in light of the NCAA report yesterday, may have punted it away.  It's astounding the arrogance and stupidity some people have despite the fact they know they are being watched.

I've been around Bruce Pearl before and he is an enthusiastic guy.  He makes you want to believe in what he is doing and to support his program.  He is a talented basketball coach who has revived three programs in the last 19 years.  But he is not bulletproof.  And the NCAA uses Teflon bullets.

Until the NCAA makes a formal ruling, Pearl most likely will be allowed to continue in his current capacity.  Once sanctions are announced, Tennessee will likely have little choice but to remove their coach.  It will be a sad ending to what should have been a Cinderella story of a man who was given up on, yet came back from the coaching dead. 

Pearl would have a successful career in media if he chose yo go that way.  Several other coaches who have been fired for breaking the rules have been employed at ESPN.  Pearl could turn into a younger version of a Dick Vitale/Lee Corso hybrid.  And then maybe, he could do the Steve Lavin thing: Serve his time and get back into doing what he loves to do best-coaching and beating the drum.