Phillip Fulmer spent 16 seasons as head coach of the Tennessee Vols and has a long list of accomplishments that have placed him in the top ranks of his profession. It’s also important to Vol followers that three decades ago Fulmer was an outstanding lineman on three UT teams that ended their seasons going to holiday bowl games in the 1970’s. He served as captain his senior year at Tennessee. Vol fans point with pride that the Winchester, Tennessee native continues to rank as the nation’s No. 1 coach in terms of winning percentage. Off the field, the Tennessee head coach has also received top national honors being awarded one of the most prestigious and personally satisfying honors that can come to a man in the field of athletics. A blue-ribbon panel of judges named Fulmer the second annual winner of the State Farm Eddie Robinson Coach of Distinction Award. Penn State’s Joe Paterno was the previous recipient. Beginning with the 1992 season, Tennessee teams under Fulmer have compiled a record of 152 wins and 52 losses for a winning percentage of .745. An accepted measure of a program’s success, its position in national polls, has also been a testimonial to Fulmer’s sure hand at the helm. Under Fulmer the Vols had a streak of 54 consecutive weeks ranked in the top 10. Heading into the bowl season, UT had been ranked in the national polls at game time for 91 of Fulmer’s 102 games as head coach. The Vols have ended the season ranked in the top 10 five times every year Fulmer was head coach. A high point for all Tennessee followers was in 1998 when Fulmer’s Tennessee team capped a perfect 13-0 campaign with a 23-16 victory over Florida State in the 1999 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. That victory gave the Vols a consensus National Championship which was first in college football under the current BCS system. Fulmer was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2012. He currently serves as the special adviser to the president at the University of Tennessee.
