Rexrode: Tennessee AD John Currie's job is bigger than hurt feelings

The people John Currie needs to focus on sat in front of him Thursday, listening to the new Tennessee athletic director tell of a couple of Knoxville restaurateurs who invested their earnings in savings bonds and gradually built a small fortune.

Mack and Jonnie Day loved UT and golf so much that they provided the lead gift on a $4.5 million golf practice facility that opened in 2010. Currie got emotional for a second as he told the UT women’s golf team to remember the folks who invested their money “so you could have this opportunity.”

Then, Currie caught himself and lightened the mood with this: “I’m trying to be very strong, and keep my reputation as a jerk.”

It’s been a week on the job for Currie and five since he was hired, and it will be many more until we know if this is working out – until we know if Currie is on his way toward the 2022 retention bonus of $1.5 million that would make him a cool $6 million over five years on the job.

If that’s the way things go, Tennessee athletics will be closer to its aspirations and the little controversies cluttering the early discussion of Currie will seem more trivial than they do now. And they seem pretty trivial. So let’s push them until lower in the column and talk first about what really matters.

Currie is going to have to figure out if Butch Jones is the long-term answer for Tennessee football. He’s going to have to figure out if Holly Warlick is the long-term answer for Tennessee women’s basketball. He’s supporting both now, obviously, and both will inform his decisions significantly in the year to come.

He’s also praising UT men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes effusively in these early days. I happen to think Barnes will have a very good, NCAA-bid-earning team in his third season. But if he doesn’t, the Vols fan angst that is focused mostly on Jones and Warlick will spread quickly to Barnes.

Several other UT sports need addressing and improving as well. That means having the right people in place, the most difficult part of this job. It also means bringing in resources at a high level, and that’s where Vols fans should feel most assured Currie will succeed.

I believe that’s why he has this job. That’s his background, going back to his days as a Deacon Club intern at alma mater Wake Forest, driving then-football coach Jim Caldwell around North Carolina in his Chevy Corsica and trying to gather funds at lightly attended booster meetings.

“There’s an old saying that introverts make the best salespeople, because they’re good at listening,” Currie said. “I’ve kind of grown out of being introverted, but that’s what I was. Development is about relationships. Fund raising is about relationships. People give to people.”

Currie excelled in that role in particular at UT from 1997 to 2009, and then he went to Kansas State and did a lot with fund raising and facilities. Other athletic directors consider him elite in that regard, and $210 million in upgrades and the quality of the Wildcats’ football facilities back them up.

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UT doesn’t have any glaring needs right now, but major renovations are coming to Neyland Stadium. And there will be a perceived need for something new and shiny soon enough. That’s the world of college athletics.

It’s also a world in which harmony is essential, and difficult. Currie needs it with his coaches and the athletes who compete for UT. He needs it with his boss, new UT Chancellor Beverly Davenport, and the fact that she picked him and that they’re starting together in 2017 bodes well on that front.

“It’s awesome because we’re in lockstep,” Currie said of Davenport. “For her to put that kind of trust in me, I better deliver. That accountability, I think about that every single day.”

And Currie needs to have good relationships with the wealthy folks who will be approached to fund those stadium renovations. But he does not have to have a good relationship with Phillip Fulmer.

That was never likely, considering Currie was a top lieutenant of then-AD Mike Hamilton when Fulmer was fired as head football coach in 2008. It’s too bad there were some hurt feelings in this AD search, just as it’s too bad there are computer cavemen who feel it necessary to hurl vile words at Davenport on Twitter.

It’s too bad prominent folks in or around UT popped off to media and made it seem like Fulmer to AD was a done deal when the search hadn’t even gotten serious. The search was understandably infuriating, especially because the public clock started when Dave Hart announced his pending exit in August.

But it’s worth keeping in mind that Currie did not run his own search.

As for Fulmer, Currie will leave it to him to reveal any discussions they’ve had. For the record, I called Fulmer’s mobile phone and left a message, but he didn’t call back and none of this is especially relevant to the future of UT athletics.

It is more relevant than Frank Martin, though. South Carolina’s surprise run to the Final Four has had Currie answering a lot of Martin questions.

Martin left Kansas State for South Carolina in 2012 amid reports of friction with Currie. Martin’s a great coach, but friction with him probably isn’t difficult to manufacture.

And why does this matter now? Does this illustrate Currie is a “jerk” or has bad judgment? If you like, you can take this as evidence he’ll stand up to coaches.

Soon enough, Currie will shape UT athletics with decisions on different people and problems, and then we won’t have to guess.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.