Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl announces retirement

Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl announced his retirement Monday less than six months after finishing the Tigers’ best season in program history with another trip to the Final Four.

Pearl’s 38-year-old son Steven Pearl, who has been on his father’s coaching staff for all 11 seasons at Auburn, will take over as coach.

“I just feel when I can’t give 100% it’s time to pass the torch,” Bruce Pearl said in a 14-minute video posted on social media.

Pearl, 65, is the school’s winningest men’s coach and took the Tigers to their only two Final Four appearances. Pearl and Rick Pitino, who ushered in a quick turnaround at St. John’s, last season shared The Associated Press men’s college basketball coach of the year award. 

He will move into an ambassador role as an assistant to Auburn’s athletic director, and isn’t going into politics after rumors had circulated about a potential Senate run.

“Many of you know that I thought and prayed about maybe running for United States Senate, maybe to be the next great senator from the state of Alabama,” said Pearl, who was a college head coach for over 30 seasons with four schools. “That would have required leaving Auburn, and instead the university has given me the opportunity to stay here and be Auburn’s senator. I need to focus now on being a great husband, being a great father, being the best grandfather I possibly can be.”

Pearl advanced the Tigers to their first Final Four in 2019, defeating Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky in successive games. They lost to eventual-champion Virginia by one point. Last season, led by All-American Johni Broome, the Tigers earned the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and had a school-record 32 wins before losing to Southeastern Conference rival Florida in the national semifinal.

Pearl had a 246-125 record at Auburn. At Tennessee, he was 145-71 and made the NCAA Tournament all six seasons with the Volunteers from 2005-11.

Before his two SEC stops, Pearl won an NCAA Division II national championship in 1995 with Southern Indiana while going 231-46 in his first head coaching job from 1992-01. He then was 86-38 in four seasons at Milwaukee.



(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)